You all came out tonight and I hope
before you go tonight that you'll personally go
up and introduce yourself to to George and
I think that maybe you're going to want
to find a card and get on their
mailing list for prayer letters.
I know that this is on the heart
of George is to increase the number of
people that pray for him daily.
I've known George now for maybe 11 years
and I can only share one amusing thing,
it might be the lightest thing about this
evening, but George came in from overseas to
Los Angeles some years back and one of
his men called me and asked if we
could use George to a luncheon.
We had an old hotel, we had everything,
the whole spectrum of humanity in this hotel
and we had a number of housewives that
were interested in putting on a luncheon and
we had lawyers, we had bankers, we had
young men that were still on drugs, we
had a cross-section of absolutely everything and
George took a look around and said, I've
never spoken to a mixed group like this
and then proceeded to hold forth all afternoon.
I remember one point he took his shoes
off and got up on top of the
piano and showed us slides of the Logos.
But when, I'd never met George, I didn't
know who I was looking for and I
was standing in the lobby and I saw
this man come through the door with two
satchels weighted down and he was dressed just
about the way he is tonight, casual, and
I said, that can only be a salesman
and I turned to the young guy at
the desk and I said, I don't know
what you're going to do to get rid
of him but be sure and get rid
of him because George Verwer is coming and
I want to meet him, I want to
be tied up with a salesman.
And George went up to the desk and
said, I'm George Verwer, where's Harry Clow?
And if I was, I must have been
as red as some of these coats and
sweaters I see around here and I've never
told George that story but it's, those two
bags weren't brochures on the latest plumbing fixtures,
those were tracks and since I've known George
since then it's really been a pleasure to
work with him.
It's been a pleasure every time we can
corner him to come here and since we've
moved to the valley this has been my
prayer that one day we would have this
privilege and also that he found us.
He said up until a year ago, he
didn't even know where this valley was until
he looked on a map and said, I'll
never get there.
Well the Lord had different plans.
So I'm going to turn the program over
to him and George.
Thank you.
It's wonderful to see the hand of the
Lord working.
One of the reasons I came west, I
was actually brought to the states by a
large church in Iowa.
I hardly ever get to Iowa either.
Then it did seem that I should stay
on a little longer and two very close
friends were getting married in New Mexico and
in God's providence they're here right now.
They were married Saturday.
I had a chance even to, to my
surprise, say a word at the wedding and
then I found out later they're honeymooning within
a few miles of here.
If that isn't God's providence I don't know
what is.
And then a dear friend and his wife
Luke Wilson is also here tonight.
Arranged one or two meetings in Denver for
us and all kinds of things have come
together.
It's a privilege to be back with Harry
and his family for a while.
Their one daughter was on OM.
I'm just amazed at the providence of the
Lord to bring us here.
I was in Aspen years ago.
Of course Greg Livingston, one of my very
close friends, was the pastor there.
But I flew in.
I wasn't even sure where I was.
I just flew in and flew out.
I knew it was a famous ski resort.
But we're just thrilled to be here tonight.
We really believe God wants to work.
I never want to take a meeting where
the Lord doesn't work.
I don't have to take this meeting tonight.
A lot of my friends are begging me
to take more time off and less meetings.
A lot of my work now involves letters
and phone calls.
As there's 1,600 people now in Operation
Mobilization that I sense a responsibility toward.
But I just can't stop taking meetings because
the Holy Spirit works in these meetings.
We've come as a team.
I'm going to introduce some of the team
members.
John Wright's been driving us around in his
motorhome, which we don't have here right now,
full of books.
John, maybe you could stand.
He's from Iowa.
He leaves his work to take us around
and he does all these cassette tapes.
You see a lot of cassette tapes.
He duplicates those as unto the Lord.
You can get them almost at the price
of the blank tape.
So it's a great opportunity.
And then we have Ray Cooper, who's going
to come up and share in a minute,
from New Jersey.
Headed back to India.
Stand up, Ray.
That wasn't very much of a stand.
My wife and my secretary are with me,
but the secretary's working and my wife's resting.
She's got been to more Burwar meetings than
anybody should ever have to go to.
So forgive them for not coming tonight.
And we've got two people to take their
place because the honeymooners just, boy, it's a
big thing.
Come out of their little hideaway.
Nocha Morris and Dallas Meyer.
And I wonder if Dallas, you'd come up
and share.
I didn't have enough courage to ask you
to share on your honeymoon.
The pastor's more courageous than I am.
He grabbed him as he came in the
door.
Nocha's from New Mexico.
Very unique town, Taos.
300 years of heritage, I was told, when
I was there recently.
That's probably more than you have around here.
But Dallas, would you come up?
Dallas has been on the ship a couple
of years.
Nocha's been with us 10 years, who knows
how long, in India.
One of our main women's leaders.
But it's good to start off the marriage
letting the man speak.
So Dallas, just share anything that's on your
heart about the ship ministry, perhaps.
Maybe a testimony, whatever.
And it's been, I can say honestly, one
of the greatest experiences in my life.
Not because we visit many countries, because that
gets old.
Not because we're working with an international team,
because that's not always easy.
But because God has worked in my own
life, through the team, in the countries that
we've visited.
But God has done wonderful things in my
own life.
And I've witnessed that.
And I've seen God do many miraculous things
in other people's lives as well.
And I think the greatest testimony, for me,
about the whole ship ministry, is to see
lives change.
People that come and work on board the
ship, you see them come, one or two
years later they go, they return perhaps to
their own home church, they return and work
with another missionary organization, or wherever they go,
but to see God work in their lives.
And we know for a fact that God
is alive and working.
And I'm sure that each of you know
that, here.
But it's a real testimony for us to
see that happen, with person after person that
comes.
And I think Nocha and I are also
just examples, or just not examples, I should
say, but just in our own lives, we
can be testimonies of that very fact, that
God is working in our lives and He's
doing wonderful things.
Perhaps in the last year, last two years,
that I've spent on the Lagos in Asia
and the Far East, two things come to
my mind.
The one thing is about a year and
a half ago, the ship was sailing from
Hong Kong to Thailand, Songkhla, Thailand.
