Hey, good to see you.
Wow.
Have a good evening.
Nice to have you tonight and as David
Carroll said, I also want to say welcome
to all the friends of the Sermon Index,
what an incredible ministry the Lord raised up.
Greg, where are you?
Would you stand for me?
I know he's too shy, but when I
saw him, I said, camera, focus on him.
I told him he looked very holy and
saintly.
Greg, blessings on you.
Thanks.
You know, the Lord used him to launch,
I think, along with whoever else he embraced
as his friends.
The Sermon Index, I call it an incredible
journey that he undertook to touch the world,
especially the people of God, with things that
really matters.
And I think he was in India for
a few days and I met with him
and I told my staff here, seldom do
I run into someone that is so authentic
and genuine in their faith and their lifestyle.
The two things are not easily mixed.
And so we had lunch here today and
I talked to him.
You know, I said, you know, the good
thing about you is that you live quite
humbly, but please know that the whole world
knows you.
Do pray for the ministry of Sermon Index.
You know, the early days of my life,
when I joined Operation Mobilization, 1966, toward the
end of that year, George Worwell had a
huge impact on my life.
But then what he did, he introduced Alan
Redpath and A.
W.
Chaucer and significant numbers of God's people I
will never ever meet in my life personally.
But he said, you better listen to them,
read their books.
And my formative years of my life growing
in the Lord, all these great men of
God had huge impact and share in my
growing up spiritually.
So I know what they are doing is
very, very significant.
And this afternoon we were talking about Roy
Hurson.
I mean, when I went out to serve
the Lord when I was barely 17, two
books that was given to me.
One was True Discipleship by William Macdonald and
Calvary Road by Roy Hurson.
And I carried those two books with me
all these years of my life.
And of course, you know, we were talking
about what an impact Roy Hurson had on
the lives of people.
And on that, Calvary Road book is in
80 languages and continued to make huge impact.
And again, in that book, it talks about
true revival.
Now, those of you who are new to
us tonight, as David Carroll mentioned, I will
tell this to you 30 to 30, 40
years ago, Gospel for Asia, the movement that
we are part of, actually started with a
Tuesday night prayer meeting.
My wife, Gisela shared some stories tonight.
And when the Lord called us, I was
passing a church in Dallas.
And when he said, I want you to
walk away from all these things to give
you life on the behalf of a world
that never heard my name, we didn't know
what to do except start praying.
So we have what he called a holy
tradition.
Good tradition.
So Tuesday nights, we around the world, wherever
our people are, thousands of people are gathering
for prayer from seven to nine, then first
Friday of the month, we meet all night
here for prayer and around the world.
And if you have nothing else to do,
which you may walk away from a bunch
of things, join us by streaming also.
And those of you that join us while
streaming, thank you for being part of us.
And I encourage you to think about November
5, that is the next month coming up,
you will be able to tune in and
be part of the all night prayer meeting.
Again, you don't know how to stay all
night long, but you can be here for
two hours with us.
And that'll be a huge encouragement.
All right.
Next 10 minutes or 15 minutes or so,
would you turn your Bibles to the book
of Exodus chapter 3.
In some ways, this is a preparation for
our evening of prayer.
Exodus chapter 3, verse 11.
I'm sure you are quite familiar with the
story of Moses and all the other details
that goes with it, but in this particular
verse, we read like this.
But Moses said to God, Who am I
that I should go to Pharaoh and bring
the Israelites out of Egypt?
Just simple question.
Who am I?
And of course, you know, the beginning of
the book of Exodus is that Moses saw
his call and wanted to help his people
and he killed one of those Egyptians and
then he gets in trouble.
He runs for his life and 40 years
in the wilderness, taking care of dumb sheep,
and finally God shows up in the burning
bush and the Lord says, Take off your
shoes, your sandals, your brooken stock, whatever you're
wearing, and then God speaks to him.
And then, of course, he tells him this
significant statement.
If you are looking at chapter 3, verse
7, then the Lord said, I have indeed
seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
I have heard them crying out because of
their slave drivers and I am concerned about
their suffering.
