Lord, just help us in this difficult subject.
I feel I still have so much to
learn.
I've made many mistakes.
You've sent special angels just running around me
picking up the pieces and brothers and sisters
as well, but we must not run away
from this subject.
So difficult.
Some of us have had some real failures.
We really thought we had your mind.
We ran down the street and hit our
nose on a brick wall at the end,
but we believe you're going to help us
in this very practical subject.
You're going to lead us in different ways.
We commit this to you now in Jesus
name.
Amen.
Before I speak on this subject, I'd like
to just mention that there is a gold
mine of instructive literature available, a lot of
it free.
I think one of the greatest advantages of
spending a few months around OM, I really
mean this, the literature you can get your
hands on, not just books, but literature like
this little tract called not to be ministered
unto.
Probably one of the most in-depth spiritual
challenges ever put in print comes out of
the Keswick convention many, many years ago.
More people have probably come into a new
life in victory and power through Keswick than
almost any other movement in history.
The impact of Keswick across the world is
still being felt.
I read many of the old messages from
Keswick in my quiet time or for study,
and this is one of the most powerful
I've ever read.
We just keep reprinting more and more, twenty
thousand, fifty thousand, and God is using that
little leaflet.
Get a copy from the free literature table
just down from the book table.
Here's Dale Roton's study on fasting in the
Bible.
He did it years ago.
In our early days we were classified as
extreme on the subject of fasting.
It is of deep concern to me that
the pendulum seemingly has swung to the other
direction, perhaps running away from extremes.
I just wonder how many of us continue
to practice fasting.
Is it biblical?
That will help you.
Here's one on how to prepare for a
conference.
Here's one on the use of films.
I find there's only a tiny minority of
people in OM who have a vision for
the film ministry.
Everybody likes to watch a film.
We can't even find people who know how
to run a projector.
The audiovisual department is down to zero personnel.
You can be sure we haven't been rushed
with applications, but we're not giving up.
I can tell you the brothers in India
are not giving up.
Some of you know about this ministry.
This is called Operation Super 8, some information
about one aspect of the audiovisual ministry.
OM in the beginning days, and we still
do, had a very radical view about purchasing
property.
We must have almost stood alone in our
conviction that we should not get involved in
purchasing property, homes, and lands.
Mission organizations seem to go into that as
quick as anything.
We're not judging others.
But the Lord led us that our money
should be put into the word of God,
Bibles, Gospels, tracts, booklets, and for direct evangelism,
and to trust him to do the impossible
and find us places to meet.
We had pressure to buy a permanent conference
center so we could all be more comfortable.
Our conferences wouldn't bring such suffering upon the
poor young people of the affluent society, who
are under such strain.
We never did that.
So we've had 20 years of watching God
supply for a fraction of what you normally
pay for conference facilities.
This is a little memo, thoughts on why
we should not get involved in buying property.
I'm sure most of you, without that little
push, would never pick up such a memo.
Here's one that's even more important.
Manners.
OM at times has been accused of being
an ill-mannered lot, as if OM in
one month's summer crusade could alter your manners.
I can tell you, as far as the
summer comes, you come in sloppy, you go
out sloppy.
But we believe that manners, common courtesy, learning
how to say thank you, learning to eat
properly, is important, because it can miscommunicate.
And we hope that some of you will
read that if you haven't already.
Then we have such radical epistles as our
point of view by the OM kids.
This is unbelievable.
They're asked what they want to do in
the future.
They're asked other important questions about life on
OM, all by the children.
It gives their age.
This is about one year old now.
And you can get some insights into OM
that I never had until I read this,
even about my own children.
So there it is, our point of view.
Visit the literature goldmine.
There also are leadership manuals available.
You are not entitled to two of these.
They cost money.
We're conservative in the use of trees.
And if you already have one and you
don't have it here, you can borrow one
of these.
This actually says Sue Hassel on it.
I found it on the table.
You can borrow one of these and then
give it back at the end of the
conference.
I'm saying for some of you may have
one back home, so you don't have to
have two of them.
A lot of material, and that isn't considered
with Oswald Sanders' book, the textbook for this
conference.
Books.
Now someone's going to say, oh no, you
mean you're going to push books when none
of us have any money to buy anything?
We're joining the year program.
Most of these books you'll find in the
book department on your team.
I hope some of you will volunteer to
be in charge of the books on your
team if no one else volunteers.
It's a key ministry.
Because if you think of every OMer just
automatically grabs books when he goes out, you
obviously haven't been around the movement too long.
You've got to have methodology.
And the man in charge of literature is
a key man on any team, making sure
the right literature is there.
You know the prices.
I'd love to have a whole session on
that.
I'm mentioning these books not to all run
out and buy them.
You probably have more books right now than
you can read.
I hope you are taking all notes.
When I used to have more say in
these conferences, everything's delegated now, everybody took an
exam.
In fact, I used to make people take
exams before they could come on the OM
year program.
And several people were sent home at the
end of the September conference because they failed
the exam.
We interviewed them to see if the failure
in the exam was an indication that their
life was messed up, and often it wasn't.
So we asked them to go home and
come back next year.
I don't know, maybe someone will spring an
exam on you.
OM is full of surprises.
But I do hope you will take notes.
