Ephesians chapter 6.
We're following along our general theme of survival
in the 80s.
The other term, for those who like more
spiritual terminology, perseverance in the 80s.
How to keep on keeping on.
How to avoid the devil, the devil's minefields.
How to maintain the spiritual glow, pressing on.
We've seen the importance of spiritual balance.
We've seen the absolute necessity of really knowing
Christ is Lord, absolute Lord of our lives.
And what it is to be in God's
race, with our eyes fixed upon the Lord
Jesus, and laying aside every weight and every
sin that could possibly hinder us.
And we've seen the importance of love and
relationship, serving one another.
And we've especially tried to think how we
can put some of this into practice in
this camp ministry that the Lord has called
us into.
I hope you will review the material you
have received, because really we're here not to
just throw out a challenge, but to teach
in a way that hopefully you will be
able to take these things and teach them
to others also.
And that's one of the purposes also of
making these cassette tapes available.
So, Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord,
and in the power of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God, that
you may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil.
What strong terminology is that?
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places.
Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of
God, that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day, and having done all
to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girded about with
truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, your
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel
of peace.
Above all, taking the shield of faith, with
which ye shall be able to quench all
the fiery darts of the wicked.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God.
Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance.
There's that key word again.
With all perseverance and supplication for all things,
and for me.
That utterance may be given unto me, that
I may open my mouth boldly to make
known the mystery of the gospel, for which
I am an ambassador in bonds, that in
this I may speak boldly as I ought
to speak.
We've got a crisis.
We've got a little insect crawling around in
this class.
I believe that you can get that insect
out of there.
Okay, well my voice is giving me a
little difficulty.
I'm supposed to only be speaking twice a
day, but I always say, well Sunday is
special.
What a very, very strong chapter in God's
word.
Have you ever wrestled with this chapter?
I wonder if you imagine this as a
military camp.
Stranger than they seem, as I look out
the window right now, you're probably never going
to forget this.
It reminds me of a camp I visited
in Poland just about one year ago.
I was ministering in Poland.
It was called Auschwitz.
Now that is an initial impression just from
the side of that one brown building.
The fact is, once you examine the two
camps, there is no comparison.
I don't know if you've ever visited one
of the concentration camps that are preserved as
museums.
If you're ever over in Eastern Europe, by
the way, there's a great need for workers
in Eastern Europe.
The coordinator of our work in Eastern Europe
lives in Wales, in Reel, if you want
to go see him.
What an opportunity there is there, especially for
British people, a lot easier than for Americans.
It was just about a year ago I
was in the Soviet Union again, and I
wish there were time to just share just
that experience I had there in the Soviet
Union.
And I will never forget that visit to
Auschwitz.
What has happened there can never, never be
forgotten.
War is a very real thing.
It's a very ugly thing.
It's going on right now as we sit
here so peacefully.
Iran and Iraq have lost a couple hundred
thousand.
Many who are fighting in that war are
only 16, 17 years of age.
It's a holy war.
They consider the Iranians especially the greatest privilege
to give their life in the service of
Muhammad out in the front lines of the
Iran-Iraq war.
In Lebanon, we had to evacuate our team
a month ago because of the war there.
They've now gone back.
In Salvador and Nicaragua, we're having guerrilla warfare,
we're having fighting.
But when you read about it, it's just,
it's overwhelming.
We wonder what is going to happen next
in South America.
The history of our planet, whether we like
it or not, is a history of war.
And during the war, there were many places
similar to this all over Britain, some for
POWs, some before that time for American military,
some for British military.
And it's interesting to go and visit those
camps.
When I lived in England, when I first
came here, for a short time, I lived
in a military camp in a place called
Chigwell in the east end of London.
We were the first group, I think, since
the war to actually stay in that camp
through the winter.
And that's where my son was born, my
second son, and I'll never forget that particular
experience.
The truth is, this is a military camp.
And this summer, whether you like the terminology
or not, or whatever you may decide to
do here, it is going to be and
is a military camp.
Why?
Because every follower of Christ is referred to
in the New Testament as a soldier of
Jesus Christ.
So if some who come here are believers,
and I believe many who come here are
believers, according to the Bible, they are soldiers
of Jesus Christ.
And this emphasis of the believer as a
soldier is greatly, greatly neglected in the Church
today.
I don't know if you've ever read that
little poem based on armored Christian soldiers, that's
reworded, backward Christian soldiers.
I won't read it now.
I think it's in my first book.
I find it a little depressing, and perhaps
it's too cynical.
