But I'd like to move in now to
just share some of these thoughts about perseverance
in the life of a believer.
I know it's late, I know you're tired,
but I'd ask you to bear with me.
You see, it's easy to get excited.
We've been getting excited at this conference.
We move into a new project and we
get excited.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Don't feel guilty about that.
Something's wrong with your heart if you don't
ever get excited about the work of God.
I'm excited about the fact that Billy Graham
these days is preaching over in Hungary.
That excites me.
I'm excited about a lot of things that
are happening in the Christian world.
But I do believe one of the greatest
weaknesses in the present-day evangelical scene is
perseverance.
Perseverance.
How easy it is to start.
Let's look at a few scriptures.
For example, Galatians, one of my favorites.
I probably gave it to you in the
summer.
Let's look at Galatians chapter 6.
This verse has helped me again and again.
Verse 9.
Let us not be weary in well-doing,
for in due season we shall reap if
we faint not.
If God tests us in regard to this
ship, it doesn't work out, we're not going
to get weary.
We're not going to get weary.
If a major persecution broke out, a major
change in the social order broke out, and,
you know, all the fun stopped coming in,
and every kind of problem you can think
of came upon O.M., well, half of
us would go to work, or half of
us would go farming, or we'd do something,
but we wouldn't grow weary.
There are tremendous changes taking place in the
world today.
I don't know if you keep up with
philosophical trends, with trends in modern thinking.
I don't know if you're aware of what's
happening in France right now.
This is one of the most incredible moves
and shifts in the area of philosophy since
Marx came into the scene.
A whole spectrum of the top intelligentsia of
the young Marxists of France have totally turned
against Marx.
They're now writing Marx is dead.
And they have shifted into a conviction that
there is no ideology that will help society.
Of course, they're not becoming Christians.
But their leader, their number one inspirer is
Solzhenitsyn, who probably is a Christian.
They also go around quoting even Jimmy Carter.
Not that they agree with everything he believes,
but they are very pro the dissidents.
And when Brezhnev, I think it was Brezhnev,
one of the top big communists came to
Paris, they all had a big meeting somewhere
else with the leading dissidents.
And just a whole big army of top
French philosophers are finished with Marxism.
Actually, they're finished with socialism.
They believe that socialism is a dead-end
street.
Of course, they also believe capitalism is a
dead-end street.
So don't, you know, don't.
Those of you right-wing ringers, don't get
too excited.
But it is exciting to see these changes.
And I believe this could possibly open.
I have a burden to send every one
of these new philosophers in France some really
key literature.
You know, if even one of these men
could be born again, it could alter the
lives of thousands.
Because so far we have been so weak
in Europe to break into the intelligentsia.
This is almost a whole message in itself.
But no matter what happens, no matter what
happens, we cannot grow weary in well-doing.
Another scripture that's been helped to me is
2 Corinthians 15, 58.
Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always.
Is it 1 Corinthians 15, 58?
Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the
work of the Lord.
For as much as ye know, your labor
is not in vain in the Lord.
This really frightened me on the ship today.
I thought, who, where are the three people
that are going to work in that laundry
all day long?
Where are the 15 people that are going
to work in that engine room?
I tell you, it was hot.
Hotter than the Lagos engine room because there's
some steam things down there.
The rudder on this ship is operated by
something that actually probably will eventually be able
to sell to a naval or merchant navy
museum.
It is a 1914 steam-operated rudder control.
I said to the engineers, I said, look,
if this breaks down, can you fix this
thing?
They said, look, this thing is easier to
fix than any of the new stuff that
they've got today.
And Graham Scott, who I thought would be
very pessimistic about this, he explained how if
this breaks down, you just tie a rope
on one end and tie a rope on
the other end, and you attach that to
the winch, and you keep the rudder going.
My vision increased for the London office.
But I wondered, where are we going to
get the 15 people to stick it out
in that engine room?
This ship probably, Mike Poynter said, a chief
engineer, one of the top officers, will have
to be in the engine room all the
time because it's a boiler.
It's more complicated.
It has 18 pistons.
That's just in the main engine.
Then there's generators all over the place, and
they all have pistons as well.
Don't ask me how many pistons are in
the generators.
But, you know, I can remember Lagos.
I remember one real exuberant engineer.
I remember him coming to me after the
second month.
He said, I can't stand it.
I can't stand it.
I've got to get out.
I want to get in the ministry.
It's rough.
And who are the men that are going
to paint?
Then we looked at that aft deck.
The aft deck is about, you know, twice
the size of this room.
With a swimming pool in the middle.
Not quite twice the size.
It's got this big alcove there.
