Yes, unite our hearts in another moment of
prayer.
Our God and Father, we thank you for
yourself and for this time of worship that
we have had.
We thank you that you do hear us,
you do understand us, and we just want
to commit these remaining moments again into your
hands, that we may not hear or see
man, but that there may be another voice,
and that our hearts may be willing to
respond, and we just give you the praise
in Jesus' name, amen.
It's encouraging that God is working and that
God is doing something in this generation, in
this decade, and it's encouraging to see also
the young and the old able to work
together a little better than I think they
were 15 years ago, and people learning to
be a little more flexible.
And this is encouraging the youth and enabling
them to stick around, and it's not killing
too many of the older ones in the
process.
Well, that's another message that I will give
this morning.
Romans chapter 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service, and
be not conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that
ye may prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say through the grace given unto
me to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than
he ought to think, but to think soberly
according as God hath dealt to every man
the measure of faith.
For as we have many members in one
body, and all members have not the same
office, so we being many are one body
in Christ, and every one member is one
of another."
And then we go on about various gifts.
This is probably my favorite passage of scripture,
certainly among the top ten passages that have
been such an enormous challenge in my own
life.
To give you just a half or a
few moments of my background, which I feel
helps people understand what I feebly want to
try to communicate, and it is one thing
to say something, it's another thing to communicate
something, but I come from a non-Christian
background.
My grandfather from Holland was an atheist.
My father also from Holland was a materialist.
My other grandfather from Glasgow was an alcoholic,
and I was reared in a materialistic home
in New Jersey and did not know Christ
until the age just before I became seventeen.
That happened in a Billy Graham meeting in
Madison Square Garden, where I went mainly out
of curiosity, though partly because someone had given
me a gospel of John, and it promoted
some hunger in my heart for God, and
I was converted to Christ that night.
I was not properly followed up on.
There was a circus in the bottom of
Madison Square Garden in the basement, which they
usually use as the counseling room, and so
there was no counseling.
I went back to a liberal church, which
I knew was screwy the moment I was
converted, but I didn't have any proper follow
-up work.
Billy Graham, as you know, is viciously attacked.
Not too many attack him to his face.
They prefer to do it behind his back,
especially after he leaves, but he is strongly
attacked for not doing proper follow-up.
I can tell you the follow-up work,
first of all, is really the work of
the local church, not the visiting evangelist.
And secondly, even when the church fails, the
Holy Spirit doesn't.
And God's Spirit, striving with my spirit, led
me on in the faith, and especially through
Christian books, and through a correspondence course that
I managed to get into, due to a
letter that Billy Graham sent me, just a
form letter.
And so I thank God for the ministry
of this man, and I thank God for
salvation.
This is still the greatest thing that has
ever happened to me.
I've had many experiences with the Lord, but
there's no greater experience than salvation.
You know, we live in a day when
many believers are belittling the work of salvation.
And I was impressed, listening to A.W.
Tozer, I don't agree with all his theology,
but I certainly agree with most of his
spiritual principles.
He is a man who has sort of
a Wesley idea about a second blessing, and
so it's very interesting what he said.
Most of you probably don't have that particular
belief, I don't, actually, but it's interesting what
he said.
In strongly attacking people who try to oversell
a second blessing package, he says the danger
is so often they belittle salvation and make
it almost nothing in order to oversell a
second blessing, or whatever other blessing really you
want to add onto it.
And I believe this is a danger among
people who have strong convictions about other experiences
that take place in the Christian life.
And to me, God is just so great
that he's always breaking in, really, despite many
of our viewpoints.
But there is a danger today, really, of
underestimating salvation, underestimating what happens to a man
when he's born again.
Tozer went on in this particular tape that
I was listening to, explaining how really most
people now don't really expect anything to happen
when you're born again.
Isn't it true?
You know, sure, there'll be a little interest
in going to church, and a little interest
in reading your Bible, and you know, I
mean, a little bit of love will begin
to come in your life, and you may
not swear quite as much, and lose your
patience quite as much.
And there's a danger of belittling this great
work of grace, salvation.
And there is no other blessing, and I'll
say this to people, whatever their theology, than
the blessing of salvation, because that salvation, Jesus
Christ, comes to indwell the believer.