You remember, Paul, when 40 men signed a
pledge that they would not eat until he
was dead?
Once he got back home to Birkenhead, Liverpool,
a couple of days' time, there's a little
note waiting for you, signed by 40 of
the people in your neighborhood.
We hate you, and we are not going
to eat until you're dead.
You'd probably think it was a practical joke.
But what if you knew, in the light
of your ability to stir up hatred, what
if you knew that this wasn't a practical
joke, this was for real?
How would you emotionally handle that?
No doubt you'd probably write and sign up
to come on Operation Mobilization and live in
London.
Or China.
You know, when we read these things in
the New Testament, because it's so unreal to
where most of us are living, we actually
relegate it to evangelical fantasy.
We don't really believe that people are going
to live this way.
We don't really believe there's actually a war
going on.
We don't really believe there are actually weapons,
and there are minefields, and there are enemies.
And so we create a Christian fantasy, and
we teach it on the flannel graph to
the children at Sunday school.
You know, David and Goliath, that's a great
story.
And we have the little flannel graph figures,
David with his sling, knocking Goliath out.
All the little boys and girls sit there
at Sunday school.
And sometimes, when we're involved in teaching Sunday
school, we are telling those children that which
is in no way a reality in our
own lives.
And that is one of the greatest dangers
for this camp.
That you will be mouthing off to all
these young people, you leaders, you responsible people,
that which is in no way a reality
in your own lives.
You may have a little Bible study on
prayer.
The importance of prayer, how to pray.
We all should have our quiet time.
If you have your quiet time, you're going
to grow.
If you pray, you're going to be able
to accomplish great things.
But can you say that that's a reality
in your life?
Are you going to be teaching that from
experience in front line spiritual combat, or are
you going to just be repeating something that
you've heard from somewhere else?
Keep your place in Ephesians 6, and look
at 2 Corinthians chapter 5.
2 Corinthians chapter, I mean, chapter 10, verse
5.
Let's read it in its context, starting at
verse 3.
For though we walk in the flesh, we
do not war after the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare, there it
is, the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling
down of strongholds.
Total war, casting down imagination, and every eye
thing that exalts of itself against the knowledge
of God, bringing into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ.
If there's something that the Church has run
away from, I believe it is the emphasis
on us being soldiers of Jesus Christ.
From my understanding, there's a famous holiday camp
where quite a few people have wanted George
Burwer to come and speak, but as they
met and discussed it, they decided it really
wasn't appropriate for a holiday camp.
People would feel unease if a message of
discipleship and spiritual warfare was given at a
holiday camp, as if somehow it would be
impossible for a Christian to be a soldier
and also to relax.
Actually, the contrary is true, that if you're
going to be a real soldier, you better
know how to relax, because you're a human
being and you're going to pop if you
just think every minute you can be in
one of the more intensive aspects of the
Christian warfare.
Probably for some of you, the last couple
of hours going on the doors is a
bit intensive.
God doesn't expect you to do that 15
hours a day.
Even in O.M. where some of our
teams, only some of our teams, specialize in
that kind of work, the maximum they usually
can be in front line, face-to-face,
door-to-door evangelism is five or six
hours a day.
Maybe in the evening they would then revisit
contacts in a little easier situation.
They would have a previous invitation.
That's a little easier than going what we
call cold turkey, banging on doors.
I've been banging on doors even before my
conversion.
I was selling things before I was a
Christian.
In fact, before the Boy Scouts in America,
we had the Cub Scouts.
I don't know if you had that over
here.
What did you have before the Boy Scouts?
Cub Scouts.
We sold, for Easter, Easter candy.
I went campaigning selling Easter eggs.
Then I think I sold flowers.
Before that, when I was about seven, I
sold raffle tickets door-to-door.
I had my own little raffle set up.
I got my mother to bake cakes.
Then I raffled off the cakes.
Of course, it was 100 percent profit since
my mother paid for the cake.
But despite that experience, before I was a
Christian, after I became a Christian, going door
-to-door with Christian books and witnessing, I
always found there was a certain inertia to
break through.
There was a certain spiritual law of gravity
I had to break through.
If you can learn that, you can get
the victory in this area of evangelism and
witness.
Because getting started and getting going and knocking
on the first door is the toughest part
of all.
I find that variety often has helped me
in evangelism.
Sometimes if I just don't feel up to
banging on people's doors, I go to a
park.
I actually prefer myself to go to where
people are just casually sitting around and just
strike up a conversation or give out a
piece of literature or say something.