But it's big, and that's all wood.
And that has to be caulked.
The water goes through, and then, you know,
you're having your soup, and it gets thinner
as you take it because the water is
coming through from a deck that's not been
caulked properly.
That takes hours, weeks.
We'll have to paint three times as much
all year round as on Lagos.
I don't know if they have machines that
put paint on.
I've never seen them spraying ships.
It is a lot of work.
And that's true of every aspect.
The line-up job will be three times
more difficult than the present line-up because
we cannot run a ship that's going to
cost us $2 million a year and come
into a port and get 15 people sitting
in a pastor's conference because the line-up
man didn't know what he was doing.
And he's going to have to have, he
is going to really have to be one
of God's supermen.
And we have very few people sticking in
line-up.
Line-up is the death trap of the
ship ministry.
They all apply for resignation after one year,
apart from a few real nutcases like Peter
Conlon and a few other characters.
So that is going to be a big
thing, a big thing.
And this is not just true of the
ship.
The ship is on our mind right now.
It's more true in the Muslim world.
The ship is a playground next to working
among Muslims for 20 years.
But the burden of this ship is to
get young people.
We know 50% of the young people
today are lazy.
We know the other 50% are spoiled.
We know we produced the greatest generation of
grasshopper Christians that have ever tried to read
their Bibles.
We're aware of that.
We're part of it.
But we believe that if some men can
stick in that laundry and stick in that
galley.
You know how many cooks they have on
this ship?
You know how many cooks?
15 cooks.
That's not counting the assistants.
They got a soup cook.
They got a biscuit cook.
They got a cook to cook the cooks.
I don't know.
They got everything.
The galley was so big it looked more
like a bowling alley.
And hot.
Galleys are not air-conditioned.
They specialize in fried food and fried people.
Who's going to stick in that galley, you
know, one or two years?
Praise God.
You think of Alfred Boschbach, still on Lagos.
He joined us when the ship was in
Rotterdam.
Oh, this is what we're going to need.
And when men have put their year or
two on the ship, we want to see
them graduate into Turkey, into the Muslim world.
Someone wrote me a letter this morning saying,
Lagos isn't sending more people into the Muslim
world.
I counted up, bang, just like that.
Six Muslim, ex-Muslim, ex-Lagos people in
the Muslim world right now.
That's on OM, but we're not mainly thinking
of OM.
A number of others, when I was in
Bangladesh, 15 ex-Lagos people are laboring in
Bangladesh right now.
Right now.
I was just speaking to them a few
months ago.
Others, because when they came to the ship
were very young, very, very young, they haven't
got out there yet.
Because we know often it does take years
of training before people are ready for some
of these difficult fields.
I think of Yanni Norblom, who now is
headed out to the ship.
I won't catch that.
I'll catch this 455.
Thank you.
Let me just take this.
Yanni Norblom just got his prayer letter.
He was one of the original Lagos men.
Quiet, shy fellow.
Now he's got training on the ship.
A little time in India.
And he's going out.
Somebody said Indonesia, but I think it's Thailand.
One of those two countries.
I think of our second mate going out.
Met his wife on the ship.
What's that brother's name?
Rory McKenzie at Bible School right now.
Headed out to the east.
I am just convinced that whatever we do
worldwide, it's linked with this thing of perseverance.
Perseverance.
If this ship isn't the ship, then we've
got to persevere and find the right ship.
One of our greatest problems in O.M.
is to find people who stick at the
job.
Bookkeepers who will stick.
Who at the end of the year aren't
always looking for something new to do because
bookkeeping can be a little bit boring.
You know, I mean, some of our jobs,
they change.
I mean, my job changes from one day
to the next.
Sometimes I almost lose my identity.
I wake up, I'm not even sure what
continent I'm in.
I don't even know what bed I am.
I have nightmares.
Suddenly I'm crawling through portholes or riding on
Jonathan McCrossley's back.
Other people, it's the same thing day in
and day out.
Day in and day out.
We need men who are going to persevere.
William Carey said, give me plotters.
Give me plotters.
What are some of the secrets of perseverance?
Now, I don't hold myself up as a
great perseverer.
22 years is not much, is it?
But for some of you, it seems like
a lot.
It doesn't seem too much to me in
one way.
But to some of you, 22 years, you've
been going 22 months for Jesus and already
your batteries are getting rusty and you're wondering
how far you will go.
And I want to just share from the
word of my own experience, what are some
of the things that keep us persevering?
How have I maintained a vision and a
burden for Turkey now for 19 years?
Every time I go to Turkey, I go
into a major depression almost.
