Does anyone have any question about anything that
they would like to address today?
Anything from A to Z, from evangelism to
marriage, to purity, to holiness, to anything else?
Yes?
Well, first of all, the question is how
are you in the world, but not of
the world?
How do you relate to people and maybe
cross part of the bridge to meet them
without compromising your faith and things like that?
First of all, you have to understand that
the Bible, in many areas, answers our questions
directly.
There is a specific command or a specific
principle.
Then other times, the Bible does not answer
directly, and so we must have our lives
governed by foundational principles.
Now, even if you know the principles in
your head and you have a great deal
of knowledge, you are still in danger.
One of the best ways to describe this
is this way.
Many people really do not renew their mind
in the Word.
And when something comes up in their life,
when they need to know the will of
God, then they take a hold of the
Bible as though it were almost a magic
book.
And they start searching the Scriptures to find
out, has God spoken?
And then, if that does not work, they
come to the point where they kind of
just throw it open and close their eyes
and put their finger down, and all sorts
of things, hoping God will speak to them.
But here is the underlying foundation to answer
your question.
It is found in Romans chapter 12.
In verse 2 of chapter 12, he says,
Do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So, it is going to be hard for
any person to look at a situation, pull
out a principle from God's Word and apply
it, if that person is not building a
foundation of renewing their mind continuously.
As we renew our minds in the Word
of God, what happens?
He says here, He says, Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind, so that you
may prove what the will of God is.
A man who is constantly renewing his mind,
or a woman, in the Word of God,
they are more given to discerning the will
of God in specific situations.
So, the first thing you have to do,
saturate your life in this book.
How do we keep from sin?
The psalmist tells us, he said that he
hid God's Word in his heart.
That is another way of looking at it.
Now, with regard to reaching the world, there
is an error that has literally made its
roots into Christianity.
It began probably with my generation.
And the underlying principle of it began actually
when I was a little boy.
So, it was not my fault.
And it is this.
It is that in order to be relevant,
or to reach out to someone, we have
to be like them.
There is no biblical precedent for that.
I know the passage that is always taken,
you know, To the Jew I became like
a Jew.
But here is what you need to see
what he is saying about that passage.
He is not talking about culture as much
as he is talking about religion.
He is talking in the context of the
Jewish people and the great history that they
had.
That he wasn't going to go in there
and just mow it down and do things
that he now had freedom to do because
it would lay a stumbling block before them.
He wasn't saying, he wasn't teaching that with
this verse it means go out and be
like the world so that you can reach
the world.
But there is a principle, and it started
back with the generation gap, that peoples, people
groups, and age groups are different.
That is why we have segregated learning in
our schools because this age group has to
be taught this way, another age group has
to be taught another way.
This people group, it is in missions, has
to be taught this way and another people
group this way.
This generation, X or Y or Z or
the baby buster, the baby boomer, and all
these different generations, they have to be related
to in a different way and reached a
different way.
I don't find that in Scripture at all.
As a matter of fact, the more I
study Scripture, the less I find it.
What is going to make you relevant to
them and to reach them?
It will be godliness, love, kindness, and service.
I was preaching one time years ago in
this small town, maybe 10,000 people, and
there was a guy sitting there, and I
mean, he looked like the street dude.
I mean, he was as cool as you
could get.
Afterwards, he came up to me after my
preaching.
He goes, you guys understand, Mr. Washer, I
am working on the streets.
I said, man, this town has only got
like 10,000 people.
How many streets do you have?
He said, well, I said, listen, son.
I said, I actually lived in a mission
on the street with street people, male prostitutes
in my room with me where I lived,
drug addicts, everything else.
And I said, when I walk the streets
of Dallas and Fort Worth, I said, I
look like a Midwestern Illinois farm boy, the
very thing that I was.
That's what I was.
And I said, none of those guys, none
of the dealers, none of the prostitutes, none
of those people cared.
Here's what they cared about.