But if we are going to obey the
Scriptures in this strong exhortation about evangelism, it
is going to take a little more emphasis
on this aspect of biblical truth.
You know, many of our assemblies used to
be known for their emphasis on evangelism.
It's always going to be open-air.
Open-air preaching was a mark of the
assembly ministry, almost as a breaking of bread.
Slowly, slowly, this open-air preaching, first of
all, became very stereotyped, where people seemed to
do it whether anybody listened or not, whether
there was any results or not.
No one was ready for new methods, and
it just became like an old religious relic.
And, of course, then it just disappeared.
Maybe that was good.
I don't think something should be promoted just
because that's the way we did it a
hundred years ago.
I believe you still can have effective open
-air meetings.
We do all the time.
The leader of our work in Belgium, a
dynamic Belgium, was converted in an open-air
meeting in Austin.
And we have open-air ministry in Belgium.
But we use drama, we use music.
We could have gone down to the beach
today and had an open-air meeting.
People would have listened.
If there was, you know, maybe a little
music, maybe a little drama, something that would
catch people's attention.
Open-air campaigners have proven again and again
that open-air ministry still works.
Some of you are probably involved in beach
missions, and you know the effectiveness on the
beaches of Britain and a number of different
groups that are involved in that.
But there are so many different ways we
can evangelize.
Your home is a great place for evangelism.
Your vehicle, if you believe in picking up
hitchhikers, can be a fantastic place for evangelism.
But none of it really continues if somewhere
along life's road we don't enroll in God's
army and say, I'm going to be a
soldier.
I'm under orders.
I'm going to go when I don't feel
like it.
I'm going to go because Christ is my
captain.
God is my general, so to speak.
And he's sending me.
We are sent ones.
Look at what Paul wrote to Timothy.
2 Timothy chapter 2.
I wish we could read this whole chapter.
Verse 3.
Now, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier
of Jesus Christ.
No man that woreth entangleth himself with the
affairs of his life that he may please
him who hath chosen him to be a
camper.
Is that your translation?
No.
A soldier.
And if we are to be obedient to
Jesus Christ, to some degree, this camp has
to be a military camp.
Training young people how to use the weapons
of their spiritual war.
Training them how to witness.
Training them how to use the shield of
faith to stop the fiery darts of the
evil one.
I'll talk about that in a few minutes.
In some of the very basic things that
we've been talking about today.
Survival.
How to survive as a guerrilla soldier in
enemy territory.
Because we are a minority.
Let's face it.
Evangelical Bible-believing Christians in Princeton.
We're a minority.
The encyclopedia says that.
And I was talking to a believer in
that town next to Smithville.
I forget the pronunciation.
Well, I never could pronounce that town.
What was the brother who took me there?
What was the name of the place?
And I met a lady there who was
actually very familiar with your camps.
And she used to come here on Sunday
mornings.
But now she's involved in the church there.
I think she originally, I think it was
the emergency side, no?
And she said that actually in those towns,
we actually did meet her.
Yeah, a little down on the other end.
Very few believers in this town.
She hasn't met yet.
But here we are.
Wales is a mission field.
God has put your camp in Wales.
It's not primarily to play games.
It's not primarily that you can all come
here and have a wonderful, relaxing summer.
There's another purpose to it.
And I believe one of those purposes is
that you may make an impact for Jesus
Christ in this needy, pagan part of the
British Isles.
That's not easy because the Welsh people don't
like the English.
And it's going to take cross-cultural communication.
Have you ever met an English person who
learned Welsh in order to reach into Wales
with a gospel?
I'm sure there have been some, but I
haven't met one yet.
But you know, if you go to another
country, you've got to learn a language.
And I just believe that God wants to
do something here in your camp very, very
special this coming summer.
That doesn't mean there cannot be relaxation.
We're dealing often with very young Christians.
We've got to give them the right dosage
with the right balance.
And that's all we've been talking about up
to now.
But to have a Christian in a training
program, in any kind of Bible study, in
any kind of Christian situation, and not teach
him that he's a soldier is to fail
to fulfill basic biblical teaching.
And for us, who have historically claimed to
believe that we are New Testament churches, and
not be involved in militant, aggressive, biblical Book
of Acts evangelism, is the height of the
ridiculousness.
Surely both Darby and Mueller must be turning
over in their graves.
Well, they can't do that.
They're in heaven.
Look, for example, at a few passages in
the Book of Acts.
Did I read that verse four as well?
Or did I only read verse three?
I think I read verse four.