I can't pretend that I've seen even 5
% of my prayers answered for Turkey.
The 5% is very exciting.
But we prayed some pretty big prayers.
I'm going to Turkey in November to speak
at the Turkish Workers' Conference.
All the people working in Turkey, not just
the OMers.
They all work together down there.
Don't worry about labels.
We don't use these labels in these countries.
These are some of the things that have
helped me.
First of all, the word of God.
Verses like this.
Memorize them.
This morning, I just felt I couldn't read
my Bible.
It was in my case and I was
on a plane.
So I took out my little navigator pack
and I just memorized this morning.
I hope that doesn't offend anybody.
I just memorized for half an hour, an
hour.
The word of God.
As I was going through some of these
verses, so many of them seemed to be
preparing me for the day.
I have about 10 different packs like this.
I just happened to grab it.
I don't know where I found this.
I'm a little unsystematic sometimes.
I found this and yet as I went
through it today, so many of the verses
were linked with today, what the Lord wanted
to do to me today and what he
wanted to work into my heart today.
The angel of the Lord encampeth around them
that fear him and deliver them.
My God shall supply all your need according
to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
Ask and it shall be given you.
Seek and you shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
But they that wait upon the Lord.
This is one that especially God hit me
with on the plane.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength.
They shall mount up with wings of eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
I thought when I got to the ship
I'd collapse from exhaustion.
I've had less sleep in the past 48
hours than I've ever had in the last
probably 13 years because I don't like to
miss sleep anymore.
I don't believe it's good.
I may get not so much, but you
need that 5, 4, 5, 6 hours.
And I thought I just, you know, I
wouldn't even be able to think straight.
And yet I was just completely, as far
as I can tell, alert and able to
carry on that inspection.
And then some of these verses, especially from
Isaiah 41 10.
Fear thou not, for I am with thee.
Be not dismayed, for I am thy God.
I will strengthen thee.
Yea, I will help thee.
Yea, will I uphold thee.
Yea, with the right hand of my righteousness.
The Lord is good and stronghold in the
day of trouble.
He knoweth them that trust in him.
Have not I commanded thee?
Be strong and of good courage.
Be not afraid.
Neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy
God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest.
One of the secrets of perseverance in the
life of the leader.
He's a man of the word of God.
He'd rather forget his breakfast than miss the
word of God.
We've got to persevere in our memorizing of
the word of God.
We've got to go to the word of
God when we feel dry, when we're afraid.
And we've got to allow it to build
us up.
I think that is a major factor.
As a young believer of 17, I began
to memorize hundreds of scriptures.
It was one of the most powerful factors
in my whole Christian life.
The thing that motivates me in perseverance is
that this life is so short.
This life is so short.
And if the Bible is true, and that's
another major thing that causes us to persevere,
then the way we are living, what we
are doing is absolutely logical.
It's absolutely logical.
Time is so short.
I can't believe that I'm 39 years of
age.
It seems impossible.
It's just gone like that.
And when you look back over your life,
when you're 39 or when you're 69, what
do you think is going to count?
All the fun you had.
There is fun in the Christian life.
You had some fun today.
You can't go through all in one day
without laughing.
You can't be around Mike Poynter and Rex
Worth and Graham Scott.
You know, Frank Dietz.
You've got to laugh.
They can't look at me, and they barely
look at me, and they'll start laughing.
The great managing director arrives.
My shirt was 10 years out of date.
The tie was too big.
I took all that off.
I've got my undershirt on now.
I borrowed this last night.
I asked a brother if he had a
T-shirt.
This is all he had.
I guess he must have dropped it in
some ink.
But I believe there is time for fun.
But really, most of the time, we've got
to be serious in the work of God.
Not letting days just dribble by.
Time is short.
That challenges me not to waste any days.
I don't believe in staying away from the
Lord for certainly not for a day.
I don't believe in being away from the
Lord at all.
But I've been preaching this year that challenging
people within the Lamb that we don't have
to backslide.
That's not the normal Christian life.
We go weeks bitter about somebody or with
hatred or upset or depressed.
Because of the cross, because we can repent,
we can be renewed, and we can know
what it is to go to bed every
night cleansed and free and worshiping the Lord
even if sometimes we feel terrible.
Persevere.
Perseverance.
Perseverance is so logical when we think of
the shortness of time.
The shortness of time.
I think of those who were with us
a few years ago.
Jay Sonnenday, Sharon Brown, Chris Begg, Helilee Begg,
here they were singing ministry.
Gone.
That's when your faith really gets tested, you
know, when God starts to take some of
your real friends.
