Psalm 105 says, O give thanks unto the
Lord, call upon his name, make known his
deeds among the peoples.
Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk
ye of all his wondrous works.
Glory ye in his holy name, let the
heart of every joy so seek the Lord.
Seek the Lord and his face, seek his
face evermore.
Remember his marvelous works that he hath done,
his wonders and the judgments of his mouth.
I think it's good to remember the works
of the Lord.
It's hard to believe that already we're on
the 13th of January, 1981.
Time goes by, every time I return to
Johnston.
And I remember when I first looked at
the place before we owned it or even
were here.
I had some photos of Johnston standing in
some of these absolutely barren areas.
But every time I return here I see
the growth, the physical improvements.
For years when I lived here, one of
my great prayers was that they would put
the gate up.
I used to live in fear that children
would run out.
That must have taken several years after I
left before the gate got up.
It was great to trudge down the road
from the station last night.
Of course we couldn't get in the gate.
But we could get in the door thanks
to Brother Klaus.
There's a lot to thank the Lord for
and I always have a struggle.
I kind of wanted to share with you
what God is doing through the work.
I think that's important because it's your work.
There's no way this work would go on
without places like Zomitum.
Take New Jersey, Zomitum, Manchester and Bromley away.
There would be no work.
There would be no teams.
Of course, if we did it right now
something would happen.
They would realign themselves.
A third of their men would come back
and start building structure again.
I am amazed at the many children and
grandchildren OM has.
Over 30 different organizations and movements that have
been born through OM.
I'm amazed at how some of them, when
they left OM's fellowship for specific reasons, generally
in a very, very good way simply because
we just couldn't expand more in that area.
I'm amazed at the amount of effort they've
had to put into getting their structure, getting
their bookkeeper, getting their office.
It's been a challenge to me that in
fact, generally speaking, larger fellowships are more efficient
than smaller fellowships.
A research in England that's just come out
has often also proven this.
And England is just overwhelmed with small organizations.
Enormous amount of duplication.
Incredible amount of structure.
Some of them only have three people on
a mission.
And some of the top leaders in England
are starting to think through this.
Why is this?
As this research has also shown, the number
of British missionaries has again dropped.
And that includes OEMers.
And we're one of the larger mission groups
as far as having people overseas.
British people.
We don't count non-British.
I put that little brackets in the corner
of this particular research.
The number of British people on the field
has dropped.
The number of retired people has greatly increased.
It's quite a significant expense.
The number of office personnel, especially with many
of these fellowships, are very, very small.
So in my heart, though I long in
some ways for OEM to be smaller, and
always found OEM a lot easier when it
was smaller, it does seem that we are
at the size where we can be very,
very efficient.
That doesn't mean we always are.
And I think we do have so much
to thank the Lord for.
We think of over 400 people right now
involved in Love Maharashtra.
Some of those teens distributed two months of
literature in two weeks.
There have been quite a few making professions
of faith.
And literally millions, millions.
And when we say millions in OEM, for
those of you who are new, we mean
millions.
We don't mean thousands and exaggerating.
But millions of people are being reached in
that effort.
So that's a real item of praise.
Another item of praise is that the Lord
saw fit to bless Operation World.
We were really going against the tide in
Richmond, a place where the churches are very
paralyzed, or very polarized.
And where we came in with this interesting
mixture of denominations and having both charismatic and
non-charismatic people, which is a no-no
in Richmond to a large degree.
And a lot of people from Richmond did
back off.
In fact, there was little discouraging that the
Richmond people didn't get more involved.
Some did, and we believe it was a
testimony for the Lord, and their mouths dropped
as 1,000 people, a large percentage of
them, came in from out of state and
all over the country to Operation World.
$10,000 worth of books were sold at
Operation World.
And the feedback I've had is that there
was a real anointing upon George Lively and
the other speakers, and I think only Eternity
is going to tell the full story.
Perhaps the most important announcement I can give
is the fact that David Hicks will be
remaining in the United States and is now
the co-leader of the work in that
country, working together with Paul Troper, similar to
the way that Alfie and Ray worked together
in Bombay.
This has come after a long period of
prayer, an evaluation of the work, a realization
that there are over 300 Americans overseas.
It's a huge Christmas effort, summer effort.
Now Operation World just finished in Richmond, starting
soon in Rochester, spreading to California.
Full-time people like Billy Torres in Texas,
Jack Goley in Florida, Harley Rollins in a
rapidly growing operation in Georgia, and Paul Troper
still sort of operating in New Jersey the
way he was trying to operate 10 years
ago.
And we decided that one of the problems
was not just giving him more people, new
recruits to come in and help do the
work, it was always a problem getting these,
but to give him someone who has the
kind of gifts that are needed to supplement
his gifts and to try to put the
USA working in a better situation.