2 Timothy 2.4. No man that woreth
entangleth himself with the affairs of this life,
that he may please him who hath chosen
him to be a soldier.
Go back now into the Book of Acts.
If we didn't have the Book of Acts,
we would know very, very little about the
early church.
Very little.
And that's why I believe the Book of
Acts needs to be studied.
We don't have much time now, but just
take a glimpse at these early apostles.
Remember, most of them were young believers.
Most of these people were younger in Christ
than many of the young people who come
here can be.
We're always afraid to give the young people,
you know, too heavy a message.
I will tell you, it's easier to give
the young people a heavy message than it
is to give the older people a heavy
message.
Don't be afraid of telling these young people
what it's all about.
Let's not paint a false picture of Christianity.
If you accept Jesus as your Savior, you're
going to have peace, you're going to have
joy, you're going to go to heaven, and,
oh, you're going to have a Christian girlfriend
as well, and you'll be totally forgiven, and
the Lord will bless you, and, well, we
now have doctrine coming in from Texas that
tells us also if we follow Jesus with
all our heart, we can go from a
Ford Escort to a Rolls Royce.
Prosperityism.
And a lot of gospel preaching, to me,
only gives half the story.
It's only half the story.
It tells about the blessings, forgiveness, joy, peace,
total deliverance from any habits that you don't
particularly want anymore.
But when I read even the teachings of
Jesus, to follow the Master is rough and
it's tough.
Jesus said even to a multitude, if any
man come after me, let him deny his
self.
That's the beginning of following Christ.
Let him deny his self.
Take up the cross daily and follow me.
I think it's unlikely that a person can
be converted without denying self, because I believe
that repentance, which is part of conversion, is
a step in the direction of denying self.
And it's unfortunate that so often today we
don't preach repentance.
And we brought in an easy believism.
Barnhoffer called it cheap grace.
And that's why the Lutheran Church did so
little to resist Hitler, because they were so
caught up with easy believism and cheap grace,
and they didn't believe that this grace of
God would have a practical revolution in a
person's life.
Now, praise God, some Lutherans like Barnhoffer, and
it's important for us in Britain to know
this bit of history, stood strongly against Hitler.
Don't think that all German people went along
with that.
And many of them died.
And many of them, including Gentiles, were put
in those same concentration camps, because they stood
firmly against Nazism in that day.
I think, personally, young people today, many times,
are looking for something that's a little more
challenging.
When we first came to Britain and started
to declare this rather, what some people felt
was a heavy, unpopular message, we were amazed
at the response.
I was here only three months and had
90 British people launching over to the continent.
Some of them have been out there ever
since.
By the next summer, there were 900 British
people, 900.
And I believe young people today, deep down,
are dissatisfied with this wishy-washy, sort of
lukewarm Christianity.
I believe many other young people are dissatisfied
with just going to some house group or
some church and singing a few choruses and
getting a bless-up, and then going the
next week and getting another bless-up.
I believe there are an increasing number of
young people who are hungry for God, who
are hungry, hungry for something that's challenging and
that's real.
I pray that you'll give it to them.
And I pray that your life will be
a demonstration of that.
Look at these early apostles, these young newborn
Christians.
They'd just been out in an evangelistic effort.
And they got caught by the local authorities.
And they were beaten.
Verse 40, Chapter 5, Acts.
Verse 40, Chapter 5.
And to Him they agreed.
And when they had called the apostles and
beaten them, they commanded that they should not
speak in the name of Jesus.
And then they let them go.
Now what did they do?
Go back to a committee meeting to research
less resistant areas.
No.
They departed from the presence of the council,
first of all rejoicing they were counted worthy
to suffer shame for His name.
That was the first thing.
Worthy to suffer shame for His name.
I know sometimes it's not easy to witness.
In England, I was giving out some leaflets
in my present hometown, Westwick, Kent.
And one man, oh, I tell you, when
he had the track and he saw what
it was, he came back to me.
I don't remember what he said, but it
wasn't in my dictionary.
And I'd been on a train once.
I was dictating a letter, perhaps a little
too loud.
And I said, you know, greetings in the
name of Jesus or something like that into
my little dictaphone.
And the man sitting a couple of seats
down just started, curse!
Now, they're a small percentage, praise the Lord.
But you will.
You will if you become a witness and
are a witness to the Lord Jesus.
You will say.
Then what did they do?
Verse 42.
Look at that.
Daily in the temple and every house they
ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
And what happens?
There's no chapter divisions in the original Bible.
You go right on and read in those
days when the number of disciples was multiplied.