Then you discover all this stuff you're preaching
out in the open air like a wildcat,
whether you really believe it.
The people actually are saved and go to
heaven.
I tell you, God has tested me to
the root and I've seen how little faith
I have sometimes.
It's shaken me.
You know, this whole thing of heaven.
But it's there.
God's word is true and the only way
it operates is faith.
You can't get a picture of it.
Some of you want a picture of heaven.
You have people drawing such pictures.
You can't get any pictures.
You have people asking, where is it out
in the universe?
Then, when I was arrested in the Soviet
Union, 61, this big, bald interpreter, she says,
come in one day, we've just put a
man out in space and we've looked around
and heaven isn't there and God isn't there
and that proves it finally, once and for
all, there is no God and there is
no heaven.
Can you imagine someone being so naive as
to believe that?
They do believe that.
They've looked out, not there.
You know, God is so great and just
the Einstein theory of relativity.
If you've studied the Einstein theory of relativity,
I've only studied a little, and studied the
whole thing of the curve and this thing,
the relativity of time and space and then
the light year, the whole principle of the
light year and we can get in an
airplane or a jet and if it could
go faster than the speed of light, tonight
we could watch Jesus Christ on the cross.
Tonight we could watch Noah going into the
ark and we wouldn't even be out of
our galaxy.
Our galaxy has millions of stars.
There are millions of other galaxies.
But, I mean, God, the way God has
ordered all science, you know, heaven could be
right in this room.
Let that one bother you, you'll probably think
I'm a heretic, but it's no problem with
a great God to find a place for
heaven.
Perseverance, another secret of perseverance, I believe, is
what I call spiritual stubbornness.
Some of you sold your backbone and put
in a wishbone 10 or 15 years ago,
I don't know why, and you've got to
ask God to give you a backbone.
You've got to become spiritually stubborn.
On some issues you have to say, here
I stand, you dig your heels in like
Martin Luther.
In many things you're willing to compromise, you're
willing to bend, but on some issues you
say, no sir, this is where I stand.
I believe in world evangelism.
I believe the Bible is the word of
God.
I believe Christians must love one another.
I believe some of these other basic principles,
you just dig your heels in, and the
cold water comes, and the laughing comes, and
you get misunderstood by your parents, misunderstood by
your closest friends, and you'll acknowledge if you
make mistakes, and you sin, you'll acknowledge that,
but you won't compromise your conviction.
Spiritual stubbornness.
We need people who have that kind of
stick-to-it-ness, because they love God,
because they love Jesus.
Jesus said, if you love me, keep my
commandments.
Keep my commandments.
We need to be stubborn about that.
I think that's so important.
Another key to perseverance is keeping our eyes
on the word Jesus Christ himself.
Wow, look at that in Hebrews.
Hebrews, chapter 12, Wherefore, seeing we are all
so compassed about, with so great a cloud
of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which does easily beset us,
let us run with patience the race that
is set before us.
Looking unto Jesus.
We should all have that memorized.
The author and finisher of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is
set down at the right hand of the
throne of God.
Doesn't that cause you to want to persevere?
Looking unto Jesus.
You look at men, you will get disappointed.
You look at situations, you'll get discouraged.
You look too much at yourself, you'll get
depressed.
You look at Jesus, and you'll go on
from victory to victory, with or without feelings.
That leads me to another major secret of
perseverance that I've emphasized throughout the summer, so
I'll just touch on it tonight, and that
is not living by feelings.
Today I felt pretty good.
I've been through one of my major feelings
ordeals somehow.
Even though I've been tired, my feelings and
my mind has been relatively well, even on
the airplanes, which is quite a victory for
me.
But tomorrow it can just change, just like
that.
Any of you have that problem?
One day you just feel so with it,
you even love OM.
You're just feeling good.
The next day, just like that.
You want to get out of this thing,
you're all tied up inside, you sense nothing
but failure, or maybe fear.
I tell you, when I go into one
of my fear of death phases, I almost
come out pink, blue, and purple.
Any of you ever have a fear of
death?
Fear of the unknown.
Even though we believe in heaven, we believe
the Word of God, it is still unknown.
It still isn't a step out.
You don't find many people, even the great
preachers about heaven, sort of running in the
pearly gates, do you?
People battle pretty hard to survive.
It's one of man's greatest desires, is to
survive.
You know, you don't find too many, you
know, whoo, boy, heaven, maybe tomorrow, maybe I'm
going to get killed tomorrow, whoo.
You know, I think one of the things
that's helped me to persevere, just a little
side thought, is I've had to accept my
humanity.
We get people in OM, they don't accept
their humanity.