This is a very big thing, and personally
I'm convinced that many people looking for a
second or a third or a fourth blessing
may never have had the first one, and
never, never have yet really been born again.
The Bible says, as many as receive Him,
to them He gives power to become the
sons of God.
That is no small matter, my beloved brethren.
That is a big thing.
That is a revolutionary thing.
And this is really the only reason I'm
still here today, for though I may have
had many other experiences with the Lord, this
experience of salvation is the biggest and the
greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
This is why I'm linked so closely around
the world with those who gather around the
Lord's table on Sunday, because I feel it's
a time when we lay aside other things,
even good things, and refocus in on what
Jesus Christ has done for us, and all
that we have in Him.
We have so much in Him.
And I feel that many of us are
crippled in our spiritual life simply because we
have not yet appropriated that which we already
have.
We have so much in Jesus Christ, and
every one of us here has probably heard
many messages on all that we have in
Jesus Christ.
But I believe this passage reveals why many
of us are not availing ourselves of all
that we already have in Jesus Christ.
And I put it in very simple terms.
It's perhaps known as the message I preach
on the most.
It's simply this subject of commitment, total commitment.
And I believe this passage is one of
the clarion calls to full surrender.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service.
It has become my theological belief and the
practice of my life to commit my life
afresh every day to God.
I try to take the first hour or
hour and a half, and sometimes in a
race only a half an hour, each morning,
after a little exercise and making sure I'm
awake, to commit myself to God.
To me, the morning quiet time, the morning
devotional time, which is so essential, especially in
this day where there's so much pressure upon
us, I believe is a time of recommitment.
And I'm here not to ask you whether
you have committed your life to Christ ten
years ago or two years ago, but I
would like to ask you whether you are
having the experience of daily laying your life
on the altar, every day, seven days a
week.
I believe that if Christians would do this,
if every day by an act of their
will they would lay their life on the
altar, I believe they would begin to see
things in their own life that they would
never dream of.
There's a great danger among us that we
relegate, for example, reality in worship to a
once a week experience.
Tozer, in one of his books, says that
worship is the missing jewel of the evangelical
church, and it's true.
I'd love to send you a book as
a gift, a book by Mr. Gibbs, from
the assemblies, I believe, in Australia, called Worship.
It's a rather thick book, the kind of
book the average person doesn't read anymore because
they've been too brainwashed into having everything short
and sweet and instant.
But if you do still believe in reading
and are not illiterate, I would recommend this
tremendous book on worship.
And in the beginning of this book on
worship, he gives many definitions of this important
part of the Christian life.
It has been our deepest conviction in OM
that the first thing we must teach to
young people, by the way, we're trying to
remain a training work, keeping people for one
or two years and then letting them move
on.
But we are convinced that the main thing
we must teach these young people, or try
to set the example in, is worship, not
evangelism.
Evangelism is the spontaneous outflow of the life
in tune and in communion with the living
God.
It's not a matter of projects, crusades, campaigns,
weekends, summer outreaches.
These things are all right.
But evangelism is the spontaneous outflow, seven days
a week, from the man who is in
tune with God.
As we commune with God in the morning,
as we walk with Him.
I myself like to get out of my
little place, wherever I'm living, and go out
into the woods, down in Bromley, Kent, one
of the most beautiful parts of England.
We have lots of woods.
No doubt you have lots of these around
Manchester as well.
I haven't seen them, but no doubt they're
here.
We didn't have too many in Bolton, where
I used to live.
But as you walk out into the woods,
at least I experience more of the Lord
than when I'm somehow tucked in my little
room.
Doesn't matter, however, use whatever method is good
for you.
But I am so burdened about this subject.
But worship, knowing communion with the Lord, daily.
And as we commune with the Lord, as
we worship the Lord, whether it's in the
woods or in our home, whether it's running
or sipping a cup of tea, which I
know is the order of events in this
nation, and I've, of course, been completely taken
into it myself.
But worship is the most important thing in
your life.
I believe in the church today we have
mistaken commotion for devotion.
We measure too many things by numbers, by
height, by width, and not by depth.
And I feel that our evangelism, often in
our day, and I'm very slow to criticize
anyone individually, but I believe that much of
our evangelism becomes very, very superficial because it
comes from organization, from structure, from planning.