Also, we're moving offices to Clinton, where we
have over 700 square feet of office space
at a very good price.
That's just a little ways down the road
from Richmond.
So pray.
This is a decision that Paul Troper is
very happy about.
Talked to not only him, but talked to
his wife.
Pray now that we get other needed staff
members for the USA, where things have tended
to grow.
An example is that we have these little
cell groups in colleges all over the country,
and they get almost no input from us
whatsoever.
Many of them collapse at the end of
the year for somebody leaves, the leader leaves,
and they collapse.
And sometimes we don't even know them.
There's just too much to handle there.
And if Paul Troper travels, and often, which
he wants to do and does, then oftentimes
we find ourselves very, very short in New
Jersey.
So pray specifically for that.
You know, we have so much to thank
the Lord for in regard to the two
ships.
If our entire operation, as far as headquarters,
if all we had were India, in comparison
to almost all the other missions in the
world, if all we had was India, we
still would not have too many people in
our offices just to handle that work in
India.
I'd say we'd have to cut down a
little.
I don't want to cut down a lot,
but we'd cut down a little.
If all we had were the two ships,
just in terms of handling the gifts, just
in terms of the new recruits, they need
over almost 100 single women in October, on
the Dulas alone.
Just in terms of that, the little structure
we have in Bradley and here would be
more than justified.
There are a number of major answers to
prayer with a ship.
Number one is finance.
We had 100,000 Deutschmark gifts a couple
of days ago.
If you don't know exchange rates, that's over
$51,000.
We've also had another load of stocks dumped
on us in the United States, over 1
,000 shares of something, and we estimate it's
worth between $30,000 and $50,000.
Yesterday, before leaving, I left at about half
past 12, came home with my hovercraft, the
roughest ride I've ever had in my life.
I've never been on one of those things.
When it just took off, I thought, it's
going to go right into the air like
an airplane.
They almost canceled it.
Somehow, I guess they had Alvin and Cassidy
at the wheel and decided to take us
over.
But Jerry Davey phoned me yesterday morning and
shared that the long-awaited inheritance from a
dear elderly lady of 5,000 pounds came
in yesterday morning.
We had another inheritance last week, or just
before that, of 5,000, or was it
9?
It was 9,000 pounds.
It was two weeks ago.
Time goes fast.
These are some inheritances, because we don't get
many inheritances.
We're maybe 10 years from now.
Some of the ex-electors.
Personally, I like to forgive the money when
they're standing there.
But the Lord has been bringing in finance.
You may not be aware, or you may
be, that there's massive bills in Germany in
connection with the doulos.
Studying the finance reports from the doulos never
ceases to amaze how little it takes them
to live, the actual gist of food, and
how much it takes the ship to keep
going because of fuel, port dues, all that
kind of thing.
Publicity and everything connected with that ministry.
I think there's a real danger at this
stage of taking the ships for granted and
just not realizing what a massive operation this
is and how much it needs prayer and
not to presume about recruits.
Just because there were a few women and
a few married couples in September who wanted
to go to the ship and couldn't go
does not mean they have enough recruits.
Every year the situation completely changes.
If the rumors get out and really there's
no scope to go to the ship, people
praying about the ship don't even come on
the ship because maybe that's their burden, to
go on the ship when in fact doulos
is a two-year program and they were
only halfway through this September.
Now this next September, the two years end
and there's a massive exodus from the ship.
And I think it would be a great
danger to presume on recruits the greatest pressure
I sense in my own work is the
lack of strategic people.
Every major leader is telling me he's lacking
one or two or three people.
Now as you go out to recruit, you
can't in a sense say, well folks I'm
here now only to recruit for the CAI
or I'm here now only to speak to
you about being a marine engineer on Lagos
in 1984.
I have to go out and preach Mark
1 leave your nets I was preaching on
that Sunday night and I have to take
all the different varieties that may get exciting.
Sometimes it includes people over 70.
And they immediately come up to me after
the meeting and they say I'm ready to
go right now.
I say well, it's over now, let's not
rush into this.
So here I am, and it gets very
difficult.
Yesterday morning, very early in fact, Marilyn Sears
phones me from Seattle.
She's just going to bed and she has
an elderly couple or an upper middle aged
couple whatever that means who are ready to
go.
They can't make it to the January conference.
They're ready to come January 20th.
And here I am just waking up and
he's telling me about these wonderful people and
he's telling me people get excited when they're
trying to tell me about their new latest
recruit.
So I said well, I think we ought
to pray about this.
And maybe he is with his wife destined
to be with us.
But it's a big task.
And we praise the Lord and he is
continuing to bring recruits.
This is the greatest area where God has
blessed this movement.
And people can't understand that much about modern
missions and that we live in Europe where
there is no major increase in the number
of missionaries on the field from Europe.