And after about four or five days at
sea, we came across a refugee boat, a
Vietnamese refugee boat.
Two days later we came across another boat.
We took those refugees on board the ship,
we took them to Thailand, and through negotiations
they were able to go to various countries.
One of the most miraculous things was to
see many of those refugees come to know
the Lord.
And we've kept in contact with various ones.
And today they're in different countries, they're members
of local churches, and God is doing a
wonderful thing in their lives.
Just to see that happen was an absolute
miracle, was an absolute miracle.
The second thing was just about a year
ago, just about a year ago, that we
saw the Lord answer prayer in a wonderful
way to bring the Lagos into China.
And probably some of you, most of you
perhaps are even aware of that, but God
answered prayers of Christians all over the world.
And it's so vitally important that each of
you be involved in prayer, not only for
OM, but for other Christians that you know,
missionaries, or for various Christian works and organizations,
and for your own church, because God does
answer prayer.
He really does.
Thanks so much for the opportunity of being
here.
Amen.
Well we feel very special that you took
time to be with us, and we hope
that many of you will see this as
the providence of the Lord and pray for
them.
Most of these people that go overseas with
OM do not have a lot of people
praying for them.
They do not go all over the country
trying to get some kind of support.
They go as God sends them and as
their own local church is willing to pray.
So to get a few more people praying
for them, they'll be going to Spain very
soon, and who knows where, back to the
ship and other places.
I talked to the ship last night, it's
in Puerto Rico, so it's easy to talk
to, and they're in a very hard time.
Having torrential rain in Puerto Rico has cut
down the number of people coming.
The number one generator has broken down again.
They were not able to get some steel
that they needed to get when they were
in Florida, and they do need our prayers.
There's 300 converted, born again staff and crew,
working on this 6,000 ton ship that
he lost.
It really is an impossible venture.
Not just getting it started.
Getting it started was no more impossible than
keeping it going.
Just getting fuel.
We're talking about a ship that uses 13,
14, 15 tons of fuel a day.
A day when she's sailing.
So it's a miracle each year it keeps
on going.
It's a ship built in 1914.
It's the oldest passenger ship in the world.
It's a testimony to the mercy of God.
Because for the ship to buy today would
be 30 million dollars.
It would just be out of the question.
We got the ship floating with all certificates
for less than a million dollars.
And that's a home for 300 people.
Many of these young people have sold their
homes to go and work on the ship.
The surveyors, you know, if you have a
ship, the surveyor has to come in.
These are tough-minded marine men.
Everything that's wrong on the ship has to
be put right or you lose your license.
And this man came from Italy.
Flew over to Italy to inspect the ship
when it was in Argentina.
And as he went through the ship, he
just couldn't believe it.
And he said, this ship's been born again.
This ship's been born again.
1914, still sailing.
Carries two, three hundred tons of literature.
Sometimes has 20,000 people in one day.
Almost all of them receive the word of
God.
It's just, it's gone beyond really our expectation.
The recent visit to Mexico, I was preaching
at a pastor's conference.
Because the ship is many things.
It's not a matter of just giving out
literature.
It's 15 ministries, some of them very much
in-depth ministries going on at the same
time.
And the greatest need in the world today
is to see pastors on fire for Christ.
You know, in Sri Lanka, many of the
pastors when we went there were communists.
The whole Methodist movement in Sri Lanka was
taken over by communism pretty well.
And a Methodist communist was born again immediately.
I was preaching it.
I think Frank Dietz prayed it.
Now we went back again because we keep
going back.
And this man is now leading a major
thrust across the island.
Touching hundreds for Christ.
And I was preaching about 200 pastors in
Mexico.
My Spanish is terrible.
It's 19 years ago since I spoke much
Spanish.
But somehow the Holy Spirit took it out
of the realm of the grammar.
And I thought I was really offending these
people because the challenge of the message was
Mexican church grow up.
And I brought this illustration how Mexicans pray
on the basis of Matthew 9, Lord of
the Harvest, to send forth more gringos into
the harvest.
More Americans into the harvest.
I said a few other interesting things.
And 104 of those pastors took out money
to buy a copy of the cassette.
And they stood up and said, we've got
to take this message by cassette to everybody
in Mexico.
Because it's time we as a Mexican church
grow up.
And start sending out our own missionaries.
And pray the Lord of the Harvest will
send out Mexicans into the harvest field.
And that's beginning to happen.
Slowly.
And same in Argentina and other places.
Well, we could talk a long time about
that.
It's a great privilege to be able to
focus in on that a little bit.
Let's jump from Toulouse out to India.
You know, to me it's exciting that you
can be tucked away here in the mountains
of Colorado and touch the world for Christ
through prayer.
If I lived out here I'd feel isolated.
I live in London.
I've got 9 million neighbors.
Bombay with 4 million.
I lived in Mexico City with 9 million.
I lived in Brussels.
I've lived in Paris.
I've lived in Madrid.
I've lived in Catalan.
Dude, I was pretty small up there tucked
in the Himalayas with a half a million.
But here, man, I would really feel isolated
especially eating 9 months a year trudging through
white stuff.
But, you know, by faith you don't have
to be isolated.
You can touch the world.
You can get one of these maps of
the world.
We're going to make the greatest book bargain
package I think in the history of my
tours of the United States.
I'm just really going to offer something special
I've never done before.
But with it you can get one of
these maps of the world, put this up
in your room, put it over the front
of your television, wherever you want, and begin
to realize that God wants you to be
a world Christian.
It's not a matter of all jumping on
your skis and skiing out to Nepal.
But through prayer, first through prayer, we can
touch the ends of the earth.
And I hope you'll do that.
So right now with our eye of faith
we're going to go out to India.
I don't know where India is.
It's only 700 million people in that little
country.
It's not really, it's about double the size
of Texas, 700 million.
More people there than all of South America.
And Africa put together you can throw in
Colorado.
Just in that one country.
You know we often think God is looking
for special, super spiritual, over dedicated, double filled
with the spirit people to go out to
be missionaries.
You know if you wait for those kind
of missions though you're going to die of
loneliness.
God sends out ordinary people.
And the Lord was looking around New Jersey.