When one of them tried to jump off
the overpass in I-35, I knocked him
almost completely out, wrestled him to the ground
and carried him on my shoulders back to
the mission.
That's what they cared about.
When they were in the hospital in the
emergency room, which is a place we almost
had to go every other week to get
one of our guys back out of it
because he'd been stabbed or something.
And I came in there and hauled him
back to the mission.
Or when I went out and found him
OD'd or laying there drunk somewhere and I
pulled him in.
That's what was relevant to them.
You see?
That's what I want you to see.
As a matter of fact, it's not that
we know everything that they know that's going
to draw them to us.
That we're as wise in the world as
they are, that we know all the lingo
and we know everything.
That's not it.
You know it's going to be innocence when
literally you don't know what they know.
And it breeds out of your face.
They can see it.
You don't know the worldly stuff they know.
You don't know their coolness.
You don't know anything about it.
But you're this transparent, simple Christian.
That's what's going to have the biggest impact.
I remember when I'd been converted at the
University of Texas and I worked as this
waiter.
And there was this guy who was a
Golden Gloves boxer.
I was a weightlifter.
He was a Golden Gloves boxer.
And man, he was always trying to get
me.
I had become a Christian and he was
always just every day, every day just on
me, just pushing me, pushing me.
And one day I was in the kitchen
and he was there and he said something
to me and that was it.
I was carrying a big thing of glasses.
I just set it down.
I said, right now, you and me.
You and me, right here, right now.
I'm sick and tired of it.
And he looked at me and he was
in shock.
And when he didn't come at me, I
just picked my tray up and I went
back out.
You know what the Holy Spirit did.
I went back in there and I was
practically crying.
I said, please forgive me.
Please.
I said, what I did was wrong and
I am so sorry.
And he said, I can't believe you're saying
this.
He said, you really, you're a Christian, aren't
you?
He said, man, I'm sorry.
I'm pushing you all the time just because
of your faith and I'm trying to get
you to...
I just thought everybody was a hypocrite.
You see, that's what's going to matter.
That's what's going to matter.
I remember one time in Peru, Daniel Franz
and I, we were working there as missionaries.
And we walked by one of our neighbors.
We had just first got there.
He was a young guy, about 20.
And he starts talking all kinds of stuff.
Girls, parties, everything in the world.
And I just stood there and he says,
so what do you guys do?
And I said, well, I don't do any
of that.
Used to, don't anymore.
Well, have you done that?
No.
No, I don't know any.
No.
Well, what do you do?
You see, it was the difference.
It was the difference.
I have seen this so often.
And who was the fellow?
David Wilkerson.
He's a perfect example.
In The Cross and the Switchblade, if you've
ever seen that movie.
Just a farm boy.
Goes up into the meanest streets of New
York, I think it was.
And I mean, they should have killed him.
He was a country boy preacher.
And look what happened.
Now he's one of the pastors there in
Times Square.
And so, I want you to be like
Christ.
There's a simplicity and a purity.
One of the things, I used to go
up to this wood mill up in Illinois
to buy wood to make bows with.
And it was run by the Amish.
And now the Amish aren't, just because they're
Amish, they're not Christian.
And many Amish don't know the Lord at
all.
But you'd see those men sit around and
just listen to them talk.
There was such a simplicity and a childlikeness
and innocence.
I mean, they did not know all the
things that really don't improve our mind.
They just contaminate it.
They didn't understand it.
And I was drawn to it.
I was drawn to their simplicity and their
innocence.
And so, if they ask you, you know,
hey man, go out to the bar with
me?
No, I don't.
You don't have to go to the bar
with them to win them.
You want to go to the bar with
me?
No.
Why not?
There's a lot of danger there for someone
like me.
What do you mean danger?
Well, I want to walk with Christ.
And I'm told in the Scriptures not to
put myself in that predicament.
I'm not going.
Really?
Man, that's kind of Puritan, don't you think?
Well, whatever it might be, I don't know,
but I love Christ and He died for
me and I'm not going to put myself
in a situation where I could fall.
