We had a tremendous conference last week.
God dealt a number of blows to my
own heart.
We know that many of you are now
going into your second week.
We're also aware that some of you who
maybe did not get invited to the leaders
training have as much potential leadership as some
who were invited.
And I hope you will forgive us for
our lack of discernment.
It's not easy to determine who should be
involved in a conference like last week.
On Saturday, I went down to visit the
ship, the Franca Sea.
And the Lord enabled me to get back
here in time to speak about that on
Saturday night.
So I won't say too much about that
now.
But I think most of you know we
are seriously praying about the purchase of this
ship as the second ship.
And then I've had the joy to have
two days with my family.
And as I have come back to the
conference, I felt burdened to speak something about
the purpose of a conference like this.
What are we here for?
Is it just to organize people on teams
and send them out again?
Do you know how much a conference like
this costs?
Tens of thousands of dollars.
And what it costs for us to travel
here?
Thousands more.
What it costs to recruit people in the
first place?
Probably $100,000 this year just to recruit.
This depends how you measure what you're using
the money for.
Very few people understand how hard inflation has
hit the international cause of missions.
And what it costs to operate now compared
to that first big European push in 1962.
And I believe one of our notes of
praise should be in thanksgiving for the Lord's
supply of finance over this past year.
The Lord has answered prayer.
I think most of you know also that
after the meeting on Friday night, when many
in this auditorium recommitted their hearts to Christ,
and there was a great sense of faith.
I very seldom felt it as strong as
I felt on Friday night.
And I was giving my closing thoughts.
I had to run to the phone and
receive the news that our 42,000 pounds
sterling from Ghana had arrived into the banks
in London.
I think the timing of that was even
more significant than the money.
Money is not that important with God.
So we have much to thank God for.
I'm going to cut out some of my
other introductory thoughts because of time and get
into this passage of Scripture.
Last week we didn't have any interrupters.
So our time is reduced.
The book of Nehemiah, chapter 8.
I'm going to read only in English.
You please follow in your own language because
it's a long passage.
And all the people gathered themselves together as
one man into the street.
What a crowd that was.
That was before the water gate and they
spoke unto Ezra, the scribe, to bring the
book of the law of Moses, which the
Lord had commanded to Israel.
Verse 2, we're going to read right through
verse 12.
And Ezra the priest brought the law before
the congregation, both of the men and women,
and all who could hear with understanding upon
the first day of the seventh month.
And he read from it facing the street
and was before the water gate from the
morning until midday.
Before the men and the women, those who
could understand.
And the ears of all the people were
attentive unto the book of the law.
And Ezra, the scribe, stood upon a pulpit
of wood, which they had made for the
purpose beside him.
And then you have a big long list
of names that I will not try to
read.
Verse 5.
And Ezra opened the book in the sight
of all the people, for he was above
all the people.
And when he opened it, all the people
stood up.
And I'd say a number of countries, they
make you stand up when you read the
word of God.
Continuing.
And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God.
And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, lifting
up their hands.
And they bowed their heads and worshipped the
Lord with their faces to the ground.
And then we've got that list of names
again.
Caused the people to understand the law.
And the people stood in their place.
So they read in the book of the
law of God distinctly and gave the sense
and caused them to understand the reading.
And Nehemiah, who is Teshatha, and Ezra the
priest, the scribe, and the Levites, who taught
the people, said unto all the people, This
day is holy unto the Lord, your God,
mourn not, nor weep.
For all the people wept when they heard
the words of the Lord.
Then he said unto them, Go your way,
eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and
send portions unto them, for whom nothing is
prepared.
For this day is holy unto our Lord.
Neither be ye grieved, for the joy of
the Lord is your strength.
So the Levites stilled all the people, saying,
Hold your peace, for the day is holy,
neither be ye grieved.
And all the people went their way to
eat, and to drink, and to send portions,
and to make great mirth, because they had
understood the words that were declared unto them.
Let's pray together.
Living God, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for what we learned from
both the Old and the New Testament.
We thank you for the privilege of gathering
together in this way.
We thank you for the reality of your
presence.