And there was a young man riding around
his dirt bike and fixing his old van
to travel up to Alaska to do his
own thing.
He wasn't a great preacher.
He wasn't super spiritual that's for sure.
I know because he's my nephew.
And you know it's always hard to believe
God can do anything in your family.
You always believe God can do something in
the other person's family.
I only have one sister.
So I don't have a great abundance of
nephews.
And we went out rock climbing once and
we'd like to do some of that tomorrow.
And somehow he came to Europe.
The Lord was working in his heart and
he ended up doing a little mechanic work
on the ship.
He stayed for a year, stayed for another
year.
To everybody's surprise he went on to India
for two years.
Now he's back.
Of course when he came back some girl
was chasing him.
We knew he could get a good job
and we figured that's the end.
But he said goodbye to this girl.
He said goodbye to the job.
The guy was a crook anyway.
And he's going back to India.
So it's a joy to introduce Ray Cooper
who really would like to go to India
tomorrow.
We keep dragging him around on this trip,
carry our books to just come up and
share.
Anyway that's a terrible introduction Ray.
I really feel bad about that.
But just share anything that's on your heart
Ray.
And I hope some of you are going
to pray for Ray Cooper as he goes
back to India.
It's really true that a lot of us
I think that go out or grew up
in a church situation never thought about missionaries.
I can remember as a kid when missionary
speakers would come there was kind of a,
you know, among the young people group, you
know, who's going to ever do that?
And I really, if I look back six
years I can see that there was no
way that I was ever going to be
involved in missions.
I came to know the Lord as a
child when I was about nine years old
through the Bible club movement.
And I praise the Lord that I did
come to know him at a young age
and through my high school years.
So I didn't want to, I was kind
of trying to ride a middle of the
road type of thing where I didn't want
to really live for Christ and I didn't
want to let my light shine for him.
But at the same time I didn't want
to get involved in what was going on
in my school and, you know, in the
drug thing and drink and just everything else.
And so it was really, looking back it
was a miserable time because in the Christian
life we can't walk the center of the
road, middle of the road and be happy.
And that's right where I was.
I went to technical high school and took
up mechanics and when I finished school I
had a job, pretty good job as a
mechanic.
And at the end of that year I
asked my boss for a raise and he
said, you know, you have to wait a
few more months before you get a raise.
And so another guy had already offered me
a job for another dollar more an hour
and I was ready to change jobs.
And about that same time I got a
letter from George and he challenged me to
come for two months on their summer program.
And I just hadn't been involved in any
type of evangelism or tracting.
I mean I was real shy when it
came to anything like that.
And I had never confronted anybody maybe once,
you know, with the gospel.
But this appealed to me to go over
and help out as a mechanic because that
was my trade.
And so I went to their conference down
in Memphis, Tennessee that year before going over
to Europe and I saw a lot of
young people my own age that really knew
the reality of walking with Jesus Christ every
day.
They had that reality in their daily lives
and it was something that I didn't have.
I hadn't seen it before but I knew
it was something that I wanted.
And so at that conference it was a
time of recommitment and just getting right with
the Lord and a time of saying, Lord
I want to learn, I want to grow,
I want to become what you want me
to be.
And so I went that summer over to
Belgium and I ended up staying for pretty
much the last five years like George said
in different places.
And I can see how the Lord has
worked in my own life in a process
and he's been able to work in me
and change me and change the way my
values, what I think is important, what I
really want to pour my life into.
And it's not something that happened overnight, it
wasn't my first two weeks on a whim
but it's been a process in my own
life where the Lord's been able to work
in me and I just praise the Lord
that he has made some changes.
For the last two and a half years
I've been out in India and my job
pretty much out there was to keep these
old trucks that we have going.
We buy them real cheap in Europe and
drive them overland and get them out to
India and fill them up with New Testaments
and Gospel packets and then we go village
to village and drop the tailgate down and
one of the Indian brothers there will get
up and will sing a song first and
then will preach the Gospel in the local
dialect or language of the people there.
And then distribute the literature shop to shop
and person to person confronting people with the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And so a large part of my job
was to keep those trucks going and of
course I was involved on the teams as
well going out with the literature and the
other part of my job was to train
up Indian brothers who could do what I
do and when I leave they would be
able to take more of the responsibility.
And going back to India this time that's
a lot of what I want to be
involved in.
Involved in building up brothers there who can
do what I do and who will be
able to carry on and who will be
able to build into the church in India
and that's what I want to be involved
in wherever I go is to be building
into the local fellowship, the local church and
contributing as a servant there in any way
I can.
I think the one thing that the Lord
has taught me out in India was that
it wasn't so much of what I could
give to them or how I was going
to help them but it was what the
Lord was going to teach me many times
through the Indian brothers there and through the
relationships with people on the teams.
So going back I don't want to go
as somebody who's going to be telling them
what to do and how to do it
and being the head honcho but I want
to go as a brother and get alongside
them and be able to encourage them and
build into their lives and I want to
go back and be a servant there for
as long as I can.
Thanks Ray.
I hope you'll pray for Ray.
Now I've just really appreciated your ministry of
music here and I think it's good if
we just sing another hymn that will challenge
us, 356.
You know the greatest book in the English
language of the thousand or so books I've
gone over I believe is Dr. Martin Lloyd
-Jones book Spiritual Depression.
I never cease to be amazed by this
book.
The title puts some people off but it's
really a handbook on spiritual reality, the disciplined
life, faith, not being weary and well doing,
chastening, trials, peace of God.
Just a great book.
That's available for any of you.
Born for Babel, a book about the ministry
of intercessory prayer just recently republished.
Probably the first time you've ever seen it.
And these parts I don't think you're overwhelmed
with Christian bookshops up in this area.
You know you may never see this material
again.
Some of you of course might want to
get a vision to take quantity of this
tonight.
Set up a book table in your own
home.
That's how I started about 25 years ago.
There are a number of other books, especially
the writings of A.W. Tozer.
He's the strongest writer I think in contemporary
English.
Just of course went to be with the
Lord a few years ago.
I just can't believe some of the things
this man just digs into and rips out
of our superficial Christian way of thinking.