And I hope you'll write the titles of
these six books because these are books I
hope you will begin to use in your
ministry.
One of the purposes of a leadership conference
is to try to begin, you know, we
don't want to be too idealistic, is to
begin to get you out of spiritual babyhood.
In literature, spiritual babyhood means you're usually thinking
about what books you want for your library,
what books you want for your own spiritual
growth.
Nothing wrong with that.
You need spiritual food, I'm not judging you.
But as you grow up, you start thinking,
what books can I use to minister to
others, to give to others?
And I just feel that some of you,
as a result of this week, are going
to want to use literature more.
You can touch lives with literature that you
will never touch, and I don't care if
you're the best personal soul winner that ever
walked.
I was involved in personal soul winning before
I had a great vision for literature.
I led many people to Christ, even those
who did not want to come to Christ,
accepted Christ when I presented it, sometimes.
And I learned slowly the tremendous value of
the printed ministry in preparing people for real
conversion.
God just so wonderfully uses literature, also in
the lives of believers, to build them up.
Here's some books to use in your ministry.
Parents in Pain.
When I mention this book in a meeting
of adults or parents, generally every copy on
the table goes.
People are crying out.
Most parents have at least one child away
from God, including most men of God and
great preachers.
And it brings much pain into their life.
This is a book for parents who are
in pain over children who are away from
God.
It's a book that needs to be read.
I'm in the middle of reading it myself,
and it's very, very helpful.
These books are not only for your own
need.
Again, I stress that, but you want to
read them yourself so that you can have
some of this material to use in counseling.
Other years I've given a whole message, I'd
love to do it this year, on the
ministry of counseling.
Maybe someone else will cover that.
It's absolutely essential that the leader is a
counselor.
It doesn't mean you're a professional counselor, but
you're a good listener.
You've got a little bit of common sense,
the best thing a counselor could ever have.
You're willing to read and learn from the
word and from other books, and you can
give wise counsel.
That's linked with this message tonight on decision
-making.
Then how to win over depression, the number
one illness in Europe, depression.
It's right that I've been told by medical
doctors, others, now there are different kinds of
depression.
Some are mainly spiritual, some are mainly emotional,
some are spiritual and emotional, some are mainly
physical, some are spiritual, emotional, physical.
It is a complex area.
None of you are going to be in
God's ministry of counseling without counseling a depressant.
Any information you can get I'm sure will
be a help.
You don't have to accept it all.
There's a book that I think you need
to read.
Michael Griffith's book, Take My Life, a book
we all should be distributing to any young
person who's sort of just drifting in their
Christian life.
They don't know where they're going, they don't
know what discipleship is.
This in many ways, especially for the British,
better than true discipleship.
Take My Life by Michael Griffiths.
I'm sure most of you have read it.
You know, we presume that everybody in LM's
reading Tozer, but you know the human heart
is very deceptive.
I've had people tell me, always encouraging, the
very fact that I recommended Tozer, they decided
they weren't going to read any Tozer.
Boy, that really set my spiritual battery on
overcharge.
Fortunately, I think they are a shrinking minority
group and we're determined to drive them all
into the sea.
But we hope you will get some of
these books by Tozer and be involved in
distributing them because God wants to speak to
us as a movement through that man's writings.
I've had two letters from Alan Redpath in
the past week, one reminding me that he's
given the whole month of December in 1982
to ministry within LM, probably on the doolets.
His books do not sell very well.
He's a greater preacher than a writer, but
I have found both his preaching and his
writing very, very helpful.
Alan Redpath, this is his book, A Making
of a Man of God.
And lastly, a book that really, really has
inspired me, The Total Man.
If there's anybody that ever did not embody
the total man, it's me.
This is not to be classified with the
book, The Total Woman.
But if any of you men want some
amusement, read the book, The Total Woman.
You might wait until after you're married.
This is a very much simpler book, more
down to earth, more basic.
I don't agree with everything in this book.
It's somewhat nationalistic in some ways, but it's
good.
Your personal fitness program.
And I thought that tomorrow morning, since I've
had two mornings of tennis, and that's chewing
up part of my quiet time, that tomorrow
morning I would jog with any poor soul
who would like to jog at 6.30.
My friend, Jack Forrester, where is Jack?
Stand up, Jack.
He's going to wake me up.
I sleep out in a van and we're
going to jog.
And tomorrow morning, because of the new liberty
that's come into OM, we're going to have
mixed jogging.
That's right.
Women can come.
Now, we would like you to come properly
clothed.
No see-through t-shirts, just jogging, one
of those running suits.
They're okay.
We'll meet out by the field at 6
.30 if you already have your personal exercise
program.
If this is against your religious convictions, you
don't have to come.
You don't have to come.
But I believe in personal fitness, you don't
have to jog.
There are many other personal fitness programs, but
we'll look forward to seeing some of you.
I've hardly ever jogged with any girls, but
we made a mistake once in a Mexico
crusade.
It was a sort of a slip, and
several girls showed up to jog personally with
me the next morning.
And that had never happened before.
And amazing enough, I met this one girl
who jogged around the streets of Mexico with
us at a Bible college in Canada.
And I said, I know you from somewhere.
Where was it?
And we had jogged together in Mexico.