Not that I'm against planning, we need planning.
But the real evangelism comes from the heart
of the man in communion with God.
When this man goes out to talk to
people, there is a work of the Spirit.
As Watchman Nee says in one of his
books, there is a release of the Spirit.
And so there is the communion of one
spirit with another spirit, and this brings conviction
of sin.
How dare we talk to men about God
when we have not talked to God about
men?
That, of course, is not the primary part
of worship, but as we're worshiping the Lord
and experiencing the Lord, then soon we find
ourself moving on into intercession and to praying
for others.
And so I leave you this morning with
these two great concepts that I believe will
lead to realistic, dynamic Christian faith, which I
believe all of us must want.
First, a total commitment of your life every
day.
Your time, your talent, your energy, your money,
your life, your family, your wife, your children,
your job, everything on the altar.
It's not easy.
Keith Miller in his amazing book, Taste of
New Wine, says it's not a once and
for all thing.
The totally committed Christian life is a life
of continually committing to the Lord, that which
the Spirit of God reveals to us from
our subconscious.
You know, I'm so glad that God didn't
reveal all of myself to me in my
first year being a Christian, because I would
have passed out from the sight.
And it seems now the more I commune
with the Lord and the closer I get
to the Lord, the more I see the
power of ego in my own life and
the subtle sinister ways that self can creep
in even to the nicest evangelical activities.
God is gracious and doesn't reveal self to
us all at once.
But slowly, and believe me, as we commit
our lives daily, more will be revealed.
And as it's revealed, we can take it
to the cross and to the blood.
And there's the growth.
Total commitment every day.
Are you doing that?
As a definite act of the will?
And secondly, making the priority of your life,
worship, praising Him, worshipping Him, kissing the feet
of Jesus, and knowing what it is to
commune with Him.
And when that's happening in spirit and truth
as it's described in John, then we will
discover an evangelism with a depth and a
width and a spiritual power that will not
be stopped neither in Turkey nor India nor
the uttermost parts of the earth.
May God give us this threefold spiritual reality
in our lives in the days to come.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for this little
time together.
We thank You for the power of Your
Word.
We thank You for the reality of fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know
He must be Lord.
Deliver us, Lord, from belittling this great salvation.
Keep us, O God, from tangents.
And cause us to know the reality of
total and absolute full surrender every day of
our life.
That we may meet You in the mornings.
That we may lay our lives on the
altar as we worship You and commune with
You.
That the impact may be felt throughout the
day in a practical dynamic level.
That will result, we believe, in world evangelism
and in the salvation of precious people all
around us.
For we ask it in the name of
Jesus Christ.
Amen.
In the book of Colossians, chapter 2, Colossians
chapter 2, verse 2, verse 1.
For I would that ye knew what great
conflict I have for you and for them
at Laodicea.
For as many as have not seen my
face in the flesh, that their hearts might
be comforted being knit together in love and
unto all riches of the full assurance of
understanding to the knowledgement of the mystery of
God and of the Father and of Christ,
in whom are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge.
In this I say, lest any man should
beguile you with enticing words.
For though I be absent in the flesh,
yet I am with you in the spirit,
joying and beholding your order and your steadfastness
of your faith in Christ.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk ye in him.
This is really the goal of Operation Mobilization,
to learn to walk the way of Jesus.
It is not firstly going across the English
Channel to sell a book or to give
out a tract or even to start a
church.
It is not firstly preaching to thousands of
people from a ship or from a truck
or from anywhere else.
It is not firstly, and the word firstly
is important, doing many of those things.
But it is firstly, walking even as he
walked.
That is the greatest challenge that could ever
be given to any man.
Many, many people today, and I do not
blame them, are very switched off about religion.
In this country, a great segment of people,
perhaps 90 percent, are switched off about religion
or about the church.
Church attendance and statistics rather prove that.
I can understand that, because I believe, and
I think most would be in agreement, that
so often times our Christianity has departed from
the basic, simple way of Jesus Christ.
We think of his moral teachings, we think
of his humility, we think of his life.
Who can argue against that?
Who can argue against the way of love
that Jesus taught?
Who can argue against the way of peace
that he demonstrated?
Who can argue against the humility that flowed
from his life?