Now some of you may also be interested
in this cassette album that John Wright has
produced.
And we're giving this for either $12 or
a $15 special.
All these books with the cassette album for
$15.
And your check can be postdated up to
one year.
This is the entire missions conference.
You know I'd love to stay here and
minister every night.
I don't like these one night stands.
But I'm only one person.
This is when I went up to the
Prairie Bible Institute.
Not far north here a few paces.
Calgary, Canada or Prairie whatever that place is
called.
Three hills.
If you close your eyes for a minute
you go right by it except for the
Bible school.
And I shared there night after night for
about four days and there's the ministry I
shared.
Including a message to the high school young
people.
They have a high school there.
What the Bible says about sex.
And including a message to all the leaders
who were there called leaders pitfalls that I
feel very strong about.
I really believe a lot of our leaders
here in North America are deceived.
I'm not saying I'm better than them.
But I really believe there's a deceptive spirit
that has crept into some of even the
greatest men.
That doesn't mean God's not using them.
God is merciful.
But it's something that we should understand.
For example the tendency for everything in America
to be exaggerated.
It's not a minor thing.
It's a rotten part of our culture.
That missionary magazines come out giving statistics that
anybody with half a brain knows are exaggerated
but no one says anything about it.
A lot of other things along this line
that seem to be just part and parcel
of our culture.
And I talk about this.
It's the first time I ever gave that
message.
To the leaders gathered up there in the
church.
So this material really is part and parcel
of our meeting with you tonight.
John Wesley believed the ministry through print was
as important as preaching.
And everybody who was on Wesley's team that
moved across Europe and brought hundreds of thousands
into the kingdom.
Every one of them had to be involved
in distributing books.
And I feel every one of you should
be involved in distributing books.
I'm not saying huge quantities but at least
a few.
Somebody comes up to you and asks how
to be saved.
Do you have a piece of literature to
give them on how to be saved?
Or a book?
And I just really believe God has brought
us together tonight that we may act on
some of these things we hear.
I'm not going to say a lot about
Operation Mobilization.
We've already heard something.
There's a booklet that you can pick up
as you leave touching almost every single ministry
we're involved in.
About 20 different ministries in 35 different nations.
It may sound big but it all started
very small 25 years ago.
And we're not interested in emphasizing the bigness.
We're more interested in emphasizing the reality that
every individual in the body of Christ can
have.
Every individual.
Whether you're working here or you're working in
some place out in the middle of India.
Now let's pray and ask the Lord to
help us as we share together from the
word of God.
Lord we thank you for the privilege of
being here.
We believe it is in your plan and
purpose.
And we believe that you've called us to
act.
Tonight is the night of acting.
Doing.
Steps of faith.
And we believe you're going to show each
one of us what it is you want
us to do.
We thank oh God of your son the
Lord Jesus said that if we loved you
and if we loved him we would keep
your and his commandments.
We want to do that.
We want an extra spirit of obedience to
come upon our hearts.
We know that to obey is better than
sacrifice.
We want you to expose any areas of
disobedience in our lives.
Any areas where Lord we're wandering away from
your perfect will.
And turn to be your men and to
be your women to go where you want
us to go and to do what you
want us to do whatever the cost.
Grant that we pray in Jesus name.
Amen.
Let's look at some scriptures starting in Matthew
chapter 9.
I want to just weave into this my
own testimony which I hope might be a
little encouragement to some of you.
Some of you that maybe sometimes find the
Christian life a struggle.
I certainly do.
You're not looking at any super saint tonight.
But there's grace for sinners.
There's forgiveness for sinners.
There's power for sinners.
And this is what the Gospels, what the
whole New Testament is all about.
Now in chapter 9 of Matthew we find
the Lord Jesus.
Verse 35.
Going about every city and village teaching.
He was a teacher.
There's many other things.
In the synagogues preaching the gospel.
He was a preacher.
Of the kingdom and healing every sickness.
He healed every disease among the people.
When he saw the multitudes he was moved
with compassion on them.
I want to emphasize that tonight.
Motivation.
He was moved with compassion on them.
Because they were faint and were scattered abroad
as sheep having no shepherd.
Then said he unto his disciples.
The harvest truly is plentiful but the workers
are few.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest
that he will send forth laborers into his
harvest.
Isn't that just loaded with vision and with
challenge?
Just that little section of scripture?
There was a little elderly woman who lived
near my home who knew how to pray.
Do you know how to pray?
You know if you don't know how to
pray then somehow you are still in God's
kindergarten.
I don't care whatever else you can do.
If you do not know how to pray
you have not grown past kindergarten.
And even in kindergarten, God's kindergarten, people pray.
The only other thing is you could be
totally backslidden and once knew how to pray
you don't pray anymore.
There's no way we can be Christians.
No way we can follow Christ without knowing
prayer.
It's impossible.
And remember we are now a religious, a
great religious nation.
Religion here means money.
Religion here means a job.
We got 10 million unemployed.
You want to get a job you can
get in the religious scene and get a
job quicker than you can in the non
-religious scene.
And we must somehow come to grips with
the reality of where we are as a
nation and somehow realize that there can be
no true New Testament faith without prayer.
Without prayer in our personal life, without prayer
in our families, without prayer in our churches.
You have to rip out every other chapter
in the book of Acts.
Peter was in prison but the church was
gathered together praying and then God performed a
miracle.
Paul was in prison at midnight when every
sane man should be asleep but he was
praying and worshiping God.
I was only converted a few hours and
I knew that prayer was my vital breath.
Not missed praying as far as I know
any day since my conversion 27 years ago.
That's as normal as walking.
And it's a subtle trick of the enemy
that somehow we don't sense prayer as a
vital breath of the church.
So we find even great evangelical churches, great
bible believing churches, separatist churches, you name it
we've got everything in America that's ever been
named.
And you get to these people and you
find they don't know how to pray and
then you wonder why the pastor is soon
going to be divorced or why the choir
is going to be discovered all involved in
some homosexual activity.
And while this thing is happening and that
thing is happening we don't talk about what
happened to Hal Lindsey, we don't talk about
what happened to Bill Gothard's brother, we just
go on and on and on and think
we're just some great crowd of bible believing
evangelical people.