They get all these great messages, and great
challenges, and ideals, and visions, and a few
hallucinations thrown in, which are deadly, and they
don't accept their humanity.
Their unwillingness to accept the human element.
And as humans, we are going to battle
fear.
Faith is not produced in the absence of
fear.
It is produced under the fiery dart of
fear as it comes and assails your soul.
For one, it's fear of one thing.
For someone else, it's fear of something else.
Some people's fears, they make me laugh.
I've never even thought of it.
And I'm sure my fears must make them
laugh.
Fear of failure seems to grip some people
to a point where they can't produce.
They become almost paralyzed.
Fear can paralyze you.
Graham Scott was telling me about a Christian
group that just went climbing up in northern
Wales.
Relatively easy climb, but even in June, you
can hit bad weather.
This group was not prepared.
They're foolish.
They hit bad weather and one fellow experienced
total paralyzation at the top of those mountains.
They had to get the mountain rescue team
just to move him.
He was frozen by fear.
Fear paralyzes.
Love casts out fear.
That's why I will not entertain fear.
When I start feeling this coming on me,
I just fight it with everything within me.
Because I know ultimately if I dwell on
fear and I allow it to seep into
me, it'll paralyze me.
Perseverance is linked with this thing of learning,
not to live by feelings.
Probably the fiery dart that's cutting more leaders
down than any other fiery dart is a
combination of pride and immorality.
Every week I hear about seemingly another leader
knocked out through immorality.
A brother shared with me yesterday a fellow
I was just with six months ago.
He's a Christian leader in another organization.
He shared with me just yesterday fornication with
some girl and he's out of the battle.
This is an area where we have to
build up every area of our armor, sharing
with others the word of God, the disciplined
life, exercises, eating right.
By the way, a top group of research
people have just met together and they have
further confirmed that too much sugar and fatty
food is deadly for the body.
And they're now absolutely convinced this particular group
that fatty foods and so much sugar is
a major cause of two forms of cancer.
And boy, I tell you, some of the
junk food that we eat, we wonder why
sometimes we don't have energy.
These are problems.
And I don't have easy answers, especially in
some of the situations in OM.
And ultimately we have to learn to trust
the Lord.
Perseverance.
Living by faith, not by feelings.
Our eyes upon the Lord, not upon people
or circumstances or situations.
Don't get out of the train when you're
in the tunnel.
Wait to the station.
And I tell you, when you're in a
time of depression, in a time of discouragement,
it's a major decision.
It's the last time to make a major
decision.
So many have shared with me that they're
going through vicious temptations in the area of
sex.
Men you'd never believe.
I'm not talking about new recruits.
They have it too.
And I believe that it's not any one
thing.
It's the cross, it's the fullness of the
Spirit, it's the Word, it's the love unto
me.
I almost jumped out of my shoes.
They always want, what is one answer to
spiritual life?
Some people think the one answer is the
baptism of the Holy Spirit.
People who have that teaching.
But you know, sensible, sane people who have
that teaching know that that is not the
one answer.
The man who wrote Discipline Life has that
teaching.
He believes in the baptism of the Holy
Spirit experience.
one answer.
Someone else says the Keswick Convention.
Someone else believes in the Ian Thomas experience.
Someone else says it's a watchman knee experience,
normal Christian life.
I've seen guys come out of the normal,
reading the normal Christian life, more more more
cockeyed than reading Mad Comics.
That's right, because they think this is it,
this is everything, watchman knee.
Look, you read his biography, he had probably
more problems than some of you.
He made mistakes, he got on tangents, he
admitted his two volumes on spiritual life that
he wrote, it wasn't even a reality in
his life, he wrote it when he was
young, he got 30% of that from
Jesse Penn Lewis.
The average person doesn't even know who Jesse
Penn Lewis is.
That's where watchman knee got 30% of
his material.
She's a woman, can you believe that?
Boy, now you're gonna turn away.
And I just feel that we've got to
get off the one-answer trip and realize
the whole counsel of God, all the means
of grace.
Someone else says it's worship.
Of course worship is a major thing.
Someone else believes the whole answer is if
you become a Calvinist.
If you become a sold-out Calvinist, read
only Banner of Truth trust books, you get
a great big view of God.
Look, you can have a great big view
of God in your head, and your heart
can be smaller than a they don't even
produce pennies.
And I think we need this great view
of God.
We distribute some of these great Banner of
Truth books.
I read Whitfield's biography cover to cover.
That doesn't mean I think Wesley was all
wet.
There's no one answer.
The whole Word of God is a secret
to perseverance, and I have seen the one
-answer boys shot down quicker than almost anyone
else because they get this way up here.