After the jogging, I'm going to give a
little talk out in the field about personal
fitness and teach you some other stretching exercises
and wake-up exercises that will be an
encouragement to you the rest of your life.
So we'll look forward to that tomorrow morning.
Now let's see, where are we?
Decision making.
Boy, you got some decisions to make.
I was looking through the book of Acts,
and I was thinking on how these men
in the early church were constantly pressed to
make all kinds of important decisions.
It must have been one of the most
difficult tasks that they faced.
For example, in Acts chapter 5, they were
beaten.
They were brought before the council.
They were commanded not to speak in the
name of Jesus.
And then we read verse 42, and daily
in the temple and every house they ceased
not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
They had to make a tough decision, a
decision that could have cost them their life.
And they did it.
In chapter 6, the women were murmuring because
they weren't getting enough food.
Grecians against Hebrews.
And so they had to make a decision,
and they had to choose seven men, honest,
full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, to appoint
over this business.
You know, the hardest thing I find at
a conference like this, the hardest thing, it
comes to my mind at least every hour
of the day, is that there's not enough
time.
I once read a quotation that the man
of God often lives in the constant sense
and is haunted, that's the word he used,
haunted by the lack of time.
I find this is a great thing in
my life, so much I want to do,
so much time I long to spend in
the Word and in prayer and in reading
and in writing.
And I've got about ten different books I
love to write, and I'm not even a
writer.
I think if I could get alone and
get someone to help me, and I've got
ten people volunteer to help rewrite my things,
I could do it, but there isn't the
time in the job and what the ministry
God has called me to now.
Plus, I just, every time I think of
it, feel that my job is distribution, not
writing.
And here at the conference, some of us
are haunted by the lack of time.
We have to, as leaders, these men have
flown in from the ships, they've flown in
from India, we have to meet this time
of the year, two or three hours every
day, starting Friday, 15 hours a day for
four days, including a day of prayer.
That means to some degree, of course, we
can't have more time with you during the
first week.
As soon as that's over, we'll be more
available.
We are already, to some degree, we'll be
more available, most of us, to just meet
with as many we can for prayer, for
counseling, and I hope you'll understand that.
And as I read about these men in
the Book of Acts, I realize they had
many of the same problems.
They had special meetings in Jerusalem to discuss
their problems, to make decisions.
One of the biggest decisions in the Book
of Acts, what was it?
To decide to let Gentiles into the church.
The church in its very seed stage was
Jewish.
They were all converts from Judaism.
My understanding that the Grecians and Hebrews referred
to here are all Jews.
These are Greek proselytes.
It's later on that the door is open
to the Gentiles.
What a decision!
So don't think, beloved, when you have to
meet in a committee, or when you have
to get together with other leaders to discuss
and resolve problems, that's some unspiritual thing.
You should be out giving tracts out during
that time, or be out preaching, or be
out doing something else.
I hope you do that as well.
I do.
But it is biblical, it is scriptural, it
is New Testament, whatever word you want to
use, to meet together, to make decisions, and
to resolve the problems that are in the
church.
Stephen then, of course, went out.
He made this big decision that cost him
his life.
He probably had some other things to do
at that moment.
He was one of the seven.
He was supposed to be a practical worker,
but he made the decision at that moment
to go out into an open-air ministry,
and he never came back.
I was thinking about Hebrews chapter 11.
Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11, and
thinking about the people there.
This is a great summary of men of
faith.
Abel had to make that decision about what
he was going to offer to God.
Cain had to make his decision.
Cain's decision was wrong, Abel's was right.
Well, frightening, isn't it?
Some people find making decisions almost impossible.
Do you know one of the reasons young
people drift into these very manipulative type extremist
groups where the leaders at the top make
all the decisions for everybody?
Because for some temperaments, not all, I can
assure you, for some temperaments this is a
tremendous release.
They're unable to make their own decisions.
They're unable to take life in a sense
by the throat and do what needs to
be done.
So they fall into false cults or extremism
where somebody else makes all your decisions.
I want to tell you right now, O
.M. is not going to decide for you
either who you're going to marry or where
you're going to go or whether you stay
with us or leave us.
We can give counsel.
We can give advice.
You have to make the final decision.
You stand before God.
You live your Christian life before God, firstly,
not before men.
You can listen to the counsel of men.
We are part of the body of Christ.
It's not a matter of each one shooting
off doing his own thing.
And it's an area where we constantly work
for balance.
We never finally arrive.
When you first come into a movement in
your first year, probably you are going to
be quite submissive.
Once you make your decision to come, you're
probably going to be somewhat submissive as to
what you do and where you go.
In O.M., our method of leadership is
negotiation.
Of course, once you commit yourself, suppose you
commit yourself to be a lineup man on
the ship.
Well, once you make that commitment, you've lost
a certain amount of your liberty.
I see a big smile on somebody's face
in that department because you can't say, well,
I really feel led to line up this
particular port in southern Australia.
The ship is not going to southern Australia,
so what are you going to do lining
up a port there?
There has to be the negotiation.
Certain jobs demand sacrificing some of your liberty.
Marriage means that.
I think that's a problem with some of
the contemporary women.
I just throw this in as a side.
It's not the main message.
They want the best of both worlds.
They want all the advantages of the single
life.