Nobody wants to blow a whistle.
You think if Isaiah came back he'd blow
a whistle, my friends?
You think if Jeremiah rose from the dead
and came back to our churches he would
say anything or would he just sit down
at the midweek snack?
We usually have socials midweek and tell us
all how wonderful we're doing.
I'm scared.
I don't want to be an alarmist and
I've written a book against extremism so hear
me out to the end, but I'm scared.
I believe we're deceived.
A.W. Tozer said we've measured ourselves by
ourselves for so long there are no longer
higher plateaus in the things of the spirit.
And there's so little discipline in the church
of Jesus Christ you can be like two
elders that were sitting on a train with
a friend of mine on the way to
Scotland they were discussing the high price of
prostitutes in London.
Only when my friend got off the train
he discovered they were both leading elders in
the local bible believing assembly.
I believe we need to go back to
the word of God and ask the Lord
to purge us of that which is not
pleasing to him.
And I believe our prayerlessness is one of
the greatest sins in the church today.
Jesus spent whole nights in prayer.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
Jesus when he pointed us to the great
harvest field millions without the gospel lost in
sin said pray, pray.
That's the first command.
We have a lot of young people who
want to join O.M. before they even
learn how to pray.
Of course we take them, but the first
thing we teach them is how to pray.
That's not easy.
The harvest is plenteous, the laborers are few,
pray, pray, pray.
Anyway this dear little woman lived near my
house and knew how to pray.
I didn't know how to pray, I was
a sinner.
I was lost already at 16, I owned
three little businesses, I was a self-centered,
egocentric, little money lover, pleasure lover.
My mother didn't have a clue what I
was into every other week in the nightclubs
in New York.
And this lady found out about me and
my bad conduct.
I was even blacklisted in the high school
for bad conduct and she started to pray
and she prayed for me for three years.
You know the high school is one of
the greatest mission fields in America.
And we in our churches should be just
agonizing and crying out to God for our
high schools.
Do you think the answer?
Do you think the answer is Christian education?
We are the seed my friends.
If we think the answer is Christian education
because we're graduating a whole generation of young
people out of these Christian schools who aren't
that much better really than those who came
out of the pagan schools like me.
Because you see you can give a man
a Christian education, you can fill his hand,
but only the Holy Spirit, only a deep
work of grace can fill his heart.
And Christianity isn't firstly taught, it's taught.
I'm not against Christian education, I'm not against
being taught, of course not.
But there's got to be something more.
Anyway this lady knew there's something more.
Prayer.
She had been praying for this high school
for 15 years.
And this is an ordinary American woman.
She wasn't trained in cross-cultural evangelism.
She hadn't yet got to a marriage seminar,
they didn't have marriage seminars back then, they
just had good marriages, not all of them.
She hadn't been to a lot of these
other things, she wasn't a seminary graduate, we
must not get that mixed up.
And praise God that there are some good
seminaries and praise God that our seminaries graduate
a few men who know how to pray.
Don't misunderstand me, but I tell you it's
a remnant, it's a shrinking remnant.
She prayed for 15 years for that high
school.
She prayed for people to be saved and
sent.
You know what we pray?
Saved and satisfied.
Saved to sit and be satisfied.
And as long as we feel we're going
to heaven, what's the difference?
And I don't know, the Lord must be,
of course He is, He's merciful.
That's why He holds back judgment, even upon
the church.
But I've seen churches judged and it's a
terrible sight when God takes His hand off
the church and just lets them do what
they want.
A young missionary's son turned on his father
some years ago and blew his head off
with a gun.
I've seen things the last 25 years I
could not tell you in a public meeting.
When God just takes His hand off and
says, okay, just go your own way.
People just go wild, even in the church.
God is merciful, He doesn't do that quickly,
He doesn't do that quickly.
He just loves us.
We know that our salvation is by grace
through the finished work of Christ on the
cross.
It's not by words, it's not by becoming
disciples, it's not by having a vision, it's
not by responding to what I preach tonight,
it's by that saving work of Jesus Christ
on the cross.
But when we experience that and we know
Christ personally, something is going to happen.
Was it Luther who said, saving faith, true
faith, was a revolutionary thing.
Something like that.
So she prayed for this school for 15
years.
I came in toward the end of that
period and she prayed for me.
She sent me a Gospel of John through
the post.
It's amazing what can be done with Christian
literature.
I've written a book on Christian literature, I
didn't even bring it up here, nobody ever
buys it much.
I didn't feel like giving it away tonight,
I'm giving so many other things away.
But it's there, I guess it cost a
dollar.
Christian literature.
What could be done from it?
The world would never know.
I have something in my Bible, well I
left my Bible at someone else's house, but
I don't have that clipping, but basically it's
a story of a man who was just
about to hang himself in his own home.
And somebody banged on the door, giving out
leaflets.
You know, the most superficial work, giving out
leaflets.
I mean, whoever gets help for a Christian
leaflet.
Banged on the door.
The man had the rope already there to
hang himself.
He was really angry.
He went to the door, he took this
leaflet, and he was born again in the
Spirit of God.
He never hung himself, went on to be
a servant of Jesus Christ.
I could keep you here all night telling
you stories like that.
I don't make them up either.
Some of them I have to research, like
the one about in Argentina, we were all
talking about Argentina.
The man was going to commit suicide, he
found the Gospel of John in a tree.
It wasn't a Gospel of John tree, it
was just a tree that somebody had thrown
the Gospel away, I guess, didn't want to
read it.
It was laying in the tree and the
man picked it up and gave his life
to Christ instead of committing suicide.
The Word of God is sharp.
So this lady sent me a Gospel of
John through the mail, I began to read
it.
Somehow it broke into my heart, my mind.
I was reading a lot of things then,
and that little sword of the Spirit broke
into my heart.
So when Billy Graham came to New York
City just for one night, he was preaching
for Jack Wursten, great camp movement, Word of
Life, I went.
And there I heard the Gospel, and I
received Christ, He received me, I'll never understand
it fully, but His Spirit came to entwine
me.
John 1.12, as many as receive Him,
to them He gives power to become the
sons of God.