And we believe that you want to speak
to us from your word.
Not just tonight, but through these days together.
Help us, O Lord, to set the pace
for this conference from the very beginning.
As we read your word, as we seek
your face, for we pray in the name
of Jesus.
Amen.
I am aware that perhaps there are some
who don't find conferences easy.
I wonder what aspect of the Christian warfare
you do find easy.
Personally winning souls to Christ, until they are
soundly converted, do you find that easy?
Planting a church in the Muslim world, or
even in France, do you find that relatively
easy?
What significant thing that God has commanded us
do you find relatively easy?
Not too much.
There are blessings that God pours upon us.
And when he pours a blessing upon us,
we can be doing a difficult thing and
it seems wonderful and easy.
And I believe that God wants to pour
his blessing upon this conference.
One missionary said once, if you don't take
the young people through the training conference, whatever
you do, don't send any of them to
me.
I believe we are here because God has
brought us together.
I probably and myself want to be here
less than most of you.
And there are things of one's family life
that one should not bother to share.
And I can only say that separation from
my family and wife is probably five times
more difficult than it was even five years
ago.
I spent 20 years of going to OM
conferences.
I spent one seventh of my entire life
in conferences.
And I don't find them any easier.
Some of you may feel and find it's
difficult because no one seems to know you
or go out of the way to talk
to you.
You may find that difficult.
I would yearn for such days to come
back.
I so enjoyed my time with the Agape
Force in Texas.
I was the only speaker, four hours a
day.
No one knew me.
Most of them seemed too scared of me
to bother me.
And I enjoyed that conference more than certainly
OM conferences.
Because you see, we're not just gathered here
for a blessing.
Those of us who are here as leaders
know we are here with a specific work
to do.
And that work involves giving ourselves to you.
And we want to meet with you.
And for most of us, it's from 6
.30 at night, 6.30 in the morning
until midnight.
And though we don't find it easy, this
is what we want to do and this
is why we're here.
And we are excited about what God is
going to do in our midst.
If you want to see God work in
this conference, ask Him right now for a
spirit of expectancy.
We've got to expect great things from God.
That's what William Carey taught us.
The Crusade, the year program, has already begun.
For me, it was last Thursday when I
arrived here from Canada.
For you, maybe it was yesterday.
And we don't want to think in terms
of what are we going to do when
we leave here, but what are we going
to do now?
A Christian is a man who lives in
the now.
Some of you may never leave this conference.
And we want to make these days count.
We see throughout the Old Testament, as we
just read in Nehemiah, the people of God
often gathered together.
It's my prayer that our brother Baksin will
be able to visit us next week or
the week after that.
I've learned something from him, from his fellowships
out in India.
One of the things I've learned is that
the people of God love to gather in
the name of the Lord and worship the
Lord.
If you think it's crowded here, you should
go to one of their holy convocations, where
5,000 people live, most of them outside,
on a grounds probably one-fifth the size
of these premises.
And more than that come to the meetings.
And they worship the Lord.
And they feed on the Word.
And they listen to the longest sermons ever
preached in the history of the church since
the Apostle Paul had, what's his name, fall
out the window.
And they, in India, call these holy convocations
because they find that name in the Old
Testament.
When I arrived in India in 1963-64,
and I went to one of those convocations,
I found some things that were similar to
what we were practicing in OM that I
had not found almost anywhere else in the
world.
Especially their emphasis on prayer.
I was in a holy convocation in Madras.
And they had continual prayer going all day,
24 hours around the clock, in a little
prayer room.
One of my burdens for the second ship
is that we can have a prayer closet
and perhaps prayer going 24 hours a day
around the clock for the life and the
ministry of the ship.
Not as a marathon, but because people love
to pray.
And they know that prayer is the weapon.
So throughout the Old Testament and to modern
days, true, I believe, true movements of God
have done everything possible to gather in the
name of the Lord in this way as
we are doing here.
Without these conferences, I do not believe that
OM would exist today.
Even on a practical level.
The decisions that are made during these days.
As we seek the Lord for the decision.
And as we seek the guidance of the
Holy Spirit.