That's our goal.
I'm sure that's your goal here in this
camp.
Not decisions, but disciples.
That's why you planned this training weekend, that
you may be a little more effective in
what you're going to do this summer.
Not decisions, but disciples.
How exciting.
Think of the testimony of this one brother
here who met this blind lady.
Bitter, cynical.
Locked her out of her own house for
18 months.
Willing to come, even to say she's willing.
Even if she doesn't show up, I think
you're going to go pick her up and
see what happens.
Some people change their minds.
But, she's a precious soul.
She needs Jesus Christ.
She's no teenager anymore.
How old is she?
About what?
80.
This could be it.
The final chance.
And if that brother had faithfully decided to
go out and talk, well, I don't want
to be overly dramatic, but we are dealing
with eternal issues.
And personally, I'd rather meet an honest agnostic
than a person who claims to believe in
heaven and hell and all this that we
go around preaching and preaching Sunday after Sunday
and very little of it is a burning
reality in our own hearts and lives.
It's dishonesty.
It's religious game playing.
It's politics.
Oh, it frightens me what's going to happen
at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ.
Because the Bible teaches, and we as brethren
have been thrown to empathize with that, that
Christians will be judged for what they have
done in the flesh after conversion.
The judgment seat.
Faithful.
And the goal is that the Lord will
be able to say to us at that
time, Well done.
That's good.
That's faithful.
We can take a lot more time looking
at the book of Acts and seeing the
compassion, the spiritual yet balanced aggressiveness of those
early disciples in shaking the world of that
day.
Just look at Acts 17.
When the apostle Paul and his team rolled
into Bethlehem on Isaac.
Acts 17 verse 6.
It reads different in different translations.
And when they found them not, they drew
Satan and certain brethren unto the ruins of
the city crying, These that have turned the
world upside down are come here also.
Is that the testimony of your assembly?
Is that the testimony of your prayer group?
Of your witnessing group?
Wherever you're living?
These that have turned the world upside down.
It was the testimony of Darby.
It was the testimony of many of those
early brethren, like Chaplin and Anthony Norris Gose.
Have you ever read his writings?
It's interesting how we don't particularly like the
writings of some of our founding fathers.
And Anthony Norris Gose's book, called Christian Devotedness,
tougher than the book True Discipleship, is pleasantly
left out of print and out of circulation.
And yet he was the first mission to
launch out from the assemblies.
He went to Baghdad, way back when this
was being born.
Look at an interesting passage of scripture about
that.
I think it's 1 Corinthians 4.
I sometimes get it mixed up.
I got on a little side road here,
but it's worth it.
1 Corinthians chapter 4.
Yep, that's it.
Very strong passage of scripture about the Apostle
Paul.
Verse 10.
We are fools for Christ's sake.
Ye are wise in Christ.
We are weak, but ye are strong.
Ye are honorable.
We are despised, even unto this present hour.
We both hunger and thirst and are naked
and buffeted.
We have no dwelling place.
And labor, working with our own hands, being
reviled, being blessed, being persecuted, we endure it.
Being defamed, we entreat.
We are made as the filth of the
world and are the out-scouring of all
things unto this day.
Perfect description of Darwin and Groves.
I write not these things to shame you,
but as my beloved sense I warn you.
For though ye have ten thousand instructors in
Christ, yet had not many fathers.
For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you
through the gospel.
Wherefore, I beseech you, be ye followers of
me.
Isn't it interesting that the Apostle Paul, who
we would tend to categorize as a sort
of special person.
We don't expect the average Christian to be
like the Apostle Paul.
We put our great Christian leaders in special
categories and relegate them to the flannelgrass.
But Paul wouldn't allow that.
After giving these strong words, he said, even
in his Corinthian church, which was a New
Testament church with a lot of problems, including
immorality, he said, be ye followers of me.
And as you come to have responsibility in
this camp, though you may like to be
all very, very spiritual and say, oh well,
just follow Jesus.
Don't follow me, just follow Jesus.
You can't biblically say that.
Because these young Christians are going to follow
you.
And it is biblical as Christian leaders to
be able to, in a particular sense, say,
follow me as I follow Christ.
Not copy me.
We're not talking about carbon copy.
But we're talking about what Paul mentions here.
The interesting thing in thinking of our own
spiritual roots, is this little verse 15.
For though ye have cancelled instructors in Christ,
in the past fifty years, the Brethren movement
effectively shifted from evangelism to teaching.
And we need teaching.
Praise God for every teacher.
But we now have so many teachers.