And I can say, just by the mercy
of God, from that night to this night,
27 years later, every day I've known the
reality of His presence, of His grace and
His forgiveness.
I have failed Him, I've got off on
my tangents, I'm a natural extremist, I'm a
natural backslider.
I don't know how many of you naturally
go uphill spiritually?
Boy, you're unusual, you've come and autographed this
Bible, I don't know if you could, I
just borrowed it for tonight.
Somebody asked D.L. Moody why he kept
saying, be filled again and again with the
Holy Spirit.
Moody just looked him in the eye and
said, because I leak.
And you're looking at one weak, leaky Christian
leader tonight.
But I know where to go for the
refill.
There's a Savior, there's a Lord who understands
it, who gives it, and He wants to
fill us every day.
We have hundreds of thousands across America now,
claiming to have all kinds of special blessings
from the Holy Spirit.
Where are they now?
Where are they tonight?
That's what I want to know.
Why didn't they ever make it to Turkey?
Why don't we see them in India?
When I read my Bible in Acts, we're
going to look at it in a minute,
the Holy Ghost brings the Holy Ghost.
And I think we've turned some of the
great truths of God into some kind of
circus event, rather than really understanding them in
the biblical perspective.
Let's turn to Acts chapter 1 verse 8.
After I was converted, I went back to
that high school.
We started the most normal thing in all
the world.
We started prayer meetings in the high school.
We started half nights of prayer.
And God just blew that school wide open.
This is right outside New York City.
A third of the students drunk every weekend,
more women pregnant than anybody would dare to
count.
Scandalous pit.
And God brought 200 to Jesus in that
school in a year and a half.
They weren't all converted.
And that became the birthplace of what today
is known as Operation Mobilization.
People were scattered from that school in many
directions.
I went off to college.
I met a young extremist named Dale Roton.
I used extreme in quotations.
I was warned about him.
I was heard he was baptizing people in
the showers.
It's interesting because he was still a Presbyterian
at that time.
And I was heard he was praying for
people to be saved who were going to
the dances.
So I looked for this fellow.
And I found in that young man a
godly example.
You know, we all need godly examples.
And it's so hard to find in this
day.
And he discipled me in some ways.
Maybe I discipled him.
I don't know.
We were so different.
And within a year, three of us, and
that was 25 years ago, we went to
Mexico.
And of course, there's not time to tell
the rest of the story.
We jumped from Mexico to Spain and exploded
in Europe and became a European movement.
An international movement really.
One of the few perhaps missionary movements in
the world today that is not dominated by
Americans.
You know, we had this weakness in our
culture.
We liked to dominate.
We liked to boast.
We liked to dominate and exaggerate.
And I discovered my first summer in Mexico,
second summer, I was an ugly evangelical.
I was an ugly little Bible school graduate.
I had my little doctrines under my arm.
I knew how to disciple these little Mexicans,
get them to reach me.
Boy, I tell you, God broke me and
showed me some of the ugliness of my
own heart.
So our movement became very international.
It was based in Brussels and London.
We still accepted Americans.
And when the Holy Spirit takes over American,
he can be used as much as anybody
else.
God's no respecter of persons.
Don't worry about that.
In fact, the greater the sin, the greater
the grace, the greater the abounding.
And so I tell you, when people around
the world meet a humble American, they know
they've seen a miracle.
That's right.
And they make a big impact.
They really do.
I remember when this big Texan was coming
to our ship.
The word was out, especially among the British.
They can cut the Americans down to size
before you can even get, you know, Coke
can open or can, you call it over
here.
And I remember this chief engineer was coming
to the ship.
This was before we had the second ship.
We had the small ship, which is in
India right now.
And the word was out.
He was Texan.
He was big.
And they were gunning for him.
They figured he'd be a loud mouth, a
bolster, know it all, you know.
And here comes this big Texan, humble, quiet,
hardworking.
Why?
He was converted.
Jesus changes people.
Whether you're a Mexican, Chinese, Indian, maybe you
don't know what you are.
I couldn't believe television two days ago when
there was a lady on there telling about
her child that she got through artificial insemination.
Now I've heard about this with cattle.
I mean, I have a farmer friend in
England.
I mean, people and the necessity to stand
on television and tell how they're going to
have a son so proud through artificial insemination.
I will tell you, aren't you scared?
The direction that things are going.
And what a tremendous thing it is when
God can break into whether it's a woman
like that or some other sinner and change
that person.
I don't understand why people are more excited
about the salvation business.
Some people come along and try to sell
me their second blessing package, third blessing package,
fourth blessing.
I say, look, what about the first blessing?
What about salvation?
Doesn't that do anything?
I've got to have all these other things.
I've got to go to your church.
We've got more groups telling us, if you
don't fellowship with them, you'll never grow.
And somebody else telling you, if you don't
have this doctrine, you'll never grow.
Basically, if we carefully analyze it, salvation does
nothing.
Salvation does nothing.
Until you're in the right doctrine, the right
church, or until you've got the second blessing
or the third blessing, or this or that,
you're never going to become mature.
Listen, if you're saved, the greatest thing that
has ever happened to you has already happened.
And if nothing's happened, you're not saved.
And you need to come to the altar
tonight and repent.
And let Jesus Christ come into your heart.
Because I really believe there are a lot
of unsaved people in our evangelical churches in
America.
I'm not the one to point them out
individually.
In fact, I hesitate to say these things
because often people are very, very hypersensitive.
It always scares me.
They come worrying that they're not saved, and
as I counsel them and talk with them,
I see that they have been saved, but
they've never grown.
The enemy's moved in on them immediately, and
they haven't got into the Word, and they
haven't grown.
And so though some change has taken place,
salvation is there, they are bathed in Christ.
Or they may have got into some other
syndrome of the enemy.
And let's look at this verse, Acts 1
.8. Now
it's very important to see that what we're
talking about tonight, we're talking about a number
of things, is biblical.
And I'm always aware that probably when I
speak, I'll turn somebody off.
I didn't know how to dress tonight.
Sometimes the way you dress turns people off.
Often when I go to a church here
in America, I hate neckties, I put a
tie on.