You've stopped crying on your pillow and start
whistling.
The freedom.
No husband telling you what to do, what
to cook them, wash my trousers, where's my
clean shirt.
Don't you realize this?
Tremendous freedom.
But the day you stand at that altar
and say, I do, especially if it's a
normal evangelical Bible-believing man, you have just
sacrificed a very interesting chunk of your freedom.
Now you still have freedom.
Don't misunderstand me.
I am not a male chauvinist.
I have even a deep, intrinsic link with
the women's liberation.
I believe they should all be liberated from
their sins by the power of Jesus Christ.
But the Bible says that we're to love
one another.
The Bible says that we are free.
Book of Galatians, only don't use the freedom
as an occasion to the flesh.
And just to keep all of you men
from running into a tangent, when you get
married, you also give up a chunk of
your freedom.
There is no real happiness in marriage without
sacrifice, without giving up in order to get
something, which I believe for most people is
greater.
In the book of Hebrews, we have Abel
making his decision.
We have Enoch who made his decision.
He made it daily.
He walked with God and so God took
him.
I think he made the right decision.
We don't get much in the Bible about
Enoch, but it seems to me from my
understanding of God's working, he was constantly plagued
with making decisions and yet all of his
life he seemed to make, at least to
a large degree, the right decision.
He walked with God.
We read about Noah, an enormous decision to
build an ark.
We read about Abraham, a great decision to
go out not knowing where he was going.
And whether it's Isaac or Jacob or Joseph,
think of the decisions that Joseph made, especially
when he became prime minister of Egypt, where
Moses, who it's recorded in verse 25, chose
rather to suffer affliction with the people of
God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin
for a season.
And then Rahab, and then who can begin
to speak of these other heroes, all who
made constantly important decisions.
Some decided not to be delivered and of
course they suffered trials, mocking, scourgings, moreover bonds
and imprisonments.
We're going to deal with some other things
along that line later on.
I've just written in my Bible, I have
this habit of writing in my Bible, things
that I don't want to forget and I
don't want to lose.
And I just jotted a few notes about
how to make a decision.
This is a practical thing.
Here at this Leader's Conference, we want to
give you things that we're not going to
be able to give at the General Conference.
If you're going to be a leader of
any kind, you must know how to make
decisions.
A leader is decisive and we need decisive
people in the work of God.
Decisiveness is linked with fearlessness.
Decisiveness is linked with courage.
Joshua, more than anything else, it's recorded in
the Word, was exhorted to be courageous.
We're told to stand strong in the Lord.
On the other hand, as we make decisions
about the work of God, about other people,
about our own lives, I don't believe we
are to turn off our brain.
I understand that the Witness-Lee Extremist Church
Group has a teaching in which they emphasize
that for true spiritual life, you must learn
to turn off the mind.
This is something quite common in some groups,
an emphasis on super-spirituality, where you turn
off the mind and you just turn on
to God, supposedly, and mystical experiences.
Vibrations and you get carried away in supposedly
find God's will through that.
There is, I believe today, an overemphasis on
the spectacular in finding God's plan.
We have many people waiting for special prophecies,
revelations, color slides in their sleep.
And, personally, I think some Christian organizations are
being torn apart because of an overemphasis on
spectacular forms of guidance.
I don't believe the fleece message, method used
in the Old Testament, is something we sort
of just go around doing every day or
every week.
I'm not saying God doesn't confirm things in
a miraculous way.
I can tell you that gift that came
in a few days ago, the way it
was designated, the way it came to me,
the fact that in an unusual way the
check was written out to me, which is
sad, doesn't happen much in O.M., was
a confirmation of a number of rather big
decisions I had made in the past six
months.
And it just was enormous.
In the past two weeks, I've been praying,
Lord, I need a seal on some of
this money that's being spent on some of
these projects we're launching on giving away thousands
and thousands of books when we don't have
any money to give away books.
When we started giving away 2,000 copies
of Love Covers and sending them postpaid to
Christian leaders throughout the entire world, it was
a bit of a gamble.
And I wrestled with this and a number
of other expenditures, literature projects all over the
world, some of them not absolutely necessary.
And I was praying and asking God for
some kind of token.
And I prayed specifically for a large gift
and that the gift would not be for
something like, say, for the ship or for
some other aspect of the work where, of
course, I have nothing to do with it.
It just comes and goes.
I can't pull 5,000 pounds of that
and use it to pay for books.
The Lord led us, I guess mainly me,
a couple of us, to give a large
quantity of books to youth with a mission
recently, French books, with the idea when they
sell these, they can use the money for
their ship.
I got the invoice for this just before
I left England.
I thought, Lord, I don't have any money
to pay this invoice.
And I was crying out to God in
desperation.
Now, when I thought the Lord would send
a token, I must be honest, I was
thinking, you know, five grand, 10,000, you
know, you don't see much of that kind
of thing within a land.
And so you can understand why I flipped
out slightly.
Please forgive me for my behavior.
Some of the children were offended when, you
know, I got this check.
And this check was marked George Verwer, personal,
in the envelope.
And it was just there on my pile
in my van.
And I opened it, and I prayed to
the Lord, 1,000 pounds, look at that.
And then this is the truth.
Wow, this is 10,000 pounds.