And so, that will impact them more than
you going there and kind of wondering the
whole time, I'm in the gray.
Do I do this?
Do I not do this?
But God will lead you.
Just renew your mind in the Word and
He'll show you.
Just a really good thing that when a
drop of filthy water enters into a clean
glass of water, that drop of water doesn't
get cleaner, but the glass gets dirty.
And holiness is absolutely essential.
Purity.
Another question?
Or a follow-up on that?
Yes?
What do you mean by follow-up on
that?
Something to add to?
Well, if you'd like.
Paul and Silas in the book of Acts
chapter 16, as they were arrested, they were
just praising the Lord.
They were just loving the Lord.
It's kind of neat how God worked in
that witness there, in that jail place, in
that slum of a hole.
The Bible says they were just praising God
and God wrought an earthquake and that Philippian
jailer, that man was empty and he was
thirsting for something.
It was God that ultimately converted him.
So it's kind of neat to see that.
Like in Acts chapter 1, in verse 8,
But ye shall receive power after the Holy
Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall
be witnesses unto me.
Shall be.
It's an ends to the means.
It's the Lord God and as a Christian,
a follower of Christ, we're called to love
Him with all of our heart, soul, mind
and strength.
It's just amazing as a Christian, as being
a Christian, and how this world and lost
people, you can just imagine what they see
in that man or woman's life because you
figure being empty or being lost and just
so dreadful, I remember my lost states and
just where I was.
And I remember when I started going to
church, there was a woman.
She just had this piece that I did
not have.
God used that.
And so that's just one of the add
-ons to that.
You brought up a very important point.
One thing.
Someone who's filled with the Holy Spirit, they
are a witness.
And I find that everybody's trying to do
external things to become a witness where if
you're concentrating on being filled with the Holy
Spirit, which means not grieving the Holy Spirit,
you will be a witness.
Another thing is service.
Men, one of the best ways, women, ladies,
one of the best ways to make Christ
known is to be kind and to serve
people.
Serve unbelievers.
Bless them.
I mean, it will literally shock them.
You live in a world where that just
doesn't exist.
Okay, another question?
Boy, I need to go back to India.
Yeah?
What does it mean to walk in the
Spirit?
To walk in the Spirit.
Walk in the fear of the Lord.
Okay.
We can go to a classic passage.
If you go to Proverbs 1, verse
7, the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of knowledge.
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
We see here a couple of things.
First of all, we see that it's an
attitude.
It's an attitude toward God.
So, first of all, it's going to involve
the knowledge of God.
You can't have a proper attitude toward God
unless you have a proper knowledge of God.
Secondly, we can see here that it is
related to wisdom and instruction.
So the fear of the Lord is going
to be a proper attitude toward God, proper
response of heart toward God based on a
true knowledge of God and based upon instruction,
which deals with also commands, your attitude towards
God's command.
And so it will be proper knowledge and
a proper response in obedience.
Now, the fear of the Lord, a lot
of people will say, well, when it says
fear, it means reverence.
Well, that's true, but it doesn't mean reverence
without fear.
You see, I remember one time that I
had gotten really, really scrawny and Charo and
I were back from Peru.
I was probably weighing about 175 pounds or
something.
And we went into this gym in town.
And all of a sudden, this man walked
in.
It was early morning.
It was just Charo and I.
And this man walked in, kind of scarred
in his face and things.
And he was about six foot, I don't
know, six and had to go at least
270 pounds, somewhere around there.
And he looked mean.
And he looked over at me and I
just thought to myself, all right, this is
going to be interesting.
And I actually thought in my mind, okay,
what do I do?
If this guy tries something, I can't whip
him.
So I was just making my way over
to the dumbbells because I figured I'm going
to hit this guy with a 10 pound
dumbbell.
And he looks at me.
He comes straight across the gym right at
me.
And I just put my hand around that
dumbbell.
I thought, you know, I'm going to get
one swipe at this guy.
And he went like this.