As I said in the leaders conference, if
I didn't believe the Holy Spirit was the
true leader of OM, I would quit today.
And may God have mercy on us if
that someday just becomes a phrase in our
Christian vocabulary instead of a reality on our
teams, in our board meetings, and in everything
that we do.
Some of you have read the little tract,
The Displaced Person.
The author of that tract believes that the
displaced person in modern missions is the Holy
Spirit.
Tozer believed that the displaced person in the
average church was the Holy Spirit.
He asked how many committee meetings in churches
begin with an hour waiting upon God, getting
the mind of the Spirit before making their
endless decisions about their own work in the
church.
So many times in the work of
God the prayer is just sort of a
little preamble.
We pray a little prayer and then we
launch off in all of our human wisdom
and man-made ideologies.
I know because I've practiced it myself.
Oh, for the sovereignty of the Spirit of
God and the love of God and the
Lordship of Jesus Christ on a practical level
in OM, this is what I yearn for
in this coming year.
Let me give you just a few of
the thoughts that I wrote down as I
prayed over this.
Why are we here?
What are our goals?
First of all, to seek the Lord.
That's reason enough for being here.
Even if you weren't coming on OM.
Even if you weren't going to the Muslim
world.
Even if OM didn't have a ship.
To seek the Lord.
Tozer said you can't get many in meetings
anymore where the only purpose is to seek
the Lord.
Think of the crowd some of our great
gospel singers can draw.
Think of the tens of thousands our great
evangelists can draw.
Then think of the crowd the Holy Spirit,
God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ
draw in your midweek prayer meeting back in
your church.
I believe the prayer meeting is the most
important part the prayer meetings the most important
part together with your quiet time in this
conference.
People say, well it costs a lot of
money to bring people just to pray.
How much would you pay to spend a
night of prayer with the Apostle Paul?
Or even some living saint?
I believe the expenditure that goes into this
conference is probably as valuable as anything else
we invest in.
To wait upon God.
To seek the Lord.
I think some people after I visited the
ship on Saturday expected me to come forward
with some great proclamation and decision.
I believe it will take many more days
waiting upon God before we can decide on
this particular ship.
Not just those of us who are here
but other people who are not here.
We have come to seek the Lord, to
worship the Lord.
I believe worship will be the Mount Everest
of our times in prayer.
But I believe that worship should start during
your personal time in the morning.
Don't think because you can come in the
evening meeting and enjoy singing choruses that that
is worship.
I can tell you plenty of carnal Christians
miles away from Jesus Christ can sing those
choruses, leap in the air and enjoy it
even more than you do.
If you are not walking with God in
the morning in your quiet time and worshiping
in Him, I doubt whether you have experienced
revival to bring you suddenly into His power
and presence just because you are singing your
favorite chorus.
No doubt many O-Emers would have a
better quiet time if they could have someone
follow them through the woods playing on an
organ.
Perhaps we make the mistake of thinking worship
is firstly something we feel.
Now feeling is involved in worship.
And there is certainly nothing wrong with feeling
the presence of God.
Of course, sometimes we need a discernment to
see if we are feeling the presence of
God or we are just feeling some feeling.
It costs, doesn't it, to have a quiet
time with God.
I would estimate from my surveys that 35
% of O-Emers last year's year program
failed basically to have a real quiet time
of any significance throughout the year.
If you think that's depressing, some mission societies
estimate that less than 25% of their
missionaries have a significant personal time daily with
a living God, even on the mission field.
And I can assure you that joining O
-Em will not make you automatically spiritual anymore.
You will have to learn.
Have to learn to worship.
And this will mean discipline.
This will mean praying when you don't feel
like praying.
Reading God's word.
Sorry, go ahead.
Reading God's word when you don't feel like
reading.
And knowing by faith you have been in
the presence of God.
People always say to me, well, my quiet
times are so dry.
Some of my quiet times are dry.
When I find that they're dry, I take
longer.
I go back again after lunch.
I walk out to the woods and see
if it's wetter out there.
And in England, sometimes it is.
But I don't give up.