Because it was just one with all these
numbers.
There were zeros.
And it was only when I got to
the writing, the writing underneath, you know about
checks, and it said 100,000 pounds.
Well, God does do the unusual.
But you will not survive in your Christian
life if you expect to just live from
one unusual thing to the next, one fleece
to the next, one blessing to the next.
William Carey said we need plotters.
We need plotters.
We need people who can keep moving on
when there is no spectacular, when the money
is not coming in, when it's nothing but
problems, as we read about in the last
chapter of Habakkuk.
So I'm convinced that in our decision making,
we should use our heads, use our minds.
And it's a tremendous challenge to find the
balance between trusting God for the impossible and
using common sense in making a decision.
We can't just quickly run around, for example,
ordering things, presuming the money is going to
come in later on.
Hudson Taylor believed in seeing the funds come
in in answer to prayer before purchasing.
Because of the business aspect of OM, the
literature aspect of OM, we're not quite that
conservative.
But I can tell you, know our policy,
we are not moving from here in one
month's time unless all overdue bills are paid
and things are up to date.
It's difficult to find the balance.
What are some practical principles?
Very quickly in these remaining 15 minutes, and
then you're going to get a cup of
coffee or something, at least water.
Number one, these are some questions you can
ask.
I put this in the form of questions,
things that I can run through my mind
in a matter of a minute when I'm
making a decision.
And let me just say this before I
give you the list.
I believe, and I have seen some of
the most wonderful, beautiful Christian leaders make some
of the most disastrous, ridiculous evaluations and decisions
in their life.
In fact, most do.
So if great Christian leaders with all their
knowledge and all their prayer can make such
disastrous decisions, which in some cases destroy their
ministries, you know, don't be too puffed up.
Let's get what we can.
First question, you might ask yourself, how long
will it take?
Whatever you're planning to do, whatever you're planning
to go, what project is involved, how long
is it going to take?
You remember Luke chapter 14?
Count the cost.
I've seen in OM people launch projects without
counting the cost.
And I will tell you, we have had
some interesting little disasters in operation mobilization.
I've led some of them.
Count the cost.
Right now, OM is so big, it has
grown so quickly, and has so many internal
problems that every move we make, some want
Quebec, some want North Africa, some want Argentina,
some want South Africa, some want Australia.
There's another 15 major moves that are on
the table right now for discussion.
I want to tell you, some of the
few of you senior leaders are here, every
move at this stage in OM is going
to cost.
It's going to cost.
Luke 14, 33.
And this is a time, I believe this
year especially, in which OM needs to count
the cost.
Our talk about the Muslim world can be
big.
Where are we going to be married families
out in the Muslim world when our children
are 13, 14, and 15?
How many of us are still going to
be there?
I just talked to a brother from Italy.
You know what he's told me about all
the ex-OMers who went to Italy because
of our great vision for Italy?
You know what he's told me?
Most of them are coming back.
Five more couples returned to England in the
past six months.
That's just Italy.
It costs.
Cross-cultural, long-term, in-depth missionary work
costs.
There's educational problems.
There are all kinds of things that we
don't always see on the surface.
For six years the Lord led us, at
that time a few of us, to count
the cost, what it would mean to launch
a ship for world evangelism.
For two years, the first two years after
God gave the vision, there was almost just
a handful of us that even believed it.
There was not a single crew member.
At that time at OM, I knew more
about ships than anybody in the movement.
I was reading everything I could get my
hands on.
I was touring ships in many different countries.
It was only after visiting ships, one of
them I remember in Gothenburg, the Scoggin II,
that God confirmed the vision he gave in
the little converted pub up in Bolton, Lancashire.
So for two years there was the counting
of the cost.
Then the Lord gave a couple of crew
members, including Graham Scott, and for four more
years we counted the cost, we prayed, we
evaluated, we listened to the criticism, listened to
the criticism, and in some ways let the
vision almost die, and it was a battle.
I think one of the toughest decisions in
my life was when we bought that ship.
The initial reaction to that ship from two
brothers that visited was it definitely was not
God's ship.
And I had to go back after a
summer of combing the world for ships, when
we made this decision in a summer conference,
though things were still dark, there were still
problems, we still didn't even have the money,
and that ship cost less than that one
check we just got.
We decided full speed ahead we're going to
find a ship.
Peter Connell was looking all over Greece, I
went back to Copenhagen, and I walked through
that ship, and at that moment a couple
of us made the decision, this is it.
I will tell you I was scared.
But if it's wrong, do you know what
it can be to get the wrong ship?
I knew just enough about ships to realize
this could be the greatest nightmare in O
.N.'s history.
And I tell you the first couple of
months of that ministry, it was a nightmare,
as Satan tested and purged and attacked, the
tow rope towing the ship from Copenhagen broke
in the sea.
And the other problems there's not time to
go into.
How long will it take?
Maybe a very small thing, maybe a very
small thing.
Some of the same methodology I use for
big things, I use for small things.
Number two, this is the biggest question of
all, will it glorify God?
Will it glorify Jesus Christ?
Is there a possibility that it's an ego
trip?
Is it a possibility that you're trying to
just get ahead, just be somebody, just get
some recognition, evangelical recognition?
From the earliest days of O.M., God
gave us a strong word about motivation.