The freedom from prejudice that he manifested.
The kindness that was constantly demonstrated by him.
And if anything, I think we need to
do on OM this year, and perhaps I
could recommend it for your study program, is
a deep, intensive study of Jesus of Nazareth.
Read the Gospels over again and again.
Memorize some of the teachings of Jesus.
You'll see him as the healer, you'll see
him as the comforter.
You'll see him when he is stern and
his holiness is being demonstrated, like the day
he cleared all the money racketeers out of
the temple.
And I believe the great need for all
of us tonight, and this is just really
a few words of exhortation, is to see
Jesus.
I didn't come from a very Christian home.
I was a materialist almost from the word
go.
I thought the world functioned around money and
around pleasure.
It was only by the mercy of God
that when, just shortly before I was going
into university, college, that someone sent me a
Gospel of John.
And in that little Gospel of John, which
by the way was from the Pocket Testament
League, I saw Jesus Christ.
There's so many verses in the Gospel of
John that just jump into my mind.
Could you look at just quickly a few
of them with me?
As I read through that book again and
again, I joined the Pocket Testament League long
before I knew Christ.
Promised to carry a New Testament, which I
proudly did.
Read it every day, which I did, even
though it was often one verse.
And I had this Pocket Testament League Gospel,
which I read.
And some of the verses that just leaped
out of the page, spoke of Jesus.
I'd like to just leave them with you
tonight.
Because, you see, we're commanded as believers.
Most, if not all of us here are
believers.
We know Christ.
And we're commanded to walk as he walked.
One of the verses that jumped out at
me was John 1.12. But as many
as receive him, to them gave he power
to become the sons of God, even to
them that believe on his name.
There we find the power for this walk,
isn't it?
It's in Christ.
It's not your effort, your discipline.
It's Christ.
Christ's power in you.
Another verse that really spoke to me was
verse 17.
For the law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
It's a walk of grace.
It's a walk of truth.
And then verse 29.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world.
You know, as we read our newspapers, it
can be extremely depressing.
For some people, it's almost overwhelming.
In fact, in this country today, these islands,
one out of every nine women spends part
of her life in a mental institution.
Our society has become so complex, so pressurized,
that it's wonder anybody is sane anymore.
You don't know what's going to happen.
I had a very interesting experience just the
other day when I went down toward Beckenham
in a train, and it rained, and somehow
I left my briefcase under the bridge.
I didn't get back until 40 minutes later.
And there it stood.
People in a distance, watching it.
Police on their way.
That's right.
This is Britain.
What's next?
And it's the same all over the world.
And I believe, as hard as it is
for many of us to accept this, it's
the sin problem.
It's the old problem of man and his
sin.
That man, as dignified as he becomes, even
if he becomes the president of a great
nation, is a sinner who cannot help himself,
and eventually his sins will find him out.
Just read your newspapers.
And if you think that is something new
in history, obviously you've never studied history.
Nothing is new under the sun.
Man is a sinner.
He's selfish and he needs help.
And it's the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world.
Well, I'm not going to take much more
time, but as you go through the Gospel,
you'll see Jesus as the light of the
world.
You'll see Jesus as the way.
You'll see Jesus as the bread of life,
and giving the bread of life.
You'll see Jesus as the door.
You'll see Jesus on every page.
On every page.
And this is what this movement is about.
We're not interested in starting our own little
church.
It's becoming another denomination.
We only want young people to stay with
us generally for a year or two, then
go back home.
Most cases take up normal work.
We don't believe in sort of pressurizing everybody,
they must be a foreign missionary.
We know some will be led to that.
But most will be led to go home,
to take up ordinary jobs.
But we believe, and it is our prayer
that after being in this training program, and
getting day by day into the Word of
God, being in a team, under a leader,
who believes and is trained in these things,
that those who go away from OM after
a year or two, will walk, even as
He walked.
Isn't that the greatest challenge?
To love as He loved, to give as
He gave, to be unselfish as He was
unselfish, to reach out to people as He
reached out to people.
Remember, He was a carpenter.
I believe the greatest challenge for youth today
in this world of hate, of unrest, when
so many are trying to find the answer
in drugs, or in sex, or in so
many other things, I believe the answer is
to Jesus Christ.