And I tell you, spiritual life and prayer
and all that kind of thing is about
as natural to George Verwer as drinking arsenic.
And I don't believe it's an exaggeration to
say that the fact that God could use
such a one as I to even help
lead any kind of a spiritual movement is
the sovereign mercy of a great and loving
God.
So we're here we're here to seek the
Lord.
Don't think I'm against choruses.
You don't understand my speaking methodology now if
you think I'm against choruses.
My favorite chorus is, Seek ye first the
kingdom of God.
And how my heart gets challenged because it's
mainly all Scripture.
And I would like that to be the
motto of this conference, even if you don't
like the chorus.
Secondly, we have come to feed upon the
word of God.
Again, I believe that doesn't just mean listening
to the messages, but it means also on
your own.
Though let me make this little clarification.
That while we're all gathered together like this,
we will put extra emphasis on teaching and
preaching the word knowing that the rest of
the year, some of you lonely people, you'll
be digging all day because there won't be
any OM team speakers coming your way where
some of you are going.
I know within the next two weeks some
of you will be mighty sick of listening
to me.
But you can have the consolation that you
probably will never have to listen to me
again the rest of your life.
So I'm getting my innings now while I've
got you where I want you.
And I was so excited as I came
across this passage.
Sometimes I find a passage and speak on
the passage.
Other times the Lord gives me a burden
with a lot of scriptural thoughts.
Then I think, well Lord, what passage?
And in an amazing way, the Lord gave
me this passage.
I've never even read this passage publicly, I
don't think in my entire ministry.
That's why I didn't attempt the names.
But isn't that passage exciting?
Come to gather in the presence of God.
We've come to give thanks as these people
were giving thanks.
We've come to lay a spiritual foundation for
this year as those people, these people were
doing.
And if you read the rest of the
book of Nehemiah, you will see some other
wonderful comparisons.
In the early days on the ship when
it was dry docked in Rotterdam, God gave
us this book of Nehemiah.
There were many similarities.
So we've come to feed on his word.
Now, I know a few people find the
messages long.
Many other people have written to me and
said, why didn't you speak longer?
It's not easy to find the balance.
We just hope those of you who find
it long, especially through interpretation, maybe just tune
me out for a while, and just intercede,
just worship the Lord, and then after a
while then you tune me back in.
I don't really feel, in the light of
the situation, that we're spending too much time
in the word of God.
Will many of us never have an opportunity
like this again?
We could say, alright, let's not have any
interpreters, that will save us a lot of
trouble, a lot of time.
But we've tried that in the past.
We've tried simultaneous interpretation.
Or we've sent them off to other rooms.
No, no, we want to come back to
the main room.
We feel left out.
So in OM you have to learn to
give a little and to take a little.
And you can tell by my size that
I've been giving much and not receiving too
much back.
The third thing is that this is a
spiritual boot camp.
Now, I don't know what that is in
French.
When you first go into the army, those
first couple of months, when they give it
to you rough.
That didn't sound too exciting.
But we know when we first go into
the military and we have some famous military
people with us.
Ex-military.
Private, first class, George Everett Miley.
I think you were getting close to a
general, weren't you, by the time you left?
At least you were generalizing.
How many other people have served in their
national army?
Please stand up.
Don't be ashamed for your country.
I was also in the Boy Scouts, so
I will stand.
Okay.
When you first join an army, you
go through boot camp.
They make it rough.
And it's training.
Get it out of your head that this
is a spiritual holiday camp.
This is not filing.
That is the other side of the water
starting in a few days.
This is a military spiritual boot camp.
One time, a number of leaders wanted me
to speak at filing.
And someone said, no, this is not the
atmosphere for the kind of message that George
Verwer has.
Anyway, I got there to speak anyway.
And so we know that some things are
going to be hard this week.
Getting up early in the morning.
Being kept up so late that night.
And the diet.
Of course, a lot of people say this
food is great.
Some of those are dishonest.
Some are trying to be spiritual.
Some have no stomachs.
Of course, the food in O.M. does
vary from place to place.
But as you keep praying in the finance,
we will keep the food coming.
Some of you, for a long time, have
been hanging around minimum support so when there's
minimum stake, you won't complain.