Hey, my name is so-and-so.
He turned out to be the nicest guy
in the world.
Now, when I looked at his power, his
strength, everything about him, it was terrifying.
When I realized that man could break me
in half.
That man held me.
Literally, he could hold my life and the
life of my wife in the palm of
his hand.
He was a monster.
His power made me afraid until I knew
that he was good.
And then, it had a way of balancing
itself out.
I would have been terrified if it wasn't
for his goodness because his power and his
strength was so great.
In the same way with God.
He holds you in the palm of His
hand.
Have you ever just sat down for a
moment and tried to imagine what it would
be like if the God that you worshiped
that you knew in Scripture was not good?
Do you have any idea what that would
mean?
The very God who created the universe with
a Word and He's not good.
It would be better that you had never
existed.
Never.
And so the fear of the Lord is
as you study the attributes of God and
you begin to see who this God is,
it would literally terrify you if it were
not for the fact that you're also learning
how good He is, how loving He is,
how kind He is.
And so you have this healthy fear and
yet confidence growing up together.
To walk in the fear of the Lord
is to walk in the reality of what
the Bible says about Him.
Who is He?
And what should be your proper response?
The Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer wrote a book
years ago, How Then Shall We Live.
If you have a correct, biblical view of
God and you respond according to that view
in obedience, in submission, seeking to please Him,
then you will be walking in the fear
of God.
You will be walking in the fear of
God.
Now, if you go into the book of
Proverbs, and I would recommend you do this,
just get a concordance and look up fear,
fear of the Lord in the book of
Proverbs and you'll find out that it will
define many things.
Part of the fear of the Lord is
to turn away from evil.
It's to turn away from evil.
Now, I just want you to look at
the ramifications of fearing the Lord.
It's kind of the same thing as the
ramifications for the glory of God.
You see, if I recognize God's infinite value
above everything, then it changes everything.
It changes my desires, the direction of my
life, the things I'm going to think of.
It changes everything.
In the same way, if I walk in
the fear of the Lord, it just changes
everything.
Okay?
One of the things that it will change
that this is something that has been a
principle in my life.
I had someone come to me one time
and they said, it was after I preached,
they said, you've got to be the bravest
man in the world.
And I said, what do you mean?
He said, everybody in this church right now
hates you for what you said.
there are some people I think here that
would beat you up right now.
And I said, well actually, I'm not the
bravest man in the world.
I'm probably one of the most insecure and
frightened men you've ever met.
He said, then how did you get up
there and do that?
I said, it's relational.
He said, what do you mean?
I said, let's say that there's a little
kid about this big, a little girl.
She's about this tall and she weighs about
25 pounds and her arms are no bigger
than little toothpicks.
And she wants to fight me.
And I won't fight her.
I won't fight her.
Because I'm scared.
And you find me crying over in a
corner.
What would you think about me?
He said, man, I think you're pretty much
a coward.
I said, right.
I'd be pretty much a coward, wouldn't I?
What could make a coward like me jump
up and fight her?
He said, well, I don't know.
I said, some burst of self-will, some
burst of strength.
What could make me do it?
I just collect up, I get psyched up,
I get motivated and I go out and
fight her.
What could make me fight her?
He said, I don't know.
I said, I'll tell you what could make
me fight her.
If her dad walked in the room and
he was six foot eight and had muscles
coming out of his ears and was a
mixed martial artist and everything else and he
looked at me and said, you've got a
choice.
You fight her or you fight me.
I said, now I'm going to fight her.
I haven't gotten any braver.
Do you see that?
I haven't gotten any braver.
My character really hasn't changed.
It's just a matter of, I've got to
fight somebody.
So I'm taking the weaker of the two.
It's the same way.
You've got a thousand men out here that
hate you, you stand your ground.
Why?
Because those thousand men compared to the God
who created this universe, they're nothing.
And if I've got to fight somebody, I'm
going to choose the weaker of the two.
And the weaker of the two is any
army on this planet compared to God.