I don't want to be an offense to
some of the people or hinder what's the
message.
But I was told, you know, Colorado, this
isn't exactly Manhattan Island, I thought I could
be casual, and we were in a hurry,
so it was really convenient just to leave
what I was wearing on.
I hope this hasn't turned any of you
off.
But if that may be something I say
may turn you off.
So this is why it's so important to
be biblical, so that if I say something
wrong, or I miss some important thing, we
still can't get away from this message.
I'm not asking you to come on Operation
Mobilization, I'm not asking you to become my
best friend, I'm asking you to obey Jesus.
That's all I'm asking.
To obey God, to obey Jesus.
Just before the Lord Jesus ascended, He spoke,
this is recorded in the Word of God,
we believe this is the authority for our
life, and He said, He shall receive power
after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
He shall be witnesses unto me, both in
Jerusalem, seems to be their nearby area, though
for many of them, many of them were
strangers in Jerusalem.
That's interesting.
Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the
earth.
There are two other scriptures we could look
at, one in Corinthians, one in Romans, we
won't take the time, where Paul expresses his
desire to go to the regions beyond.
You know that text?
To preach the gospel to the regions beyond.
And it's my prayer that we may get
this vision tonight if we don't already have
it.
A vision of the whole world.
And then a vision of how our obedience
here, our commitment here, affects the whole world.
It affects the whole world.
One woman prayed near my high school, and
God brought a movement into being through her.
We have reached personally, face-to-face, without
counting television and radio, which we often get
given to us free, through the ships, the
media, you know, the Prime Minister comes, the
Admirals come, then the radio, television, everything.
It's just unbelievable the impact in some nations.
Not in every nation.
But excluding that, we have faced 300 million
precious people with the Word of God.
One woman prayed.
There are now 1,600 of us, even
though every year we challenge people to leave,
and join other missions, or go back to
their home church.
We don't want to become a big institution.
We're not interested in numbers, we're interested in
reality and quality.
That's hard, and we fail many times.
There will be another 1,500 who come
into the summer training program.
Some of you may pray about that.
It's not too late.
They've extended the final date from May 1st
to, I think, June 1st.
And they're having an extra conference at the
end of June, for people who can't get
to the June 5th conference, if they want
to get involved even one or two months
in the summer, in order to work with
us and pray about coming for one or
two years.
You know, it's interesting, the Mormons have 24
,000 or more out on a two-year
program.
If you think that's some superficial thing, just
by a bunch of young people, you obviously
don't know much about the Mormons.
When that 24,000 go home, they get
another 24,000 or more right behind them.
So there's continuity.
And it puts the work in the hands
of the national people.
And we believe that it is biblical and
sensible to make use of the enormous resources
of youth in our culture and in our
nation, and the transportation that's available to us
in cheap airplanes and vehicle travel, to mobilize
an army of short-term people, who during
that period can decide the next step.
Whether it's back home in the supporting battalion,
sending others, or whether it's life-term career
missionary work, as some people speak of.
And it's exciting that so many who have
had this training, about 23,000 have been
through this training, are now going into mission
service or are on mission service.
In fact, we have OM graduates in almost
every single nation in the world, with almost
every mission society in the world.
One woman prayed.
I remind you of that.
One woman believed that this was God's Word.
One woman, when she came across Act 1A,
almost weeped out of her shoes.
This is it.
This is biblical.
And she started praying for all these countries.
We can't beg people to sign up for
a prayer letter.
I appreciated that encouragement from Brother Clout.
We can't get people.
There's a little coupon you have right there.
I think we were given this as you
came in.
There's a coupon.
95% of the people that get the
opportunity to sign up, 95% never do.
I don't know why.
I prayed about it.
I think the enemy is very subtle.
But I think basically it comes down to
what I call token commitment to foreign and
world missions, rather than total commitment.
I'm sure the enemy has deceptive power.
I think in James 1, where it speaks
about being deceived, it says, Be doers of
the Word, not hearers only, otherwise you will
be deceiving yourself.
C.S. Lewis said we have the brilliant
agnostic, converted to Jesus Christ, said we have
the tendency to think, but not to act.
The tendency to feel, but not to act.
And that can easily happen tonight.
I think some of the things I've said,
you know in your heart, I'm hitting on
the truth.
And you may think, well this is the
truth, we need to do something.
You may feel, but to act.
The great Bible teacher said people don't convert
emotion into action because the cost is too
great.
The cost is too great.
I'm convinced that that little hymn we often
used to sing, Trust and Obey, There's No
Other Way, is still one of the greatest
messages to the Church of Jesus Christ.
Trust and Obey, There's No Other Way.
And if we are to obey God, then
this commandment about praying forth labors into the
harvest, and when we pray we've got to
be willing to go ourselves, and when we
pray within our church, then we've got to
be willing for that church to be a
biblical church, therefore a sending base to thrust
workers out into the harvest field.
I know one little house fellowship up in
Toronto, Canada, that has one third of the
whole fellowship going to the mission field.
Little tiny church, little house church with about
three dozen people, have more missionaries going out,
and they're sound in doctrine, they love the
Lord, than most of the big churches in
Toronto.
You may feel you're from a small church,
but I will tell you, give me a
small church of anointed spirit filled, broken, humble
people, and we will turn the world upside
down for Jesus Christ.
I don't care if you're in Colorado or
Colombo, but we're going to have to face
ourselves, we're going to have to confess our
sins, we're going to have to put things
right.
Some, like the rich young ruler, may count
the cost about what they may lose in
some business that no born again Christian should
ever be involved in, or some other kind
of fooling around with the things of this
world, that man will walk away because the
cost is too great.
That always breaks my heart, but for everyone
that walks away, I believe there will be
some, by God's mercy, some who will return
to that narrow road.
Yeah, even as a prodigal son, maybe having
sinned in the most vicious form.
Some of the people in our work have
lived in iniquity, drunkenness, fornication, everything you can
imagine for years, and then God saved them.
When you're praying for men to join a
ship ministry, you don't go to the local
Sunday school.
You've got to pray for rough, tough merchant
navy men to get saved.
Think of a man named Thompson, Stan Thompson,
the drunkard if there ever was one.