So, I have come down.
The creator of the universe, the Almighty God
says, I have come down.
But then he turns around and says in
verse 10, So now go, I'm sending you
to Pharaoh to bring my people of Israelites
out of Egypt.
If God is coming down, why does he
need Moses?
Interesting thing, isn't it?
Reading in some of the writings of A.
W.
Chaucer, he said this statement, Every Christian should
be looking to the Lord for something to
do in the kingdom of God and everyone
ought to be asking God to honor him
or her with a job too big for
him.
This afternoon was quite an interesting time for
me.
I am good in telling my problems, I
think.
My people know about it.
If you don't know me, welcome to this
class.
I sent two significant letters out to two
of my friends that love us and know
us in the ministry.
I signed the letters and it was supposed
to go by Federal Express and I talked
to my secretary and said, Did that go?
She said, Yeah.
Then she asked the question, You don't know
the whole background, I don't want to tell
you either.
What happened between the time of my signing
the letters to go and my asking the
question, I was flooded with doubts and confusion.
I was sitting in my chair saying, Is
this the right thing to do?
I don't know.
But I prayed for several weeks and I
sensed that the Lord was in it.
And I said, Oh man, I don't know,
I don't know.
Then I had to remind me again, it
is not by might, not by power, not
by the letter I write, not by the
telephone calls I make.
It is not what I can make things
happen.
I just don't know what to do.
I'm lost and helpless.
And it has to be God.
And I'm so glad she said, It's already
gone.
Because I was so tempted to say, Maybe
you should hold it, don't do it.
I was trembling on the inside.
Now, someday you may find out the magnitude
of this decision that we are dealing with.
But I just want to tell you that
43 years of serving the Lord, I have
seen so much of miracles.
I can write a book with thousand pages
of things I have seen God has done.
But of all these years, I this afternoon
stood trembling in my room, scared to death,
saying that I just don't know.
And I think in serving God, my brothers
and sisters, when we can interpret the ways
of God and what he asked us to
do for our personal life, victory over sin,
struggles, depression, anxiety, worry and care about the
future of finances or our children or ministry,
whatever the Lord calls us to.
If we can interpret all those things with
the limit of our framework.
Again, I remind myself it will remain my
work, not his work.
When God had impressed upon Moses heart that
he was the one to deliver the people.
If he had the mindset that he had
after 40 years of this being alone and
broken and emptied to the place, you know,
in Book of Acts, we read Moses about
him.
He was a brilliant orator, well trained.
But he came to the place and said,
Lord, I cannot even talk.
Please find someone else to do the job.
Forty years prior to that, he was all
able and skilled and all the talents and
all the money and all the circumstances, he
can make it happen.
But then Lord said, you know, I have
to let the people suffer for nearly another
40 years because you are not ready.
You have to go.
It is one thing to take care of
dumb sheep.
They go astray all the time.
But then take care of your father-in
-law's sheep.
That is not very good situation.
But finally he came to the place said,
Lord, I cannot talk.
I don't have the ability.
And then the scripture says, if you read
that God got mad at him and said,
okay, Aaron will go with you.
So here we understand, after 40 years of
this brokenness and being emptied of his self
-sufficiency, Moses said, God, I just couldn't wait
for you to talk to me about it.
I am ready.
I think it will take another 40 years.
But the response is, I just can't do
it.
I can't talk.
I'm scared to death.
And brothers and sisters, you know, these few
days here, our people are here for talking
about revival and all these different, you know,
very wholesome aspirations that we have for our
life and the church and whatever is going
on.
But I think on an individual basis, as
individuals and families, I think the Lord's work
continues in the same way.
That is, he seeks to bring us to
the place of nothingness so he can be
everything.
Why he didn't choose Saul, the man he
handpicked.
He was a giant himself.
You know, I usually call Nathan our giant
here among our staff.
Today, when I saw Greg, I said, Nathan,
you are the midget.
But then, why didn't God pick the brothers
of David, who were tall and strong and
able, well-trained?
The clue, I guess, is this.