And so, here's something, and I know we're
getting kind of off course here, but here's
what I want you to see about Christian
strength that most people don't understand.
When you see, I suppose there are certain
Christian men that do a lot of bold
things because maybe it's just in their character.
They are bold men.
But I have met in most cases and
seen in history that men who have done
the boldest things have been the weakest men.
Now I want you to think about something.
Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is
pressing forward violently and the violent take it
by force.
Now what does that mean?
Does that mean that these violent, self-willed,
strong men who are just determined are going
to just break their way into the kingdom?
Absolutely not.
Well, what does it mean?
It means this.
You take the three strongest men in this
room, could all beat me up with no
problem.
If they all got together, they would have
no problem in fighting me.
None whatsoever.
But if we change the scenario around a
little bit, I could probably kill all three
of them.
Well, how do we change the scenario?
Well, if those three men walked up to
me and started fighting me, they would put
me on the ground in a second.
But let's say that I was out in
the ocean and I was swimming and I
was drowning and I was going down for
the third time and I was insanely desperate.
I mean wild.
And all of a sudden, you three biggest
men, you jumped in to save me.
You know stories of guys who have literally
drowned two or three guys that have tried
to save them.
They drowned them out of just sheer desperation.
That's where the violent coming in and entering
by force.
You see, it's not strength of will or
determination.
It's realizing if I do not enter in,
I'm going to die.
I have no place to go.
I have nothing else.
I am going to go to hell.
I am going to perish if I do
not enter in.
And it's that desperation that makes someone strong.
You see, your greatest problem is that you're
too strong because you don't get up in
the morning and say, if I don't pray
an hour, I'm going to die.
If I don't read the Word, I'm going
to act like just a troll to my
wife.
I'm going to be a monster.
You see?
The problem is is that we're too strong.
We're too strong.
The fear of the Lord, you sit there
and temptation comes.
When we fight temptation, for example, the classic
passage is the book of James.
And right after speaking about temptation, it's amazing
that he says that every good and perfect
gift comes from where?
The Father of lights whom there is no
shadow, there's no shifting, there's no variation.
So one of the greatest motivations to help
us defeat temptation is God's good.
Satan puts something out in front of you
and you say, I'm not going to take
that.
Why?
Because God's good.
You're offering me a counterfeit.
Whatever you're offering me is secondary.
It's far inferior to what God would offer
me.
So I reject it because God is good.
I also reject it because of what God
has done for me.
I have been redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb.
I can't betray Him.
But I also reject it because of fear.
Fear in two ways.
First of all, I do fear sin.
Remember what God told Cain.
Sin is crouching at the door like a
wild animal.
Sin is crouching at the door.
And its desire is to have you.
So a fear of sin.
Let me give you a perfect example.
When I was out in Montana several years
ago, I walked in this store and there
was this little girl there.
She couldn't have been more than 5 foot
2 or 3.
Just a little tiny thing.
And she's about 20 years old or whatever.
And they started telling me how she had
killed a huge grizzly bear.
And what she had done is she had
come into where they have these corrals where
they're out in the middle of nowhere where
they'll bring all the cows in and bring
them into that corral.
Well, she was working out checking cows and
she came to this corral and it was
pitch dark.
And as she got off her horse, she
heard that grunt right behind her in the
dark.
She knew what it was.
She pulled the rifle out of her scarab
or whatever.
She cocked.
She turned and she fired just from the
hip.
And she didn't hear anything else.
But she didn't know what was going on.
It was so dark she couldn't see.
She had no idea.
Have I shot the bear?
Have I not shot the bear?
What?
And a grizzly, one swap of it would
take your head off.
And so she laid down with her back
against the corral like this with the gun.
Her jacket was up in the saddle.
She was freezing.
It was cold.
But she was so terrified that if she
moved one inch to the left or the
right that that bear might pounce on her
that she sat there all night and almost
froze to death.
But she sat there because she was terrified
of what that beast would do to her.
That's the same way you and I ought
to be about sin.