So many teachers.
And some of them, what they're teaching, well,
I won't get into a big discussion about
it right now.
But I'd like to go back to this
verse.
Probably today in our assemblies worldwide, we may
have thousands of teachers.
But we don't have many fathers.
And men like Darby and Mueller and Chapman
and Groves and others, they were our fathers.
And it's good once in a while to
look at their lives.
To look at their zeal.
To look at the emphasis they had on
being a soldier in Jesus Christ.
To look at their evangelistic spirit.
To look at their pioneer spirit.
Brothers and sisters, we need to see a
rebirth of the vision and the compassion and
the discipline of the founding fathers of our
movement.
And if we don't, we will be relegated
to the periphery of what God is doing
in Britain today.
We have many, many teachers.
We can't be carving copies of them.
And we're in a different generation.
But oh, how much we can learn.
Yes, we're in a spiritual warfare.
We're soldiers of Jesus Christ.
There's a real enemy, we're told in Corinthians,
not to be ignorant of Satan's devices, and
therefore we cannot afford to go out at
any time without that armor described there in
Ephesians chapter 6.
As we do go out, we can be
sure, as it was in the book of
Acts against the Apostle Paul, so it will
be against us.
A conspiracy.
Maybe not 40 men who get together and
agree that they're not going to eat until
you're dead, but there will be other subtle
forms of conspiracy.
Have you read C.S. Lewis's amazing book,
Screwtape Letters?
Oh, his writings are so relevant, even in
this day.
What are some of the fiery darts that
we can expect as we go forward in
this great spiritual warfare?
And even as we, by God's grace, attempt
to be involved in this camp, and to
see this camp really used for God's glory,
and to see people really coming in to
greater reality in their spiritual life, let me
just list a few of the fiery darts
that you can expect against your own personal
life.
Number one, the fiery dart is unbelief.
Unbelief.
Don't be afraid of doubt.
Great faith is not made in the absence
of doubt.
It's made as you battle through.
And I find that often when I begin
to move out in evangelism, my doubts become
greater.
I'm standing out somewhere in the street, giving
out literature, and the devil sort of, you
know, buzzes in my ear, you have the
audacity to believe these people are lost.
You actually believe you're better than these people.
Especially hard when you're out among thousands, surrounded
by thousands of Muslims.
Did a lot of evangelistic preaching just recently
in Pakistan.
I found often I was struggling with doubt.
Doubt is normal.
It's part of spiritual growth.
Don't be frightened by it.
There are answers to the toughest questions.
That book, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, more
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, I could point
out ten other books on that table that
will answer some of the hard questions about
whether what we're preaching and teaching is really
the truth.
We're not a sect.
We're not just off in some kind of,
you know, religious cult.
We have found the basic historical truth that
has been passed down since Pentecost.
Beware of the fiery darts of unbelief.
And remember that old expression, don't get off
the train when it's in the tunnel.
I was on a train in Switzerland some
time ago.
I've never been in so many tunnels.
I didn't have a desire to get out
of the train at all when it was
in the tunnel.
I waited until it came out to the
station.
If you're in a dark period, if you're
going through doubt, don't do something foolish.
Don't do something foolish.
Study, pray, get along with God.
The second fiery dart, we're going to have
to just bring this to a close, is
materialism.
We live in a society that is manipulated
by materialism.
It has become God.
John White's written a book called The Golden
Cow.
You're in that little book.
Wow.
In many ways, men like Anthony Norris Gould
in his day had the strongest anti-materialistic
message the church in that day knew.
Andrew Murray wrote another similar book.
His book was called Gold.
And as all the other Andrew Murray books
about prayer and the spiritual life were kept
in the print, Gold was left out of
print.
It is unfortunate that often the church has
settled in to the sort of middle class,
bourgeois, easygoing crowd with lots of money to
put into church buildings, with lots of money
to buy nice cars.
And sometimes you can go to a little
tiny assembly where they hardly give any money
to world missions.
And when you look at the cars parked
around the assembly where they have this little
offering of maybe 50 pounds on Sunday morning,
you wonder what in the world has gone
wrong.
The assembly missions, through echoes of service, is
barely keeping up with the debt rate.
Now, praise God, that's not the total picture
of Brethren missionary work.
Because Brethren young people go out with OM,
they go out with other groups, some go
out just from their own assembly, are not
listed in echoes.
You know, everything the Brethren do is always
a controversy.
You never get Brethren assembly's degree on anything.
But the fact is that we are not,
we are not seeing very many.