I've always felt that the motive was more
important than the action.
That's why I never had difficulties.
If this is a boast, forgive me, maybe
I did have difficulties that I've forgotten.
But I never had difficulties doing the simplest
jobs.
I don't think we could ask any of
you to do anything here that I haven't
done many, many times.
Be it toilets, peeling potatoes, washing thousands and
thousands of dishes, whatever it is.
What a joy.
For Jesus, everything is a joy.
Nappies.
Americans call them dippers or diapers or dupers
or whatever.
And the Bible clearly says, whatever you do
it, do it heartily as unto God, all
to the glory of God, not just the
big things.
God didn't lead us into that shit ministry
in the first year, first five years, or
the first ten years.
He laid a foundation, little things.
My life is filled with little things, not
big things.
And so is, I'm sure, the life of
many of you.
Will it glorify Christ?
No, when you have the privilege of doing
something and nobody knows about it but God.
Boy, that's wonderful.
It's hard to do these days with the
Gospel Gazette, people running around with cameras.
In England, you give out two tracts on
the street corner, somebody will take your picture
and put you in the paper as an
evangelist.
Things certainly have changed, haven't they?
My heart just breaks sometimes when I pick
up some people's Christian propaganda and I find
the director's face on every other page.
I just can't believe it.
I don't judge the man.
It just seems to be the order of
the day.
Will it glorify Christ?
Is not much of what goes on today
in the name of Christian work strong, stubble?
Will it not all burn on that final
day where everything will be judged and where
motive will be considered the most important thing?
Was it for the glory of Christ, the
glory of God, because we love him, because
we want to obey him?
I don't want to put you into a
double guilt trip.
I'm not saying everything has to be perfectly
motivated.
You'll go crazy if you try to be
perfect in the area of motivation, but at
least we should be moving in that direction
and quick to repent whenever wrong motivation, the
glory of man, your own ego, pride, evangelical
status-seeking, reaction from your own insecurities, whatever
keeps you or keeps that situation from bringing
glory to Christ.
Thirdly, is it biblical?
We need to be constantly asking ourselves, is
it biblical?
And we need to search the scriptures.
We need to know the scriptures.
Fourthly, what are previous cases and examples?
When the Lord led in regard to the
ship, I studied about George Whitfield's ship project.
It was a disaster.
George Whitfield made a number of disasters.
His biggest one was his attitude toward women.
Unbelievable, unbelievable.
And God was merciful.
All these great men of God made a
lot of mistakes.
You read about George Whitfield's movement in North
America.
You think we have extremists in OM.
He had some men following him who were
totally insane.
That's right.
They caused more scandal for the early revival
in the New England states than you can
ever imagine.
I mean, it really wouldn't be too good
if we had someone here who kept running
into the meeting claiming he was Moses.
I mean, some of you could lose, you
know, our credibility might drop, especially if it
was somebody like McCrosty.
The awesome problems that come, especially it seems
at times when revival comes.
Then I researched the New Tribes missionary ship
project.
They had a ship, an American mission, one
of the most criticized missions in history.
They used to whip people out of Bible
school faster than they could get, you know,
to the library.
They'd be out on the mission field.
They crashed two airplanes, killed two loads of
missionaries on airplanes.
That warmed my mobilization transportation heart.
Including the director of the mission crashed in
one of the planes.
We had a man come into our conference,
a great man of God, DeVerm Frompke, and
I think it was 1966.
That message alone was enough to finish OM.
Boy, he talked about how God prepares people
for a great work, and he was talking
about 10 years, 15 years.
Any of you remember DeVerm Frompke's message?
Gordon, do you remember?
Anybody?
Boy, I remember it.
He almost was on one of those planes.
He belonged to New Tribes.
The Lord, he told how the Lord led
him out.
I had always liked the New Tribes mission.
They actually learned through those experiences.
Now they have one of the most intensive
boot camp training programs and other language schools
and all kinds of schools before you ever
go to the mission field with them.
Sort of the pendulum went back a little
bit.
But they had a ship, and I think
it got stuck on a sandbar somewhere, and
they found out they couldn't get the right
papers, and they eventually decided that ships were
not their thing.
Yes, there were plenty of discouraging factors.
We consulted some of the top Christian shippers
in Europe, at least two or three of
them.
All negative.
So in studying the previous cases and examples,
we might have decided that this was not
God's way.
Someone suggested to me some years ago that
we get a jumbo jet for Jesus.
Jumbo jets were selling cheap.
They were sitting out in Arizona.
Why not?
Just, he had a list.
He had it on paper.
And he said to me, this really discouraged
me, O.M. has been the greatest inspiration
for my project.
I want to tell you, without the control
of the Holy Spirit, the ship project has
the potential of spreading more crazy ideas than
any other ministry afloat.
Anyway, not many ministries do float.
And I talked to this man, and I
prayed about this jumbo jet idea.
I constantly have had people come to me
about these airplane things.
Then this fellow came to me, what about
a submarine for evangelism in depth?
If you think we are lacking, if you
think we are short of new ideas coming
across my desk almost every week, I can
assure you, you can come and join our
ICT and help process the post.
I could use someone just a specialist in
answering crazy letters.
After a few months, he would probably be
a little funny himself.