This is the answer.
I've got the answer.
And then when they collapse, they don't know
what happened.
And then they can't rebound.
They don't realize that God is just trying
to teach them more.
God's just trying to bring other things into
their life.
We get people who even think OM is
the answer.
I get on OM.
I'm gonna get trained, get into the IT
program, or do this, go to India.
Look, you can come back from India more
defeated than you went out.
Isn't that some special Indian experience?
You go out there and bounce in the
back of the truck for two years until
your teeth have got dense in them, and
you're gonna come back, you know, filled with
the Spirit, and you can come back defeated.
Spiritual perseverance is linked with a whole counsel
of God.
It's linked with taking advantage of all the
means of grace.
We're constantly learning, constantly reading, and we're constantly
receiving exhortation from different people.
It grieves me that sometimes certain groups get
a blessing, then they don't want to listen
to anybody else.
This happens to some people who are in
a revival.
Revival can be the shortcut to spiritual death,
because no revival is meant to stop.
It's supposed to keep going.
And if it stops, it becomes a historical
event.
Oh, we remember 10 years ago when God
came down upon us, and you know, 10
years ago.
What about today?
And if revival puffs you up so you
don't need to be taught by other people,
and you always know better than these other
groups because you've been in the revival, you
got the blessing, you're gonna be in trouble.
And that's why people that have had high
spiritual experiences have ended up living low lives,
immorality, six wives, the works.
Perseverance!
Some people thought OM was a shortcut to
Christian service.
Fifteen years later, they discovered that OM is
probably the longest route in the world today
into missionary service, because we believe it takes
years and years to really prepare a man
for what we would like to think of
as apostolic missionary work, when they can go
out on their own and plant a church
or something like that.
It's gonna take time, and that means plotting,
that means keeping our eyes on the Lord
Jesus.
It means so much.
Another thing that has helped me is to
be in fellowship with like-minded people.
I tell you, when you go back home,
some of you tomorrow, whatever you do, find
at least someone who's like-minded.
We are not called to live alone.
If you plant yourself in the midst of
a bunch of ice cubes, you will get
killie, I can assure you.
You've got to find other people who are
like-minded.
It doesn't need to be many.
I think of how when I went to
Maryville College, the first college I went to,
God led me to Dale Roton.
That was a major factor in my life.
His brother exhorted me.
This guy, you know, he had me every
day.
And God gave me a Christian roommate, and
still one of my closest friends today.
I was just with him this summer for
a couple days.
And I just feel we don't make enough
effort to make sure we've got some like
-minded brethren.
And if we're weaker, then we need to
find a stronger brother, if at all possible.
But we need fellowship.
That's why I believe it's good for people
to be on OM for a year or
two in training and preparation, even to go
back into the secular world, where they can
get a little more grounded before they face
the frozen, chilly situations that so often exist
today in the church.
We need fellowship.
Praise God for fellowship, but it won't mean
much if you're not willing to really share
yourself.
I think this is the area where leaders
really cut themselves short.
How it can happen, a leader in OM
not learning to share.
I don't know how it happens.
You say it hurts me to share.
I will tell you it may hurt in
the process, but it can be one of
the greatest blessings in your life.
What are you trying to hide?
People get so stunned.
You know, in one of my meetings I
share that I got to struggle with pornography,
and that last week a porno magazine knocked
me for a loop for several minutes, and
I'm so ashamed of it I can hardly
verbalize it.
And when I share something like that, you
know, when they first hear it.
How can this be?
George Thurber looking at a pornographic magazine?
Just like the United States reaction to Jimmy
Carter when to these Playboy people.
I personally believe it's a bit stupid to
talk to those people.
I'm not gonna let them interview me, that's
for sure.
But, you know, he confessed that once in
a while there's a problem with lust.
People start, I mean, the hypocrisy of the
people who overreacted to that.
About such is life, I guess.
We got to learn to share it doesn't
mean you have to stand up.
I have to minister, and I have to
communicate, and I use this as a tool
of communication.
I use it because I believe it's essential,
but at least you should have one or
two, some people you're sharing with.
People with homosexual problems.
They're all over the place.
Every time I take meetings, they come to
me, and they're in the church.
They don't want to share, or they go
to the extreme, then they announce it with
a big broadcasting, and go join a church.
They got a church in Toronto, and it's
just in Toronto.
An Anglican church, all homosexuals, all gays, they
marry each other, everybody's, it's all part of
the big worldwide Anglican family.
You won't be offended, you Anglicans, if you
know, I'm not too impressed with the general
worldwide Anglican setup, but I do believe there
are some really good local Anglican churches.