I don't know if there's any parent here
tonight that may not be happy about their
child being on OM.
I can understand that.
I have a son of 12.
I'm not so sure I want him to
join OM.
So I can understand that.
But you know, when I think back on
my own life, and I think of the
fact that my parents stood behind me when
I got involved in the things of Christ,
I can just praise it.
Little did they know at that time that
if God had not reached into my life,
I may have been a New York gangster,
or a lot worse.
You may not be happy with your child
on OM.
But as you look around what so many
young people are doing today, how you should
praise God that your child wants to follow
Jesus, the man of Galilee.
I believe that's the greatest challenge in all
the world.
And there's nothing greater than seeing not just
a young person, but whole families following Jesus
together.
That's the highest calling in this life, which
by the way will soon be passed.
Soon be passed.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, there's so much more
we could say tonight.
But above all, we simply need to see
Jesus as the way, as the truth, as
the life.
We thank you for the gospel, the simple
gospel of Jesus Christ.
And Lord, deliver all of us from making
it too complicated.
We would see Jesus, Lord.
We would walk even as He walked.
Oh Lord, do not let us deny and
betray the revolution that He began by walking
inconsistently.
We pray for this world in which we
live, for our government leaders, Mr. Heath, Mr.
Nixon, Mr. Pompidou, Mr. Bront, Golda Meir, King
Hussein, Sadat, Indira Gandhi, hosts of other men
and women, that they may lead their countries
righteously, that there may be peace on the
earth.
Meanwhile, we thank you, God, that there's peace,
sweet peace, in our hearts because of Jesus,
who lives in all those who have turned
to Him by faith.
We worship you and praise you tonight through
Jesus Christ, Amen.
But that there may be another voice and
that our hearts may be willing to respond.
And we just give you the praise in
Jesus' name.
Amen.
It's encouraging that God is working and that
God is doing something in this generation, in
this decade.
And it's encouraging to see also the young
and the old able to work together a
little better than I think they were 15
years ago.
And people learning to be a little more
flexible.
And this is encouraging the youth and enabling
them to stick around and it's not killing
too many of the older ones in the
process.
Well, that's another message that I will give
this morning.
Romans chapter 12.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world, but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For I say through the grace given unto
me to every man that is among you,
not to think of himself more highly than
he ought to think, but to think soberly
according as God hath dealt to every man
the measure of faith.
For as we have many members in one
body and all members have not the same
office, so we being many are one body
in Christ and every one member is one
of another.
And then we go on about various gifts.
This is probably my favorite passage of Scripture,
certainly among the top ten passages that have
been such an enormous challenge in my own
life.
To give you just a half or a
few moments of my background, which I feel
helps people understand what I feebly want to
try to communicate.
And it is one thing to say something,
it's another thing to communicate something.
But I come from a non-Christian background.
My grandfather from Holland was an atheist.
My father also from Holland was a materialist.
My other grandfather from Glasgow was an alcoholic.
And I was reared in a materialistic home
in New Jersey and did not know Christ
until the age just before I became 17.
That happened in a Billy Graham meeting in
Madison Square Garden where I went mainly out
of curiosity, though partly because someone had given
me a Gospel of John and it promoted
some hunger in my heart for God.
And I was converted to Christ that night.
I was not properly followed up on.
There was a circus in the bottom of
Madison Square Garden, in the basement, which they
usually use as the counseling room.
And so there was no counseling.
I went back to a liberal church, which
I knew was screwy the moment I was
converted.
But I didn't have any proper follow-up
work.
Billy Graham, as you know, is viciously attacked.
Not too many attack him to his face.
They prefer to do it behind his back,
especially after he leaves.
But he is strongly attacked for not doing
proper follow-up.
But I can tell you, the follow-up
work, first of all, is really the work
of the local church, not the visiting evangelist.
And secondly, even when the church fails, the
Holy Spirit doesn't.
And God's Spirit, striving with my spirit, led
me on in the faith, and especially through
Christian books and through a correspondence course that
I managed to get into due to a
letter that Billy Graham sent me, just a
form letter.
And so I thank God for the ministry
of this man and I thank God for
salvation.
This is still the greatest thing that has
ever happened to me.