There may be a few more from Germany
and a few less from England but there's
no major increase.
Now, don't think that's so bad because we've
got a big task just keeping up with
the previous generation.
Fifty years ago, a little even further back,
a lot of people were moving out to
the mission fields.
It's a different day in many, many ways.
So I think it's a miracle that we
are seeing so many new ones to take
the place of those who go on to
be with the Lord.
Charles Marsh's wife, by the way, just went
just a few days ago to be with
the Lord.
Some of you know about the couple from
the Netherlands, Eric Berenson, who was one of
the first members of the board of directors.
He was with his wife, and he took
the place of these people.
That's a great challenge.
And I think one of the most exciting
ministries that we're involved in is the ministry
of throwing out the challenge to launch out.
Just a couple of items from the ships.
The ship made it safely around the Straits
of Magellan, arrived safely in Argentina.
We had a telegram, in which they especially
asked us to pray for a birth in
Mar del Plata.
That's the next major port.
They still have no birth.
It really looks grim.
Praise the Lord.
That happened when I was traveling across the
English Channel.
Well, let's praise the Lord for that because,
as you know, everything with a ship hinges
on getting a birth.
And that's an item of praise.
We've had some good communication from Lagos.
The refugees went off the ship in Thailand,
and I haven't heard much since, except that
the Christian organization in England is not allowed
to handle these people.
It has to be handled by the government.
The British government has all the structure for
this, supposedly.
And they just go through an orientation camp
and they go out to different towns.
The Christians will eventually be in contact with
them.
And I may show the slides.
Have you got the refugee slides here?
They've shown them already, haven't they?
Yes, yesterday.
Okay.
But I'm sure you'll get to see those
here one of these days.
So let's thank the Lord for that.
I think I'll end there because there's just
so much, and we don't have the time
because I want to share a little bit
from the Word of God.
We're praising the Lord, especially in our team
that he's given us, not totally, but certainly
and even with a couple of people like
Jim Rogers on leave.
By the way, his wife's mother just went
to be with the Lord through cancer.
We can remember Jim and Elise over in
the States.
I, of course, keep it all day here
giving you O.M. news, especially if we
got into births and marriages and engagements.
I think the most interesting engagement is that
Helen Freel has been engaged to a local
pastor in commentary.
So we're really reaching out in our lives,
though, for the ministers.
I'd like to read a few verses from
1 Corinthians chapter 12.
By the way, what about mechanics?
What's his name?
The one that's getting married.
Sam, isn't it?
Sam and June Fraser are getting married at
the end of the month or next month.
So, we don't know what implications it's going
to have for our garage.
It does seem that the Lord has brought
us a mechanic from Australia so we may
somehow survive.
My vehicle literally exploded when I went to
drive it.
The engine, something blew up and the smoke
went all out and I ran back to
the house to get fire extinguishers.
We've only made 50 pounds of fire extinguishers.
1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 12.
For as the body is one and has
many members and all the members of that
one body being many, our one body shall
also is Christ.
For by one spirit were we all baptized
into one body.
Whether we be Jews or Greeks, whether we
be bond or free, and have all been
made into one body.
If the foot shall say because I am
not a hand, I am not of the
body, is it therefore not of the body?
And then it speaks the same thing about
the ear and other members of the body.
I just want to go on because of
the time to verse 24.
For our comely parts have no need but
got a temper to put together the body
having given more abundant than we should have.
We should have the same care one for
another.
And whether one member suffer, all the members
suffer with it.
When one member be honored, all the members
rejoice with it.
Now you are the body of Christ and
the members in particular.
There's so many things I'd love to share
with you.
I want to above all really thank you
for your ministry here.
I certainly hope that when I was 18
to go off to university next year.
My daughter is 16 working with me this
year.
So she's studying for an extra examination that
she's taking this week.
You can do this in England a year
later and try to make up an examination.
And I hope that when they're grown up
I might be able to come to Zosington
and Liverpice for a couple of weeks.
My wife and I lived here and Zosington
has never lost its spell in my mind.
There's just something about this place.
As I walked down the road last night
in the snow and I looked off at
the lights on the motorway and I just
thought, wow, did we ever dream when we
purchased this that it would be literally at
the heart of all of Europe.
That junction is one of the main junctions
of traffic with all those lights shining back
there.
So now if we could just get our
own plug in we could run all over
Zosington.
And I just believe that this is such
a strategic place in God's program.
And I think one of the areas where
God has given you victory where there have
been many victories one here is in connection
with this whole thing of being a caring
community.
Verse 25, should have the same care one
for another.
I'm sure at times it's been an enormous
strain when so many people have come through
here, when they have been here, living in
your midst and maybe they've been delayed.
Yet from feedback that I have received I
know that in a number of cases the
one or two days that people have spent
here has made a big impact on their
lives.