I hope you're a member of one of
them.
But this thing with homosexuals is really something,
but those people who have that problem, there's
terrific hope for them.
I said that to a pastor's wife, or
a pastor the other day.
She said, what?
Hope for a homosexual?
We've never heard of anybody getting anywhere.
As I talked to him, I found out
he hadn't tried very hard.
Of course, there's hope for anybody.
I don't feel that I'm any better than
somebody with a homosexual problem.
I get away from God.
I mean, who knows what could happen?
Sin is sin.
So my sin is a little more, you
know, a little more acceptable in contemporary society.
You know, my thing is women.
Sin, if I go committing immorality, it's sin
before God.
It's one of the reasons I think I'm
able to relate and share with homosexuals.
I'm just a sinner.
And they talked to me five minutes, and
they just amazed.
Wow, this guy's got problems.
I thought I had problems.
But I've got a solution.
Perseverance through the power of the Spirit of
God, through the Word of God.
And just as I have to persevere if
I'm going to stay out of the pit,
that brother with a homosexual problem, or that
sister, they've got to persevere.
It will be, I'll admit, a little harder
for them in most cases.
It won't be any harder for them than
for the young man that God calls to
stay single.
William McDonald, 57 years of age, single all
of his life, never married, never fallen into
sin.
He's told me the temptations come upon him.
Left in some home.
Husband goes off to work.
He's got to minister.
He's got to prepare the Word.
Suddenly finds himself in a home alone with
some woman.
Temptations come.
And he stood.
He's battled.
He's remained faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And there are other single men.
And if there are a hundred single men
that can prove it in battling one side,
then they can win battling the other side.
Actually, the battle, I think, in some ways
is easier for the man with a homosexual
problem than for the single man battling through.
Because, of course, his whole thing is more
ugly and more frightening when the other thing
can be so appealing and look so right
and all the rest.
But, you know, when a man has a
problem, and I don't know if you're like
this, we can all think, I've got such
a special problem.
Nobody knows the suffering I go through.
The Bible says your problems are common.
You don't have a special problem.
Come down off your special problem kick.
You've got a normal problem.
In fact, Jesus Christ was tempted in all
ways and didn't sin.
And I find Christians very sensitive about their
problems.
Some little thing.
I think it's so evil.
Somebody came up to me, you know, in
one of the sessions after the sex lecture.
You know, in the night, Brother George, sometimes
when I'm sleeping, you know, I don't mean
it, but suddenly I get these pictures and
girls and something happens to my body.
I feel so condemned.
I wake up guilty.
He's had a simple little thing that the
books call a nocturnal emission.
Quite normal for most full-blooded males.
Seems to be one of God's ways to
release a little energy of a special type.
But Christians, they get so guilty about these
things.
Especially in the area of sex.
And it's that guilt that destroys.
It's not the nocturnal emission.
It's the guilt and feeling, boy, you know,
I'm really the wretch of the wretches.
I'm the creep of the creepers.
And God will never use me.
Really.
I had a brother come to me years
and years ago.
He said, you know, I committed sex with
my sister.
I committed incest.
Now that is a big sin.
It's in the Bible.
It can happen.
And he felt because of that, God will
never use me.
I'll never be a soul winner.
I had the joy of putting my arm
around that brother and claiming grace.
And he's just gone on ever since as
a winner of men for Jesus Christ.
The weird ideas people have.
We've got to throw those things aside and
claim the cleansing blood of Christ and persevere.
Persevere.
A lot of it is linked with the
problem of self-acceptance.
I have hilariously accepted myself.
I have to or I'll just pop.
You may think, some people may think that
I come up here planning to get, tell
things, get people to laugh.
Do you know sometimes I preach and no
one ever laughed once because I just didn't
say anything funny the whole time.
I plan almost none of my humor.
I don't want to be humorous, but I
have to be myself.
And I have to accept myself or I
won't even be able to continue.
I hate certain things about myself.
I can't stand my voice.
Do you like your voice?
Listen to your voice on a tape.
Go sing or yodel.
You know, you're not all Frank Fortunato's.
And after a few years his wife may
give him a few lessons.
But I listen to my voice on a
tape and I, how can people listen to
that?
If I listen to what I said tonight,
it would be emotionally a horrible experience.
But I say, Lord, you know, I accept,
accept that voice.
I've always wanted these, one of these mellow
voices.
You ever, the kind of, the kind of
guys they hire to do the, the India
film strip or the Lagos film strip.
Nobody ever hired me to do one of
these film strips.
Or these fellas they have on television, you
know.