I've had many experiences with the Lord, but
there's no greater experience than salvation.
You know, we live in a day when
many believers are belittling the work of salvation.
And I was impressed listening to A.W.
Tozer.
I don't agree with all his theology, but
I certainly agree with most of his spiritual
principles.
He is a man who has sort of
a Wesley idea about a second blessing, and
so it's very interesting what he said.
Most of you probably don't have that particular
belief.
I don't, actually.
But it's interesting what he said.
In strongly attacking people who try to oversell
a second blessing package, he says the danger
is so often they belittle salvation and make
it almost nothing in order to oversell a
second blessing or whatever other blessing really you
want to add on to it.
And I believe this is a danger among
people who have strong convictions about other experiences
that take place in the Christian life.
And to me, God is just so great
that He's always breaking in, really, despite many
of our viewpoints.
But there is a danger today, really, of
underestimating salvation, underestimating what happens to a man
when he's born again.
Tozer went on in this particular tape that
I was listening to, explaining how really most
people now don't really expect anything to happen
when you're born again.
Isn't it true?
You know, sure, there'll be a little interest
in going to church and a little interest
in reading your Bible, and, you know, I
mean, a little bit of love will begin
to come in your life, and you may
not swear quite as much and lose your
patience quite as much.
And there's a danger of belittling this great
work of grace, salvation.
And there is no other blessing, and I'll
say this to people, whatever their theology, than
the blessing of salvation, because at salvation, Jesus
Christ comes to indwell the believer.
This is a very big thing.
And personally, I'm convinced that many people looking
for a second or a third or a
fourth blessing may never have had the first
one, and never, never have yet really been
born again.
The Bible says as many as receive Him,
to them He gives power to become the
sons of God.
That is no small matter, my beloved brethren.
That is a big thing.
That is a revolutionary thing.
And this is really the only reason I'm
still here today, for though I may have
had many other experiences with the Lord, this
experience of salvation is the biggest and the
greatest thing that has ever happened to me.
This is why I'm linked so closely around
the world with those who gather around the
Lord's table on Sunday, because I feel it's
a time when we lay aside other things,
even good things, and refocus in on what
Jesus Christ has done for us, and all
that we have in Him.
We have so much in Him.
And I feel that many of us are
crippled in our spiritual life simply because we
have not yet appropriated that which we already
have.
We have so much in Jesus Christ, and
every one of us here has probably heard
many messages on all that we have in
Jesus Christ.
But I believe this passage reveals why many
of us are not availing ourselves of all
that we already have in Jesus Christ.
And I put it in very simple terms.
It's perhaps known as the message I preach
on the most.
It's simply this subject of commitment.
Total commitment.
And I believe this passage is one of
the clarion calls to full surrender.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service.
It has become my theological belief and the
practice of my life to commit my life
afresh every day to God.
I try to take the first hour or
hour and a half, and sometimes in a
race only a half an hour, each morning,
after a little exercise and making sure I'm
awake, to commit myself to God.
To me, the morning quiet time, the morning
devotional time, which is so essential, especially in
this day where there's so much pressure upon
us, I believe is a time of recommitment.
And I'm here not to ask you whether
you have committed your life to Christ ten
years ago or two years ago, but I
would like to ask you whether you are
having the experience of daily laying your life
on the altar.
Every day.
Seven days a week.
I believe that if Christians would do this,
if every day by an act of their
will they would lay their life on the
altar, I believe they would begin to see
things in their own life that they would
never dream of.
There's a great danger among us that we
relegate, for example, reality and worship to a
once-a-week experience.
Tozer, in one of his books, says that
worship is the missing jewel of the evangelical
church, and it's true.
I'd love to send you a book as
a gift.
A book by Mr. Gibbs from the assemblies,
I believe, in Australia called Worship.
It's a rather thick book, the kind of
book the average person doesn't read anymore because
they've been too brainwashed into having everything short
and sweet and instant.
But if you do still believe in reading
and are not illiterate, I would recommend this
tremendous book of Worship.
And in the beginning of this book of
Worship, he gives many definitions of this important
part of the Christian life.
It has been our deepest conviction in OM
that the first thing we must teach to
young people, by the way, we're trying to
remain a training work, keeping people for one
or two years and then letting them move
on.