When the giant said, David, you little rascal.
That's my interpretation.
You come to me to fight with me.
I'm going to just tear you apart and
cut you into pieces and give it to
birds.
He said, yeah, I know.
You come to me with all your might,
but I come to you with nothing in
myself.
I come to you in the name of
the Lord.
Why God picked Gideon of all the people
among the people of God?
I mean, they were desperate, crying out, God,
save us.
And then he goes and picked Gideon, the
guy who's hiding himself.
And when the angel appeared, he said, me?
Maybe you're talking about somebody else.
I'm not strong.
I'm not able.
I'm scared.
Can't you see what I'm doing, hiding away?
And then, of course, you know, he got
320,000 people coming out to fight with
him.
Big army.
And the Lord said, it's not going to
work.
When it's all done, they will say, it
is by our might, our prayer, our fasting,
our strength, our learning the scriptures, our theology,
our radical views and being extreme on the
right in the political views, we made it
happen.
Then he find 300 people, less than 1%,
facing a Himalaya-size crisis.
And I think tonight, as often we as
a people of God, a community, I call
Gospel of Asia, our people, we are the
community of Christ and we gather for prayer.
And the reason we do that is, one,
to declare to the Lord that we can't
make it our own.
We can't.
You know, there are parents, because you know,
my wife and I raised two children, Danny
and Sarah, and of course, you know, they
grew up, they ran off from us, got
married and they have children, three little critters,
call them, they're cute little kids, you should
see them.
Somebody asked me, so now you're a grandfather,
what do you think about them?
I said, I don't feel nothing, but that's
not true.
I look at their pictures and look at
this, I can't believe they're real creatures.
But you know, those of you who are
here, parents and grandparents and those of you
are watching, one of the crises we all
deal with is that, what on earth are
we going to raise our children in godly
ways?
You can have homeschooling, you can have the
best of books about how to raise your
children, how to be a good wife, how
to be a good husband.
Please understand me, I've been in Western culture
for more than 30 years, so I'm not
naive.
But I'm telling you, with all the teachings
going on, all the how-to-do things,
you will fail miserably until you as a
dad and mom, you come to the place,
in the middle of the night, you fall
on your face and say, God, I'm totally
helpless.
Please, oh God, you are the one who
can raise these children.
And you don't engage in the flesh and
the indoctrination of the Western theology and the
psychology, and you walk away into the deep
nights of waiting, weeping, and praying, and seeking
God.
And the children, when they grow up, they
will say, somewhere, somewhere in the world, it
was not the theology and the homeschooling and
the discipline that made us what we are,
but the gentle, humble, broken walk that we
witnessed in my dad, in my mom.
And I say this to you, we are
living in a culture where we are constantly
bombarded to take sides of this political party,
that party, this theology, this new teaching, this,
that.
Listen, anyone who comes to know God, they'll
come to the place of nothingness and emptiness,
and that is where God begins to work.
So Paul said, we have this treasure in
earthen vessels, so that when all is said
and done, nobody will say, wow, he did
it, she did it.
So for me, as we go to the
Lord and pray tonight with the prayer request
and different things that we share tonight, as
we usually do, another reminder, one, that I
cannot make it happen.
Whatever I'm dealing with, there's nothing in me
that can make it happen.
And God will make sure in eternity, nothing
on the flesh or what I do will
remain.
Second, it reminds me that my dependence is
on the Lord, and he's the one to
do it, and he's able, and he waits.
Let's pray.
Lord, thank you for this evening, the joy
of gathering like this, as your sons and
daughters, what an incredible joy, oh Lord, to
know that we belong to you.
And tonight I pray that you lead us
and guide us in this time of prayer,
and may our hearts be drawn close to
you, oh Lord, and that the things we
say in prayer, Lord, will be because of
your burden, your concern, and our recognition that
you, you alone, oh Lord, will do all
the work, and we are only channels.
Thank you for your grace.
Bless your people, those who are here and
those who are watching us so far away
from us.
May your grace abound.
Thank you.
Father, we say this to you in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.