You should not be as nonchalant or as
bold about sin as you are.
You should not.
I wasn't so much terrified today to go
to the campus to witness.
I was terrified to go to the campus
today with regard to what I might see.
Do you see that?
And I'm an older man.
But that's what I want you to see.
So there's the fear of sin.
But then I don't want to sin.
I want to reject that temptation because of
the fear of God.
You see, the Bible tells me to fear
Him.
It is a healthy fear.
It is a sound fear, but it is
fear.
As I shared Sunday, the difference between the
fear of immorality and the fear of morality
in this sense.
A little boy goes to his dad with
a picture that he's drawn.
He says, daddy, look at my picture.
And the father looks at it and says,
oh, that's wonderful.
So the next day, the little boy has
boldness and he goes back and shows another
picture to his dad, but his dad's in
a bad mood.
So he knocks the picture out of his
hand and smacks the little boy across the
room.
The little boy fears his dad because his
dad is inconsistent, immoral, all sorts of things.
Do you see that?
We do not fear God for that reason.
We fear God because He is consistent, and
we're not.
Listen, years ago I was teaching on discipline
to a family member, and they said, well,
you don't want your little boys to fear
you, do you?
And I said, yes, I do.
You see, these little boys know that I
would die for them, and they know that
I love them, but I'm not their brother.
I'm their dad.
And they know if they do wrong, it
can be terrible.
It can be terrible.
And that's a healthy, healthy thing for them.
They know their daddy will die for them,
but they also know their dad will discipline
them.
Okay?
And so walking in the fear of the
Lord.
Now again, let's look at that.
You can't walk in the fear of the
Lord apart from knowing Him.
And can you see now what's wrong with
Christianity?
How much, how many sermons, how many books,
how many Bible studies are dedicated just to
knowing God?
You know, you can have all the principles
in the world, and you can be brilliant
and memorize every one of them.
They're not going to help you.
Well, to help you, you may be as
dumb as a stick, but if you know
who God is, it will do a lot
to make you holy.
It will do a lot.
Okay?
Well, let's have one more question.
Anything else?
About marriage.
We haven't talked anything on marriage or anything
like that.
Okay, we're going to count down.
If we don't have one, we'll...
One of the things that if you look
in the Old Testament, you see men being
tremendously led of God.
Guys like Abraham, Moses, Jacob, so many are
being led of God.
We don't see them like the king of
Babylon cutting open a liver and casting lots
and trying to figure out which road they're
supposed to take.
The first thing you must recognize, if you
are a child of God, God is going
to lead you.
Boy, that takes a lot of pressure off.
That doesn't mean we can be nonchalant about
it, but He is going to lead you.
And what's amazing is, not only is He
going to, He is.
And most of the time that He's leading
you, you don't even know it.
He's moving you.
He's putting you where He wants you to
be.
And He can do that because He's the
Sovereign Lord.
So He's like...
When we went out today to do witnessing,
I hadn't thoroughly thought about where I would
stand.
And I didn't even really think, wow, I
just heard God's voice.
He told me to go stand over here.
But where I was standing, when I got
done, I realized, man, that's the very place
I needed to be standing.
You see that?
So God's providence will lead you.
I see, particularly students, and I did this
when I was young, I'm always worried about
the decretive will of God when I was
young.
I was always worried about the decretive will
of God.
What has God decreed for me?
In the sense of, what has He decreed
with regard to where I should live?
Or what my major should be?
Or who should I marry?
Or all these different things.
The Bible tells me that instead of looking
so much at the decretive will of God,
which is often hidden and a great mystery,
that I should look at the perceptive will
of God.
And that is, what has God commanded me?
And if I will concentrate my life on
studying what God has commanded me, He will
lead me.
He will lead me.
He will.
Because part of that, in studying those commandments,
I'm going to be renewing my mind.
Now, I have a very childlike way of
looking at the will of God.
And I'll share it with you.
And I learned part of this actually from
something I heard John MacArthur say one time.