But we are convinced that the main thing
we must teach these young people or try
to set the example in is worship, not
evangelism.
Evangelism is the spontaneous outflow of the life
in tune and in communion with the living
God.
It's not a matter of projects, crusades, campaigns,
weekends, summer outreaches.
These things are all right.
But evangelism is the spontaneous outflow seven days
a week from the man who is in
tune with God.
As we commune with God in the morning,
as we walk with Him.
I myself like to get out of my
little place wherever I'm living and go out
into the woods down in Bromley, Kent, one
of the most beautiful parts of England.
We have lots of woods.
No doubt you have lots of these around
Manchester as well.
I haven't seen them, but no doubt they're
here.
We didn't have too many in Bolton where
I used to live.
But as you walk out into the woods,
at least I experience more of the Lord
than when I'm somehow tucked in my little
room.
It doesn't matter, however.
Use whatever method is good for you.
But I am so burdened about this subject.
Worship.
Knowing communion with the Lord.
Daily.
And as we commune with the Lord, as
we worship the Lord, whether it's in the
woods or in our home, whether it's running
or sipping a cup of tea, which I
know is the order of events in this
nation, and I've of course been completely taken
into it myself.
But worship is the most important thing in
your life.
I believe in the church today we have
mistaken commotion for devotion.
We measure too many things by numbers, by
height, by width, and not by depth.
And I feel that our evangelism often in
our day, and I'm very slow to criticize
anyone individually, but I believe that much of
our evangelism becomes very, very superficial because it
comes from organization, from structure, from planning.
Not that I'm against planning.
We need planning.
But the real evangelism comes from the heart
of the man in communion with God.
When this man goes out to talk to
people, there is a work of the Spirit.
As Watchman Nee says in one of his
books, there is a release of the Spirit.
And so there is the communion of one
spirit with another spirit, and this brings conviction
of sin.
How dare we talk to men about God
when we have not talked to God about
men?
That, of course, is not the primary part
of worship, but as we're worshiping the Lord
and experiencing the Lord, then soon we find
ourselves moving on into intercession and to praying
for others.
And so I leave you this morning with
these two great concepts that I believe will
lead to realistic, dynamic Christian faith, which I
believe all of us must want.
First, a total commitment of your life every
day.
Your time, your talent, your energy, your money,
your life, your family, your wife, your children,
your job, everything on the altar.
It's not easy.
Keith Miller, in his amazing book, Taste of
New Wine, says it's not a once and
for all thing.
The totally commissioned Christian life, totally committed Christian
life, is a life of continually committing to
the Lord that which the Spirit of God
reveals to us from our subconscious.
You know, I'm so glad that God didn't
reveal all of myself to me in my
first year being a Christian because I would
have passed out from the sight.
And it seems now the more I commune
with the Lord and the closer I get
to the Lord, the more I see the
power of ego in my own life and
the subtle, sinister ways that self can creep
in even to the nicest evangelical activities.
And God is gracious and doesn't reveal self
to us all at once.
But slowly, and believe me, as we commit
our lives daily, more will be revealed.
And as it's revealed, we can take it
to the cross and to the blood.
And there's the growth.
Total commitment every day.
Are you doing that?
As a definite act of the will.
And secondly, making the priority of your life.
Worship.
Praising Him.
Worshipping Him.
Kissing the feet of Jesus.
And knowing what it is to commune with
Him.
And when that's happening in spirit and truth,
as it's described in John, then we will
discover an evangelism with a depth and a
width and a spiritual power that will not
be stopped neither in Turkey nor India nor
the uttermost parts of the earth.
May God give us this threefold spiritual reality
in our lives in the days to come.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for this little
time together.
We thank You for the power of Your
Word.
We thank You for the reality of fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ and we know
He must be Lord.
Deliver us, Lord, from belittling this great salvation.
Keep us, O God, from tangents.
And cause us to know the reality of
total and absolute full surrender every day of
our life.
That we may meet You in the mornings.
That we may lay our lives on the
altar as we worship You and commune with
You.
That the impact may be felt throughout the
day in a practical dynamic level.
That will result, we believe, in world evangelism
and in the salvation of precious people all
around us.
For we ask it in the name of
Jesus Christ.
Amen.