We live in an impersonal world.
We live in a world now where even
sometimes I go as a speaker and there
is no house to put me in.
They want to check me into a hotel.
There are no believers that want anybody in
their home.
I usually then go find my own friends
and stay in a home.
Almost every case refused to stay in a
hotel especially at the price of a hotel
not judging those who do stay in them.
That's between them and the Lord.
But I know that many have been ministered
to by you and I'm sure at times
the nightmare you must face is the nightmare
of interruptions.
You never find the total easy answer when
it comes to handling your time.
You never will.
Still to me one of the greatest challenges
I had was the use of time.
But so often that interruption is God blessing.
It hurts when people share the opposite.
This has nothing to do with Zoddington but
in another team in another part of the
world somebody tried to talk to someone and
they felt snubbed.
They felt this person didn't have time for
them.
The person didn't even want time.
He just wanted to say hello even a
few minutes.
And that person was hurt by that.
And of course I know this kind of
thing is bound to happen in a movement
this size but it certainly broke my heart
as I read that letter.
He was so upset by this experience that
he wrote two pages to me about two
O-M-ers who he felt would not
give him the time of day and treated
him as dirt.
Wow!
That was a heavy letter.
It happens sometimes people are in a bad
mood sometimes they've had a fight with their
wife in the morning or maybe a cockroach
attacked them in the night and they weren't
even conscious that they just brushed someone aside
and I'm sure I myself have done that
to some degree at least failed to acknowledge
someone maybe impassive going in one direction or
the other.
What a challenge being a caring community Some
of you remember me reading at the conference
in Germany these words which I've written in
my Bible which I think are destined to
become almost a motto or slogan in O
-M.
Because of world evangelism and the reality of
the spiritual warfare we need to agree on
a plan of action and strategy and policy
to carry out that action even when there
are things we don't like or even agree
with.
The Lord gave me this message that I
just shared with my own team and you're
the second group that I've ever been able
to share this with of why it's so
hard to gain and keep people's loyalty in
the 20th century.
In studying a lot of Christian organizations and
talking to Christian leaders so many of them
express they can't keep the loyalty.
We think of the terrific crisis they faced
in the Bill Gothard organization recently.
A movement that was really almost an example
seemingly for so many other movements in the
United States.
Everything seemed to be going so well.
I stayed there with these people just a
couple of years ago.
In fact, I shared with them about the
fiery darts of the enemy.
And those of you who read the Christian
press because this is just public news and
all the press know that this headquarters has
had an ambitious fiery dart from the enemy.
And one of the main leaders has fallen
into adultery not Bill Gothard himself.
Apparently this was with over 10 different women
in the headquarters.
And they all, some of them had asked
to leave, others had left.
This man was removed.
Unfortunately, it was the brother of Bill Gothard.
Bill Gothard took part of the blame because
he knew about this situation for quite some
time but he kept, at least he told
me this on his phone, his very close
friend of mine, he kept thinking his brother
had put things right and so they kept
him in the organization.
But he wasn't right and it just got
worse.
When it exploded, division came in, the loyalty
broke down and 30 staff members had left.
Can you imagine something like that hitting us
in operation mobilization?
We can learn by example, first of all
by God's word.
First of all, I believe we should study
the enemy tactics.
I spend a lot of time reading what's
happening around the world in other organizations because
from it I can learn more of enemy
tactics.
And believe me, if you don't think Zonatan
is on the strategy list of Satan, you
know very little about the spiritual warfare.
Usually what happens is that sin comes in
one way or the other, that sin shapes
the foundation, disloyalty comes in, then major disunity.
It's one thing to stand by a movement
and stand by a leader when it's riding
on a crest.
OM is still riding on a crest.
An unbelievably high degree of credibility, still no
major scandal in 25 years of any size.
I've never had anyone even make an accusation
against me of any significance for 25 years,
which is a very unusual thing.
I'm sure that my desire to stay out
of the limelight and to try to lead
from behind the scenes has been somewhat of
a help.
Needless to say, even within OM, it's hard
to build loyalty.
It's hard to build teamwork.
And there is division within OM.
There's division on some of our teams.
One team right now, I don't know half
their even functioning.
I don't know half their functioning.
And there's divisions in some of the living
quarters.
That, of course, decreases the loyalty, and the
enemy uses that.
A certain amount of this is normal.
Spiritual life is not lived in a vacuum.
It is not lived in the absence of
struggle.
My own family is in a state of
continual struggle.
I have three children, all who disagree with
each other on 50% of whatever the
other ones are saying.
And it's not all mild.
Tempers explode, accusations go across the breakfast table,
and I have now become the quietest one
in the family.
Right.
I sit there absolutely dumbfounded, not a ripple
of fear to God made anything that I
seem to be doing wrong.
If I even restore my nose looking like
I may do something that's not polite.