Someone called him up a few years ago
or something like this and said, we want
you to come and preach at our church
maybe in view of a call or something
like that.
You know, to come here and maybe be
our pastor.
And we just want you to pray about
it.
He said, I don't need to pray about
it.
He said, it's not God's will.
And they said, how do you know it's
not God's will?
He said, because I don't want to do
it.
And they said, well, that's kind of arrogant,
isn't it?
You know, or something like that.
Here was his point.
And I want you to think about this.
He said, the Bible tells me in Romans
12-2 that if I'm renewing my mind,
I will know what the will of God
is.
The Bible also tells me to seek first
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
And the Bible also tells me that God
will give me the desires of my heart.
He said, to the best of my ability,
by the grace of God, I have settled
the question of what am I seeking.
I am seeking first the Kingdom, and by
God's grace, what He asks me to do,
I'll do.
I've settled that issue.
Secondly, I am renewing my mind in the
Word of God daily.
And third, God has given me the desires
of my heart.
Now, a lot of people just go to
the last one.
Well, it's all about my desires.
God's given me the desires of my heart.
They're not renewing their mind seriously, and they
haven't settled the question about doing anything.
That's what you need to do.
Settle the question.
God, by Your grace, to do whatever You
want me to do with my life.
Secondly, I am going to work synergistic.
It's a work of two cooperating together.
God is working in your life.
You are working now as a believer, working
out your salvation in fear and trembling.
Memorizing Scripture, studying the Scripture, renewing your mind,
walking in holiness.
Okay?
Then, you will see that when those things
are really accomplished, God will give you the
desires of your heart.
I love the outdoors.
When God called me to Peru, I knew
that I would be spending most of my
time in what was known as one of
the worst cities in the world.
A city of 8 to 10 million people
of the dirtiest smog you've ever seen.
It's cleaned up a lot since then.
It's really nice.
But it was during the war and everything
else.
It was the exact opposite of me.
But here's the thing.
I was renewing my mind in the Word
of God.
I had settled the matter of what would
I do.
And when God called me there, He also
gave me the desire.
It was amazing.
I had the desire to live in Lima
and be in Lima.
Then, God took me out into the jungles
and I spent a lot more time in
the high jungles that I loved.
I loved it there.
Running mule trains, carrying Bibles, preaching.
I didn't have to organize anything.
I just went from village to village preaching.
And I was the happiest person in the
world.
And one day, I was standing in a
place between Egenio and Tambalic way up in
the mountains looking across at a waterfall.
It's my favorite place in the world to
be.
And at that moment, I realized something.
I don't want to be here anymore.
I want to go back to the United
States and organize a mission.
It was the desire of my heart.
Okay?
So, if you do that...
Now, another thing about the will of God
that's very practical is years ago, I realized,
I'm exhausting myself.
I'm literally exhausting myself by trying to figure
out what God's will is all the time.
And so, this is what I said.
I said, Lord, and this is the way
I prayed, Lord, I'm exhausted.
I can't keep doing this.
This is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to keep doing exactly what I'm
doing right now.
And I'm going to keep doing it until
you make it so clear to me that
I need to do something else that I
know if I don't do it, I'm in
sin.
But up until that moment, I'm not even
going to worry about it.
I'm going to renew my mind.
I'm going to follow you.
I'm going to try to obey your commands.
And if you want me moved out of
this situation into another, then you're going to
have to make it so clear to me.
Because here's what will happen.
You'll be walking around that campus and you'll
be in such a funk about where you've
got to be and what you've got to
do and what God wants that you'll pass
a hundred people that maybe you could have
witnessed to.
You see that?
The devil can get you so distracted.
I have discovered that if a man or
woman will dedicate themselves to doing God's commands
and doing whatever ministry is in front of
them that God will lead them.
And most of the time, you'll ask them,
man, how did you get here?
And they'll go, you know, I don't have
a clue.
I don't know.
I was just working and God moved me.
You know, God moved me.
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