I don't have a television, but once in
a while I get to see something and
they, they come in late at night.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're glad to be with
you here tonight.
And you can read, you read in the
homiletics books.
You know how important it is.
I'm reading a book right now.
I forget which one it is.
But it's a fantastic book.
It's a book about love.
And this book got me so uptight because
it says people can read you by your
voice.
They know whether you have love by your
voice.
And that chapter made me so uptight because,
you know, I thought, well, most people, therefore,
you know, I must not communicate any love
because of my voice.
It's interesting.
Our voice is important.
Do you accept your voice?
You really, down here inside, accept your voice?
All right, you accept your voice.
What about your eyes?
I have one friend, has one green one,
one blue one.
You accept your eyes?
Does anyone accuse you of being shifty looking?
Ever since then, you've looked in the mirror,
you know.
What about your nose?
Look at that.
Can you laugh at yourself?
Laugh at some of your little idiosyncrasies?
You get a lot of guys in there
playing with their beards.
Everybody's playing with their beards.
Looking for fleas, playing with beards.
You get others?
I had this problem for years.
I was always reaching ahead.
But I believe that if we are going
to persevere, we have got to accept ourselves.
Of course, we want to improve.
We want to grow.
We want to even cut out idiosyncrasies.
We want to learn in all these areas.
But the foundation for learning is not guilt,
repression, fear, lack of respect for yourself.
It's accepting yourself.
It's believing that God is already using you.
He's going to use you more.
And that has been such a help for
me to persevere.
And lastly, for lack of time, when others
accept you.
I find acceptance in OM.
I hope you do.
There's, I find some rejection at times too.
That's normal in life.
But you know what you want to receive?
Give, give, give, give.
Accept people, love people, forgive people, take the
initiative.
This was the curse in the early days
on the ship.
Everybody's expecting the other person to take the
initiative in fellowship.
Especially the women, the married women, all waiting
for the single girls to take the initiative.
Single girls, all sort of, you know, a
little bit afraid of these married women and
babies and their rattles and all these things.
They're waiting for the married women to take
the initiative.
We've got to take the initiative.
If we've been through this training session, if
we've had three, four days here before any
other people come to this conference, we've got
to start reaching out and be the big
brothers and the big sisters and accept these
young people.
I don't want anybody going around here lonely
in the next three weeks.
If no one else is fellowshipping with them,
you send me their name and I'll bring
them into my office and we'll have an
hour walk.
But I don't want anybody going around here
lonely because no one's fellowshipping with them.
Some of us, like, we like to fellowship
with the people that we like.
Let's all practice fellowshipping with people who don't
necessarily appeal to us.
And I believe that most of us here
are at the stage in our Christian life
where we can no longer think about mainly
being ministered unto.
We got to minister.
New converts, new believers.
Let's take the little, little dummy.
What do they call it in different countries?
The thing they stick in the children's mouth.
Call it a dummy, a teaser.
Pacifier, yeah.
Take your little evangelical pacifier.
Throw it away.
Grow up and start giving yourself, giving yourself,
giving yourself.
I believe God can give us perseverance.
This message perhaps is more for myself because,
boy, I tell you, I'm finding it harder.
Wow.
But I just know that this message is
in God's Word.
What he's been faithful these 22 years, I
believe he can do it for 22 more
and I know he can.
It won't be easy.
But the message is there.
Let's persevere.
Some of you are in tough situations.
You haven't got any big spectacular field.
Nobody's blowing trumpets about your field.
Think of Israel.
For up to three years ago, so neglected,
I had to almost go parade around with,
you know, bare-chested to get anybody even
to think about Israel.
Really.
Now we've got something going there, but still
not much interest.
And then Nepal.
Nepal.
We never get anybody volunteering for Nepal.
And some of these other areas.
Iran.
Iran, where's that?
And some of you have tough jobs, tough
fields, and it's been hard, but you've got
to persevere.
Some of you feel guilty, and I am
going to close in a minute, but I
wanted to say that some of you feel
guilty you're not living up to the O
.M. principles.
That message last night, you already, if you
could have found me, you'd have given in
your resignation.
Because you feel, well, I'm failing in some
of these things.
I'm not keeping some of these principles up.
No one in O.M. is keeping all
these principles.
This is our goal.
We acknowledge, if you read our materials, there
are special situations.
And that each person has to battle through
to his place before God.
There's no one organizational place before God.
We don't present an organizational or an ideological
position that you come in and then you
are spiritual.
No.
You have got to wrestle through in your
situation.
And I think that's so important.
I'm going to talk about that next week.
But let's close now and get back to
prayer.