Daddy picks his nose.
Certainly with teenagers and grown up children, you
have unbelievable opportunity for humility.
My daughter is working for me this year.
She doesn't particularly like the work.
She really likes children and not administration making
phone calls and other things that people have
to do if they work for me.
And in the family letter, the children are
writing their own section now in the family
letter.
They told my wife, I'm afraid too bluntly,
that she should not say anything about them.
They will write about their own lives.
And I tried to negotiate that.
Krista has written in the family letter that
she's sure Daddy will be more patient and
more self-controlled by the end of the
year.
Either that or completely crazy.
And so unity is not it's not something
that comes in a vacuum.
It's not something that comes in the absence
of struggle.
It's something that comes as we talk things
out.
And because we talk it out and work
it out today, it doesn't mean it will
be back tomorrow.
And for most of you, your far greater
challenges in life are going to come.
Not here in
America, not in the United not in not
in the United States, the United not in
not in the United States, not in the
United States, not in the United States, not
in the United States, not in the United
States, not
in the United not in we'll And that
can drive them into some interesting struggles, I
can assure you.
But we're very grateful for what the Lord
has done up to now.
And I think we see in the family,
as we see in Christian work, how hard
at times it is to build loyalty.
Why is it so hard?
I've just written a few things down.
I'm trying not to take long, but I
think this is more than worth the extra
time that we can take this morning.
Because we find this time of the year,
people's energy begins to drop in Iowa.
We find people getting ill.
We find people wanting to leave.
All kinds of things are happening in Iowa
right now.
And it's often linked with their inability to
stay motivated.
If you're not loyal to something, you're not
going to fight for it.
Your motivation goes down, your morale goes down.
Now that's a word some of you may
not know.
Morale, it involves your desire to keep on,
your feeling of unity, your sense of purpose.
And when the team in India, we've seen
this, when their morale goes down, generally they're
always sick.
And that is not just psychological.
Somehow, when the morale goes down emotionally, the
body is unable to resist germs that may
be there all the time.
Or whatever else it is.
And I think this is worth taking a
few minutes to look at.
The first reason why loyalty is so hard
to get in our day is the wide
range of strong emphasis.
Very, very important to understand this.
People come into O.F. with so many
strong ideas.
I think one of the miracles of O
.F. is that we are basically a European
movement.
Because in a single culture, like for example
my own country, the United States, where the
nation is still relatively young, America is still
riding the crest.
In preparation for my meetings in the States
next week, and Canada, I've been re-reading
certain things.
And they feel right now that America has
bounced back from the war.
There's been a new conservatism coming back, a
new sense of purpose.
And it's all an indication that America is
still a young nation.
That's why in America it's acceptable to go
to church.
And 50% of the people approximately go
to church.
And 30 million, or 30%, claim to have
some experience, they call it being born again,
maybe any range of religious experiences.
It's a totally different situation to other nations
that are 500, 1,000 years old.
And from America, we often find the people,
especially if they're older, have unbelievably strong ideas
about eschatology right down to the exact moment
that Jesus is going to return.
There's been great strain and heavy division between
American missions and British missions just on the
point of eschatology.
Major divisions, but all missions in two.
Because in the United States you often have
to sign a doctrinal statement that includes your
conviction on eschatology.
That's the doctrine of the last days.
Are you pre-millennial?
One friend of mine, he will give anybody
$10,000 if they show one verse that
proves a pre-millennial theory.
My other friend, I'm glad they never met,
but very close friends, both big supporters of
our work, he is the strongest pre-millennialist
I know in all of the United States.
He distributes books throughout the entire world teaching
that doctrine.
They live a few hundred miles from each
other.
Fortunately, they never met, and I'm not about
to introduce them.
They're both on the way ahead of being
in their upper 70s.
But also in Europe, perhaps England more than
some of the other countries, people have strong
ideas.
New articles just come out in Buzz magazine,
well worth reading, showing the denomination or the
denominational tree.
I never cease to be amazed at differences
between different kinds of Christians.
A lot of Christians down in Britain are
getting into what they call dancing in the
spirit.
This is a very big thing.
It's not a small thing anymore.
Especially in the house groups.
You go to those meetings and they're dancing
around and praising the Lord.
Their shoes are off and they're having a
great time.
I'm very broad-minded, so it doesn't bother
me too much, except when the girls dress
a little bit.
It gets me a problem when they start
dancing all over the place.
But I don't judge that.
But you have another group of people in
Britain, they are still a majority, who are
petrified, full of this.
Can you imagine someone in the Isle of
Lewis getting out in the middle of one
of the free churches with a guitar and
banjos dancing around?
And if you want to find the end
of the spectrum on religious thought, you'll have
to go to the Isle of Lewis.
And we get these people of different backgrounds,
really, coming into our enemy.