And I was looking at all the retired
missionaries in the back of the echoes book
just a couple days ago, on the way
here.
Amazing number of retired missionaries.
I wrote to one of them.
My heart really went out to all these
great soldiers who are in retirement, and many
of them are still serving the Lord.
It would be a tremendous thing if you
could sponsor a project here in the camp,
this center.
I'd be happy to.
Pray with you about it.
To do something from this camp to encourage
all those retired missionaries around here.
Maybe cost a 15-pence postage stamp.
Think about it.
Who's going to take their place?
It's a challenge.
And I think one of the reasons so
many are not going is the pressure of
materialism.
We find more young people want to go
than churches and assembly want to send.
And oftentimes they're not really honest.
They're saying, well, we don't really believe this
brother is ready.
We don't believe he's really gifted enough.
We don't believe he's really called to missionary
work.
What they really mean is we don't have
any money to commend him and support him.
It always encourages me when people speak with
honesty and simply say, well, it might be
good if he did go.
Praise the Lord, but we don't have any
money here.
We certainly can't support him.
Praise the Lord.
If the Holy Spirit hadn't raised up alternative
ways to see God's workers supported, I just
don't know where we'd be.
And you know the alternative that George Mueller
emphasized.
It's one we've sort of forgotten about, you
know.
Believing God.
Believing God could supply money.
Do you think God could do that?
My, oh my, we've drifted a long way.
We've drifted a long way from what it
once stood for.
We had many teachers, but we've forgotten what
our fathers had said.
And materialism has cost us our true spirituality
in place after place.
Beware of it, because the enemy will use
it against you personally.
Thirdly, impurity.
Paul wrote Timothy and he said, flee you
full of lust.
I had a struggle with this.
Can you believe it?
This afternoon.
I was giving out tracts and there was
a woman I could see from a distance
who didn't have any clothing on, from here
on.
And of course there was that temptation just,
you know, little eye gate exercise.
Somehow I thought, you know, I'm going to
give a tract to her husband.
I mean, you know, I was giving tracts.
And I was coming right by there and
I just, I just, you know, I gave
a tract to the husband and just walked
away.
Now maybe you think that's puritanical.
Maybe you think it's pharisaical.
But I personally believe that if there's going
to be a ministry to nude women, then
I'm going to let the sisters handle that
ministry.
I'll take the nude men and you can
take the nude women.
But don't let me project my problems on
you.
Thank the Lord for that little victory this
afternoon.
Impurity seems to come from every side, doesn't
it?
You're sitting late at night, you feel well,
I just want to relax, put my feet
up, you turn the television on, and within
ten minutes, there are people having sex right
in your living room.
And now we're told by this generation, what's
wrong with looking at that?
Do you really think that's God's will, that
we sit watching other people have sex on
television?
You really think that can be justified in
the name of art?
Personally, I don't.
And I think we should have more hatred
and righteous indignation for that which is being
pumped through our TV screen and write a
few letters once in a while and turn
it off or walk out of the room.
Impurity, of course, is far more subtle than
that.
Far more immorality than I have to be
involved in counseling comes between two Christians.
It all started quite platonic, just nice feelings.
There was no big, heavy sexual overtones until
a few months later when the mood changed
and the weather changed.
And then what started as a purely platonic
friendship, and there's nothing wrong with platonic friendship
between boys and men, men and women, boys
and girls.
And we know the ancient Phariseeism and Puritanicalism
of yesteryear did not necessarily produce a dynamic
generation.
It's an area where we need balance.
But we need wisdom and discernment each step
of the way.
I wonder if there's anybody here who's involved
somewhat in depth with an unconverted person in
a social relationship.
And you're going to come into this camp
to counsel young people about relationships, about not
being unequally yoked.
And yet you yourself have a relationship that's
not really God's way.
It's only something you can decide.
But how my heart breaks when I meet
men and women who in a weaker moment
of their spiritual life got into an unequal
yoke and are now paying heavily for it.
The fourth fiery dart is extremism.
I've written here, convictions without love turn to
bitterness.
I'm a man that discovered over the years
I have too many convictions, especially about small
things.
I think this is part of our American
culture.
Or maybe we copied it initially from Britain.
But we get so many convictions.
You meet people in the States who have
deep convictions about vitamins.
Vitamins, I think you say.
Everybody must be taking vitamins.
And wherever you go around the States people
are laying some heavy finger on you about
this, about that.
All these different convictions.
You have a group now, they won't drink
any water directly from the fossil.
It must all go through a purifier.