We need wisdom.
We need to evaluate.
We need to examine the facts.
People often ask, where did some of these
great visions come from?
The vision for Turkey.
Was it something spectacular in the night?
Did I go to Turkey and catch the
vision?
Some people give the idea you can't have
a vision for any of these countries unless
you go there.
I want to tell you the burden for
the Muslim world, burned in our hearts almost
as hot as it does tonight, before we
ever left Moody Bible Institute in Wheaton College,
apart from the few of us that had
gone to Mexico.
The vision for Turkey came in the library
of Moody Bible Institute, doing research on Turkey.
Yes, of course, it is better to go
to some of these countries, and that certainly
increases the vision, but God can give us
a vision as we pray, as we examine
the facts, as we use the minds that
God has given us.
Fifthly, how much will it cost?
For every Christian work today that's launched and
is successful, there are four that collide and
crash to the ground, and a high percentage
of them with economic problems.
I've read some very good articles about it,
and presumption can come in.
If the Lord gives Operation Mobilization 100,000
pounds, well certainly God can supply this 20
,000 for my new house.
Thank you, Lord, you are the God of
Operation Mobilization.
I'm trusting you.
You go down, put the deposit on the
house, and you pick it out.
You tell the man, you've read about how
George Mueller went to the railway station.
God supplied the money just as he walked
to the ticket counter, no money in the
pocket.
You are the God of George Mueller and
the God of Hudson Taylor, and you walk
down to the real estate agent the day
the money is due, and you say, in
the name of the Lord, you're going to
look pretty funny.
Five hours later, the real estate man's liable
to call somebody to take you away.
God leads different people in different ways.
Don't talk about what God did in George
Mueller's life until you read his whole life
and see all that happened until he got
to that point.
The first praying I ever did for money,
I will tell you, the amounts were very
small.
The amounts were very small, and it was
provided in unusual ways, and you know one
of the ways I believe God wanted to
supply money for me?
Probably due to my father.
I believed in working.
I said, Lord, give me a job.
I was selling books door to door.
I had a few other little jobs.
Lord, give me another job.
I got a job in answer to prayer.
It takes prayer to get a job.
Living by faith doesn't mean you're unemployed trusting
Jesus to bring in the money through all
of his people.
It may mean getting a job, and this
day it takes faith to get a job.
I prayed for a job.
The Lord gave me a job.
It was a miracle teaching Spanish.
I couldn't even speak Spanish.
The guy I worked for was crazy.
He had about 35 cats.
I don't know if he could speak Spanish
either, and that's the truth, and people came
to him.
He ran an ad in the paper, Learn
Spanish.
He hired me and paid me a very
good fee.
People came in.
They didn't know any Spanish at all, so
I could teach, you know, yo hablo espanol,
tengo esto, and todo esto, and all the
rest.
I was praying away.
Some of you have heard this story.
I love to tell it.
I was coming home from teaching Spanish, praying
for finance, worshiping the Lord.
I was driving my father's car, and a
fox dashed out across the road, stepped on
the accelerator.
Boom!
I hit him and collected $20 bounty on
that fox.
It may have been more or less.
I don't have the exact amount of money.
Now the craziest thing you could do tonight
is because this is the way God led
me, is to run out into the parking
lot, jump in the first O.M. van,
and start looking for foxes in Belgium, and
yet somebody may do it.
How much will it cost?
Are you ready not just to pray and
believe God for a miracle?
Are you ready to work?
If God gives you that ministry of supporting
his work, of working hard, and then number
six, we've got to move quickly, who will
be involved?
That's very important.
Each decision, who will be involved?
And if it's other people, you need to
pray with them, you need to talk with
them.
Don't presume that everybody's just going to agree
with you.
You've got to know how to get other
people involved.
You need to know how many people it's
going to take.
Number seven, what are the possible dangers?
Again, counting the cost.
Every move we make in a movement like
O.M. has possible dangers.
In a movement of God, we need a
balance of people.
If you have all optimists, you're guaranteed you'll
go off the rails into all kinds of
trouble.
If you have all people who are only
very realistic, you'll probably never do much.
You need the balance.
But I think we need to ask ourselves
the questions.
What are the possible dangers?
One of the reasons is because when something
really bad happens and people start getting hurt
or even killed, that can happen, people panic,
people panic, and they start making accusations.
When the first teams headed for off for
India in those early days, they only got
to Switzerland.
We had no garage.
They were repairing the vehicles in the field.
It was snowing.
It was terrible.
Things went wrong.
There was no money.
We were in debt.
And people began to panic.
Some said the Holy Spirit has left O
.M. Several people left us just like that.
They believed the movement was finished.
Others felt that there was a lack of
humility.
A whole group then broke out with mumps.
Surely this was the judgment of God upon
O.M., mumps.
They had to put several people with mumps
in one part because the Swiss medical people
got, you know, Switzerland, they don't believe in
illness, and they got the medical people and
they were quarantined.
And in the little room where they were
quarantined, one brother came up with the idea,
we're not humble enough, we're all going to
wash feet.
And there was one of my closest friends
there, a dear, big, big, strong, smiling black
brother.
And I will tell you, nobody was going
to wash his feet.
He thought this idea was, he might have
been right.