And we wonder.
Some feel all of this is too noisy.
And the rumor is we're a terrorist band.
Others feel, oh, it's so sane and so
reserved.
If only people would be set free.
All these leaders are bound and they're praying
for the leaders to be released.
And I don't know if they want us
to dance on the table.
I could easily do that.
I don't know if Ted would have more
difficulty.
You know, actually, it's good to be able
to laugh about these things, because in many
places people aren't laughing, they're crying.
I think of one church that threw a
lot of people in, and within three years
had over 200 people quit.
One minute they feel they're in the most
New Testament church in all the world.
One year later they're quit, and they're so
burnt out by that hyper-experience, they no
longer can fellowship with anybody.
I'm in correspondence with people like that.
Another reason this loyalty is hard to build
is the overreaction to extremism and to the
cults, to the Jonestown crisis, and to hyper
-spirituality.
Now this, again, is very important.
Very important understanding this.
When you communicate to your parents, your churches,
friends, especially non-Christian friends, everyone should be
able to, just like that, ABCD, show the
difference between a movement like OM and the
cults.
We gave a lecture on this at the
annual conference.
But people are reacting to that.
That's normal.
Some of it is good, but the tendency
is to overreact.
We had a young man on our team
a year ago who began to make two
and two equals eight.
He was lonely, he wasn't sharing, he wasn't
getting it out.
He actually came to the conclusion we were
a cult.
And he went privately to the airport with
money.
He got into the back door and was
about to get on an airplane.
We've only had that once in the history
of OM.
He actually thought we were a cult and
was trying to sneak away.
Somehow we found out, we got to him.
Some of us spent hours just walking with
him.
And he saw that this, of course, was
just a devil trying to use certain things
that went wrong in a book that he'd
been reading about cults and family problems and
other things to cause him to think this
way.
And it got wonderfully resolved and he's very,
very elated for this.
One of the greatest miracles of OM is
that most people leave having had a satisfying
experience.
Who are the people who are pouring their
money into this work today?
A large percentage of them are people that
once came on OM.
They believe in it, they know it's not
a cult, they know it's not extreme, and
they want to support it and they're loyal
to it.
There is a greater degree of loyalty among
prayer partners and extra members than often there
is among people who are with us as
it takes time to build biblical relationships.
Another reason this loyalty is hard to build
is because of language problems.
Even here this morning, for some of you,
you may not understand some of the things
I say.
Those of us who work in our first
language have an enormous advantage and we need
to be careful not to misuse that advantage.
I find that in my family we have
miscommunications because my own children have misunderstood what
I wanted to say.
The other day I was a little upset
with my son because he borrowed a car
and turned it back without any petrol.
And I said, you're going to go out
and put petrol in it.
He was upset because he thought that I
meant he had to pay to fill the
tank as well, which is about nine pounds,
even on a rental.
And I was just saying, you know, I
want you to go out and get petrol.
I was going to pay for it.
Just a language problem.
And we find that when we all speak
English, we have linguistical barriers in the Verwer
family.
How much more if one child was reared
in French, the other child was reared in
Flemish, the other child was reared in Mandarin
Chinese, and they're all learning English.
And they seem to say some sentences very
well, like, hello, so I presume they knew
fluent English.
You could have many, many problems.
The international aspect of OM, the interdenominational and
the linguistical barrier makes it hard at times
to build unity.
Number four, the problem of so many extremist
books.
Books can be a blessing, but there are
many extreme books.
And we find certain temperaments, they read a
book and they think immediately, this is the
answer.
This is the answer to all of our
problems at Zalmton or Bromley.
And I think it's important to read a
balance of books.
It's important to pray through what we read
and compare it with Scripture.
It's important to get the bigger picture.
You read a Washington e-book, normal Christian
life, and boom, really you're into that type
of thing.
And you turn it into sort of a
perfectionism.
But when you read Watchman Nee, and you
see the blunders that he made, the problems
he made.
You know, he was excommunicated from his own
church because he made such a bad business
deal.
He was so in debt.
And God didn't hear Watchman Nee's prayers.
His money didn't come.
The church in China excommunicated him.
He was totally out of things for a
period of time.
Slowly he came back.
Those churches had enormous troubles.
One time they were trying to be friends
with John Sum who was as great as
Watchman Nee.
But some of the new converts in the
Watchman Nee churches, they thought John Sum was
a compromiser.
And so they stood outside John Sum's evangelistic
meetings.
He gave out pamphlets against John Sum.
I heard a man who was a very
close friend of Watchman Nee and is still
in that group.
He's not out, he's still in, share that
this was one of the greatest mistakes they
ever made in China.
Because John Sum then turned against Watchman Nee.
And they then, of course, became and were
treated as an extremist group and still are
in China today to a large degree.
Mistakes are very, very costly.