Big shipping line, single, God saved him in
Africa.
Sat in one of my meetings in England
and I thought he wanted to run away.
He was a trained ship electrician.
God touched him in that meeting.
Brought him into our ship as the electrician
for a couple of years and then thrust
him out into line up work.
He's just been used by God to line
up with the Pakistani government coming in the
ship to a Muslim nation, Pakistan.
Fifty years old!
Can a man change his ways at fifty?
Can a man be delivered from alcoholism and
drunkenness at fifty and all the other things?
Of course!
But it costs.
It costs Jesus everything.
Though we may feel tonight we've got problems,
burdens, areas of failure, habits, maybe we feel
lukewarmness has sunk into the very, the very
nth degree in our soul.
No man is beyond God's help.
Obedience!
That's what I believe the Lord is asking
for.
Now when we launch out to obey God
wholeheartedly it will be easy.
We'll fail.
There'll be times when we won't even know
what is obedience in a particular situation.
God knows all about our human factor.
I was going to write a book called
The Human Factor.
I think it's very important.
Keep things in balance.
Dr. Schaeffer in his book Ashy Plies says
every Christian leader has clay feet.
It's true.
But I believe there's a great difference between
a committed man whose life is on the
altar, who's walking in the power and the
energy of the Holy Spirit, who at times
may fail or may get tricked by the
enemy into some subtle sin, especially when we
think of the mind or disposition.
But he immediately repents.
He comes back to the cross.
There's no wearing of the mask.
There's openness.
And when there's that, there's life and revival.
So we're not saying the victorious life, the
totally committed life, the obedient life is perfection.
There's both aspects of the victorious life.
1 John 2.1. The first part of
the verse, what is it?
Sin not.
The second part of the verse, if you
sin.
I have a lawyer, an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ.
They're righteous.
So total commitment and the victorious life, the
godly life, whatever you want to talk about,
includes knowing what to do when you sin.
But it doesn't include darkness, mask wearing, pretending,
and double living.
And I pray, though you may feel weak,
though you may feel you've failed Jesus many
times, and you're not a candidate to be
a missionary, that you'll see God's grace tonight
and realize you can commit everything to Him.
All your time, your talent, your money, your
future.
We live in a day in which people
are more worried about the future than ever
before.
You can put it in God's hands.
He can handle you better than you can
handle yourself.
And go forward to a deeper degree of
commitment.
And I believe if we do this, and
it touches our prayer life, it touches our
vision, world vision, it touches our relationships, I
believe we can have revival.
I believe personal revival is the privilege of
every believer because of what's been done on
the cross.
I've always felt that that's the revival I
want to emphasize the most.
All that I have in Jesus Christ, study
the book of Colossians, memorize it.
In Him are all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge.
So none of us are without excuse for
not having personal revival.
Every day, like Moody said, be filled again
and again.
And then from that foundation we work and
we pray and we labor for larger scale
revival within the church.
And even if you're in a church where
you feel revival hasn't come, you still have
no excuse for not knowing personal revival yourself.
In larger scale revival within churches and communities
and cities and nations, there's an aspect of
mystery and the sovereignty of God and God's
timing that I've never been able to totally
understand after studying revival for 25 years.
But there's a practical down-to-earthness in
personal revival that I understand all too well.
That it is my privilege and I have
no excuse for walking any day without the
reviving, renewing power of the resurrected Jesus.
That's yours.
Are you claiming it?
Are you living in it?
I hope so.
Let's pray.
I want to give a moment for silent
prayer, heart searching.
I believe the Lord has spoken and I
just pray that none of us will allow
deceptive insinuations from the evil one, from past
memories, from the brainwash of this world to
hinder us from making clear-cut, deeper commitments
to Jesus tonight.
Romans 12 says, I beseech you therefore brethren,
by the mercies of God to present your
body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
him, this is your reasonable service.
Will you do that?
Let's have prayer, private prayer in our hearts,
so we can reconnect, put our lives in
a greater way upon the altar of our
Lord Jesus, remembering all he's done for us.
Asking him to make us world Christians with
a world vision and reality in prayer.
Let's pray privately.
Lord, you know every one of us.
We cannot pretend with you.
You know our excuses.
You know areas we've been hurt.
Maybe hurt by other Christians.
Maybe hurt by our parents.
Maybe hurt by our own weaknesses.
And Lord, we thank you that this cleansing
and this forgiveness, that there's a river of
grace greater than any river flowing down these
mountains.
That can make everything whiter than any snow
we've seen in the past eight months.
And Lord Jesus, we claim it by faith.
And we present our bodies and we present
our lives.
And Lord, we tonight gathered here, we will
go where you want us to go and
do what you want us to do.
And we will send others.
And we will be a committed people.
And we will be a revived people.
And a praying people.
And we will walk in the light with
one another.
And we will be what we read in
your New Testament.
O Holy Ghost, bring that Holy Ghost upon
our hearts.
Open thou our eyes, we pray, that we
may not be deceived.
And I pray for myself.
For you know the human factors in my
own life.
Realize also, so afresh tonight Lord, that this
treasure is in earthen vessels.
And we refuse to be discouraged.
We refuse to lie down because we have
failed you.
We refuse to lie down because often our
lips have said things we should not have
said.
Our hands have done things we should not
have done.
But we appropriate grace and forgiveness and cleansing
to go one more mile.
To be your men and to be your
women.
We're not saved to sit, O Lord, but
we're saved to be sent and to serve.
Grant it, we pray, be it in a
loud crash upon our hearts or in a
still small voice.
Even as we drive our cars back to
our little homes and sanctuaries.
Spring a spiritual revolution upon us, Lord, that
will never stop burning.
Until every man, woman and child on planet
earth has heard something of the saving grace
of Jesus.
Grant it, Lord, that your church be established
in every nation and every town.
For what else is there?
We have no guarantee we'll live past tomorrow
or even past tonight.
And we want to say, to live is
you, Lord Jesus.
To die is gain.
Grant it now, Lord, as we go.
We may not just think and feel, but
we may act.
We may be obedient in a greater way.
Right to the very practical, small areas of
our lives.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.