And they're on a crusade against impure water
that comes out of the fossil, out of
the tank.
Incredible!
And there seems to be every form of
extremism.
And people get very, very strong convictions about
minor issues and ten years later they're almost
always bitter.
Bitter against the church.
Bitter against others.
We get something that we're crusading on.
We're crusading on.
And I hope you won't leave here as
some kind of extremist crusader taking some little
thing out of context that we've said in
these days.
That's not the way to do it.
It takes time to build a spiritual foundation.
Another fiery dart is the fiery dart of
humanistic ideas.
We're bombarded by humanism.
We're so bombarded by humanism we're not sure
anymore what's what.
What's coming from the Bible?
What's coming from the church?
What's humanistic?
Praise God for the message of Dr. Francis
Schaeffer.
You may not agree with all of it.
But it's a needed word in our day.
Humanism.
False ideas.
Every form of compromise is coming on us
from every direction.
Sixthly, the fiery dart of ignorance.
And seventh, the fiery dart of laziness.
Eighth, the fiery dart of intellectualism.
Elitism.
Middle classism.
I don't know if you like all my
interesting terminology.
But our time really is gone.
The fiery dart number nine of disunity.
I'll repeat that.
Six.
Did I have ignorance?
Seven, laziness.
Eight, intellectualism.
Nine, disunity.
Failure to build relationships, which we talked about.
Ten, prayerlessness.
Oh my.
Praise God for that time of prayer we
had yesterday morning.
I pray that somehow, even if they're voluntary
sessions, or only a few turn up, we'll
not neglect corporate prayer as taught in the
Book of Acts.
Eleven, the lack of the power and the
emphasis of the Holy Spirit.
Twelve, bitterness.
Overreaction.
This is a great problem in my life.
I overreact.
When you have the difficulty, somebody says something
to you, heals a bit, overreact.
Gets us in a lot of trouble.
Thirteen, legalism.
False ideas about sanctification and holiness, judging by
outward appearance.
Fourteen, perfectionism.
I hope you will read Dr. Seaman's Healing
for Damaged Emotions.
If you haven't got the money to buy
it, borrow it from somebody, put it in
your church library.
I hope your churches have libraries.
So important when people don't always have the
money to go out and buy all these
great books and cassette tapes.
We have a whole cassette tape library.
I'd be happy to provide.
It includes many, many of the great Brethren
Bible teachers combined with the O.M. Bible
teachers.
Because the founder of that library is actually
a man from a very interesting Brethren assembly
in a place called Flixton over near Manchester.
Then fifteen, the good.
So often the good becomes enemy of the
best.
I've seen that again and again.
And sixteen, false motivation.
Boy, that's a tough one, isn't it?
In my little book, Revolution of Love and
Balance, there's incorporated another little booklet called Pseudo
-Discipleship.
I've had people read that and decide they
weren't even converted.
I thought maybe I should withdraw it from
print.
It is a bit strong.
Got motivation.
God is concerned why we do things.
But I was reminded by William MacDonald who's
written many of those Emmaus correspondence courses.
Correspondence courses are another source of blessing and
ministry in my life.
And I would commend you to those Emmaus
courses.
They're right here in this country, not far
from here.
You can study them and get so much
from the Word of God.
But I remember William MacDonald writing to me
and saying, look, beware of getting extreme in
this area of motives.
Sometimes we just have to cast our motives
on the Lord, repent of that which isn't
right, and then press on and do what
we were planning to do, knowing that it
is right, and we should do it, even
if some false motivation creeped in in the
process.
Don't throw away the lovely baby with the
dirty bathwater.
I washed some dishes today there in our
little motorhome.
And when I was done washing the dishes,
I threw away the butter, not the dishes.
I get in real trouble with my wife
when I throw away her dishes.
We have to deal with false motivation.
But some of the things we were planning
to do in which there was false motivation
still need to be done.
Don't overreact.
Get yourself into a more difficult situation.
Well, I know this is a hard message
for some people, this whole thing of spiritual
warfare, being a soldier, enduring hardness, evangelism, being
on the attack for God, using the weapons.
We don't like the terminology.
You want to know something?
I don't like it either.
And if this message wasn't in the Bible,
I'd never preach it again.
I'm no natural soldier.
I'm a natural coward.
I'm also naturally lazy, and I don't want
to get in all my other natural problems
which you've already had an overdose of, in
dramatic form as well.
But if it's in here, then whether I
like it or not, that's the way I
go.
Because I want God's will, and I want
God's way, more than anything else in all
this world.