And extremism is an arch enemy of anything
that has life and has reality.
And then I've just written down here, O
.M. attracts idealistic people.
O.M. attracts, the message of O.M.
attracts people who often are dissatisfied with the
status quo.
They want revival, they want more.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But those very people whom we attract, disappointed
with the spiritual movement, if you're idealistic, is
as normal as getting up in the morning.
On that basis, my whole life has been
disappointed.
Everything.
Nothing has gone the way I envisioned, told
the spiritual life of O.M., loyalty, unity.
Of course, the growth, having things like the
ship, well that's gone beyond anything I expected.
How could I measure that 20 years ago?
But as far as the way people behave,
the way Christians live, the way they respond
to the various aspects of the O.M.
message, it's just never been all that perhaps
I expected when I was 19.
I was very, very idealistic.
Marriage has been the greatest tool that I
have been in.
Because marriage is reality therapy.
You can get it without marriage.
I'm sure Steve Hart's got it without marriage.
I was thinking of Steve this morning.
Steve, you're the longest term person eating in
group.
You know what I mean, eating in group?
Breakfast, you come in here and eat.
To me, eating breakfast with a group is
an awesome experience.
I've had it for years.
I'm not far behind Steve Hart.
Only in the last couple of years that
I eat my breakfast alone with my family
and not in a big group.
And I'm the kind of person, I just
love to choose what I eat.
And now choosing all the time, I hardly
eat anything.
I eat a piece of toast.
At least I'm eating what I want to
eat and not what other people are pushing
in front of me.
One dear lady in India pushed the same
porridge in front of me for over one
year.
The same horrible, which isn't in this case.
Lord bless you.
And I'm sure that Steve Hart, living in
community, probably more than anybody in L.A.,
has had just as much a graduate training
program, especially in the CAO, as I have
had with my family.
But it's through having a family and a
wife and all these ideals about what my
wife was going to be and how she
was going to look all of her life
and all these other things.
By the way, she's keeping that.
She's lost 27 pounds.
And it's almost the exact same weight as
when I married her.
That is a victory.
I will tell you.
But in so many ways we've had to
adjust.
I've had to change.
I've had to come down in my idealism,
what I expect from O.M., from people,
from my wife, from my children, lo and
behold, from myself.
Because ultimately I would have destroyed myself on
the altar of my own idealism, my own
super-spirituality.
And then number six, cynicism.
We live in a cynical society.
I was over at a friend's house watching
television just for a short period.
And there was this awful British program called
This Is Not the News at Nine.
And they made the most vicious attack on
Ronald Reagan I've seen or read anywhere.
They said, Ronald Reagan is a born-again
Christian.
Ronald Reagan believes the Bible is God's Word.
Ronald Reagan believes in the hereafter and life
after death.
And then there was a photo of a
nuclear explosion.
And it more or less hinted that everybody
get ready because he's a war monger and
he's going to lead us all into atomic
annihilation.
Now, that was poorly explained because you know
what they can do on television.
They can just be so shrewd, so cynical.
And this is the order of our day.
And we get a fair amount of people
in O.M. who are highly trained in
cynicism.
My own son in British secondary school is
becoming a master at cynicism.
They specialize in taking the mickey out of
people.
Do you know that term?
There's not many English people, there's a few.
Take the mickey out of people.
And went into a spiritual movement like O
.M. that has its weaknesses, it has its
problems, it has its inconsistencies.
Everything does, everybody does have some inconsistency because
none of them are perfect.
Cynicism can do it.
One upmanship.
And those of us who have been around
a long time, we especially need to be
careful because it can really hurt the young,
more pure-minded, sincere brother or sister.
And then number seven, disobedience to parents.
There's a lack of understanding of submission to
parents.
Many children know nothing of submission.
They join a Christian organization and they do
not know how to submit.
Submission is only tested when you have to
do something you don't like.
And it's only tested really when the person
asking you to submit demonstrates that he is
weak or that he has an inconsistency.
If he is some kind of spiritual superman,
some kind of bionic man, we're going to
be very, very slow in a sense to
say too much.
But the moment we see the hole in
his armor, then somehow we will use that
as an excuse to be disobedient or insubordinate
and to fail to submit.
Of course, again, people are sometimes reacting from
over-emphasis on submission.
There's any area where I think one has
maintained the balance is between submission and freedom.
And there's a real sense that we teach
in this work of submitting to one another.
And then very quickly, of course, Satan.
Satan's hate of reality, his hate of unity,
because he knows that with his reality and
his unity we can move.
So unity among the leaders.
As I know of hardly any major in
this unity among leaders worldwide that is enabling
OM to move like a Concorde jet.
And it is moving.
It's almost moving at times too fast.
My biggest job is not leading any longer.
It's holding back.
Other men have learned how to lead.