But I will tell you, you will never
know to some degree what you're made of
until you're in an emergency situation, where the
pressure's on, where things look bad, where some
are saying the Holy Spirit has left us,
where others are shouting something else.
The man of God is a man who
can keep his head when everyone else is
losing theirs.
You may not arrive at that destination overnight,
but I hope you'll aim in that direction.
I am.
I'm not convinced I'm even there yet, but
I have it as a goal.
What are the possible dangers?
Eight, what are the misunderstandings?
Every time we speak, there's potential misunderstanding.
We can't be afraid of that, but we
can work to keep them down to the
minimum.
In a movement like OM, because of the
size and the complexity, the possibilities for misunderstanding,
I would say in the past four years
have tripled.
I've seen more misunderstandings in OM this year
than any year in the history of the
world.
Maybe it's because more is happening.
There's certainly more people, more projects, more visions,
and it gets very, very complex.
The same is true in the smallest decision
you make on your team.
And if you're going to be a decision
-making or a decisive person, you've got to
know how to communicate and constantly work toward
breaking down misunderstandings.
Let your team members know why you're doing
something.
Give them reasons.
Don't just dictate, you do this, you go
here.
Give them the why.
This is one of the reasons we have
a conference like this, to give some of
the why, some of the reasons.
What are some of the next questions?
Some of the possible complications.
Then, what are some of the possible alternatives?
Consider the different alternatives.
One of the most important factors in making
decisions is the realization that it is very
easy to be subjective.
Somebody has hurt us and our decision will
be affected by the hurt that they have
inflicted.
It's an unusual man of God who can
learn to be more and more objective in
his decisions and less subjective.
We need to make sure when we're about
to make a decision that we're getting all
the facts or as many of the facts
as possible.
It's better to wait a little, get a
few more facts before you make a decision,
especially about people.
People are complex.
Don't make instant evaluations about people.
If you feel you have a special telepathy
in instantly evaluating people, personally, I would prefer
not to have you in Operation Mobilization.
I think you'll be a menace because you'll
probably get an in-ego trip.
You'll probably get proud.
You may have a special insight into people,
but without humility, without brokenness, without the cross,
without the control of the Holy Spirit, that's
a dangerous thing.
And if you get five right and one
wrong, you may destroy one.
That's enough.
I'm very, very, very, very cautious when people
give special prophecies about a particular dangerous thing
that's going to happen to somebody.
A man gave a prophecy that his, that,
what was that I heard in one country?
The prophecy was that this friend was going
to die and he was going to marry
his wife.
He was also already married and that this
was made in public.
I mean, if you get some screwy ideas
and you share them with your pillow, the
Lord bless you, may you wake up more
sane, but not in a public meeting to
throw out some little vibration.
These things are not generally from God.
They're just man-made, soulish, human intuitions or
vibrations or something that may be dealing with
the area of the psychic.
Many people get the spiritual confused with the
psychic.
And I believe God wants OM to be
a movement that is heavenly minded, but somehow
is anchored to this earth, thinking through, praying
through, being objective, getting the facts.
And then as God fills our heart with
faith, that means waiting upon Him.
That means much waiting upon Him.
We take the step of faith and we
believe God.
And even then at times He will test
us, even after we've done everything else.
We sense this is God's way and we
take the move of faith.
We still must be ready for any surprise
God wants to give.
And we will humbly be willing to go
back to the cross and start again.
I think the most important thing I can
say in closing is no one is going
to learn this way of making decisions without
many mistakes.
My whole life is a long history of
mistakes.
If you can aim at getting your average
better and better and better, I think there's
a great possibility that you can be mightily
used to the Lord in making decisions which
sometimes only affect your own family, other times
affect your church, other times affect whole nations.
Some of you have to decide where you're
going to spend your life.
That's a big decision.
It will determine perhaps the destiny of whole
tribes, billions of people.
I think decision making and finding God's will
is one of the most exciting, unpredictable, filled
with surprises, adventure we can ever get into.
And if you aren't excited about finding God's
will and making the right decision and seeing
God do great things because of the decisions
you make, well, you need to just bow
your head right now and say, Jesus, forgive
me.
I'm a dummy.
Maybe you don't like that terminology.
Use some other more pleasant terminology.
Let's pray.
Oh, God, we just thank you for your
mercy toward us.
When we have gone down some dead-end
street, you've still loved us and you've gone
with us, even though we failed to hear
your voice.
Lord, you know some of us don't want
to make any more decisions.
Lord, I have trouble sometime in the morning
determining whether to change my socks or not.
Lord, I know some of the single people,
they've been trying to make a decision about
who they should marry and the range has
been getting narrower every year and they're about
to quit.
May they be encouraged.
May all of us somehow be encouraged not
to give up in our desire to be
committed, decisive, dedicated individuals.
That we may not somehow exchange our backbone
for a wishbone.
That we may stand firm and that we
may learn your ways and your will and
how to be soldiers and how to be
leaders to help lead your church in decisive
action against the enemy, in penetrating enemy territory,
in tearing down the strongholds of Satan.
We cry out for fearlessness and for wisdom
and discernment.
In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ,
amen.
Amen.
To him
be all the praise and all the glory.
Amen.
Just a half moment of prayer.
So you're seated.