They've learned how to pioneer.
They have new ideas.
I don't need to throw out any more
new ideas.
I may from time to time.
My bigger need is to maintain fellowship with
all these gospel car carrying idealists as they
attempt to carry the work across the world.
And we, of course, have to realize that
movement will not be the same 20 some
years later.
There are areas where OM is a little
weaker than it was 20 years ago.
We've got to watch those areas.
But in most areas, I see the work
as being stronger and more mature, though I'm
convinced that life is a constant struggle between
the two.
You never arrive at the point where you're
mature.
I have seen in the past six months
some real errors of immaturity in my own
life.
Anywhere I go, people think of me as
a mature Christian, generally.
There might be these places to speak in.
Most people think of me as a mature
Christian.
But I can tell you, God has shown
me areas of immaturity.
You never arrive.
You may be very mature in some areas,
but be very immature in other areas where
the Lord still has to do a deeper,
much deeper work.
And then number nine, pride.
Boy, that comes out sometimes in family life.
When your children are telling you off, or
your children are, what you feel, falsely accuse
you.
You're the misunderstood father.
You discover there are whole areas of uncrucified
pride.
It's a beautiful experience to go back to
your children and admit that you were wrong,
that you shot off your mouth, you're sorry,
and would they forgive you and accept you
back as their father.
It doesn't quite work like that.
You know what I mean.
And then number ten, well, I've already touched
on that, this whole area of idealism.
But linked with that is the lack of
knowledge of the Scriptures.
Because people don't know the Word of God,
they get blown about by every wind and
tide.
They don't have a balanced understanding of the
Word of God.
So this voice comes along and points out
one verse, and away they go.
And this is another reason I believe people,
often today, are hard to build loyalty, to
build together unity.
I hope that here in Sonomton you have
a commitment, firstly to God, to His Word.
We never want you to compromise.
If we felt for a moment, you felt,
I know I must compromise your relationship to
God, we would arrange for you to leave
any time you want, regardless of any commitment.
Very seldom that's happened.
Secondly, I hope you can have that commitment
and loyalty to one another.
I know it's hard.
I know that people come on the web
today, a number of them are disappointed.
It wasn't all they thought it was.
Even though in the very conferences, right from
the day they walked into the June conference,
the messages, and you can really listen to
it, very much paint a realistic picture of
our life.
And the sharing about failure, about problems, which
I do in every conference, very openly, somehow
they still have a storybook picture.
And then they come for the year, and
there's the problems, and then disappointments.
For some the greatest disappointment is in the
South.
They thought they would respond quicker.
They thought they'd become disciplined quicker, or a
great soul winner quicker, a great man of
prayer, simply by sitting in nights of prayer
for several months.
It would all ruffle up on them, and
they'd suddenly become more spiritual.
It's not quite that easy.
And I just share this with you, that
if God has been patient with me for
26 years almost, with my failures, in my
areas of immaturity, I'm sure there's great scope
for all of you.
Don't be discouraged by your mistakes.
Don't be discouraged that you're not the great
man of prayer, man of witness, disciplined, up
at 6.30 every morning, disciple that you
long to be.
Don't lose that goal.
Don't lose that idea of a goal.
Keep aiming, keep adjusting, but don't let discouragement
come.
There's no reason for discouragement, in all that
God has given us in Jesus Christ, and
His Holy Spirit, and the privilege of being
in this kind of world of evangelism.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that we've had
this time of sharing this morning.
We thank you, Lord, that our loyalty is
firstly to you, even though there are times,
even there, with things we don't understand, how
to express our love to you, how to
be more obedient.
We thank you that you know all about
us, and you love us still.
Lord, I thank you that you give us
the grace to keep on keeping on.
When we feel at times Buffett is beaten
down, we feel the odds are against us,
we feel that there's too many failures in
our life.
We praise you that you're a mercy.
At that time, more than ever, flow is
to us.
Now we can go back to the cross,
be filled with your Spirit, and launch out
once again into the battle.
I give you the praise now in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
I might just say that letters from people
on the Year program have tried to get
priority from me.
I won't be able to get to speak
to all of you.
I'm only here this morning.
Back to the conference this afternoon.
Through the night, speak to the hour team
in London tomorrow morning, and move house.
Finally, I've got the place to several months
of moving the furniture from one house to
another house.
The Lord's provided rent-free.
By the way, we've seen a lot of
miracles in accommodation.
In London.
But don't hesitate to write.
And especially, I think anybody from Southampton would
get a priority in my thinking, and get
an answer.
I couldn't sleep when I got here last
night at 12 o'clock.
I don't know why.
So I just...
I have the most wonderful time just sitting
in bed, dictating letters.
It really is my relaxation.
I find it just the point.
But I really would love to hear if
there's anything you want to ask or share
on the basis of what I've said.