Actually, I'm amazed at the price of food
these days.
And a lot of people are battling in
their homes just to get food on their
table.
We hope that in the midst of this
difficult training, you will be honest.
If you are finding it too hard, we
want to know.
If you don't believe that, you read Revolution
of Balance and Love.
We have to train people for difficult tasks
ahead.
But we don't believe everyone is the same.
And if you're finding it too hard, if
you need a break, a day off, or
maybe to see a doctor or special food,
we want to know.
We may not be able to do something
but we want to know, we want to
try.
And I believe with all my heart that
when you leave OM, most of you will
find life harder than when you were on
OM.
It's easy to get in this self-pity
puddle of Operation Mobilization.
We feel we are suffering so much and
we're going to come apart.
The strain is too great.
There are too many people.
Too many problems.
I know the self-pity puddle from one
end to the other.
I swam back and forth many times.
And God hates it.
And I've had to repent many, many times.
Don't get in that these days.
You ever get in the nobody understands me
puddle?
I challenged all the leaders last week to
read that dynamic book by those two women
who worked in the Muslim world Have We
No Rights?
And we want to mention that book again
tonight.
So we're here for training.
Not just for the coming year.
For life.
You know one of the roughest times you're
going to have in your life?
After you get married?
You got three kids and they're all teenagers.
And married?
I got three teenagers.
I've got a wife who's finding it very
hard.
She's got a husband who's finding it harder.
And a lot of the things I thought
I suffered in OM in the past are
very, very mild compared to some of the
things my soul is having to wrestle with
in these days.
I thank God for a wife who knows
something of a disciplined life probably more than
I do.
And I've just thanked God for her a
thousand times I would not even be here
if it was not for her discipline, her
stick-to-it-ness and her perseverance.
She went on the OM boot camp in
Mexico.
She found it horrible.
And after the summer I was a bit
extreme in those days.
I said, you stay on here alone.
I'm going back to Bible school.
She wasn't in Bible school.
I said, you stay here and crack the
language.
And I left this frightened young lady in
the middle of Mexico City.
Of course.
With the national workers, of course.
Who she could barely communicate with.
And she came apart.
God brought her back to Moody Bible Institute
on a bus.
And we discovered that she had deep, deep
emotional problems.
And in the lounge of Moody Bible Institute
we were about to break our engagement.
Because I said, look, this way you'll never
make it.
I'm probably going to New Guinea.
We're probably going to end up in a
big pot somewhere.
You're not going to make it.
Actually, I told her that on the first
date.
And she went through soul struggle and agony.
She went back after some nights to her
room.
And came to the end of herself.
And God met her needs.
She had five major psychosomatic illnesses.
They were all healed that night.
That doesn't mean that they've never tried to
come back.
And that she's perfect.
She's still very human.
But lots of weakness like her husband.
But that training, what God took her through
in her early days, has stood her 17
years in all kinds of incredibly difficult situations.
And that failure, that failure in Mexico was
the back door to the greatest victory in
her life.
Some of you are here for your second
year.
Your third year.
There's been failure.
You're not sure you can go any further.
Devil shot your quiet time apart.
You've done other things that you know were
areas of sin and failure.
But last year's failure could be the door
to the greatest program God has ever put
you in this coming year.
A man who gives up in his first
year of fighting has never learned to be
a soldier in the first place.
Fourthly, we have come together to fellowship.
Many people don't realize this.
That's why we need these conferences.
But fellowship for us is as important as
evangelism.
We want you to learn to walk in
the light.
As it says in 1 John chapter 1,
verse 5, 6, 7 and 8.
We want you to learn to share with
others.
I get O-Emers tell me it's taken
me three years to learn how to share.
Think of all that you can do to
your physical health, your mental health and your
emotional health if you wait three more years,
even one year to learn how to open
up and to share and be real.
Why don't you learn that here?
This is your opportunity.
You go right into your discussion group tomorrow.
And just start crying.
Anybody does that tomorrow, give them a free
book.
Just go in there and start crying.
I can't stand George Fowler.
If he speaks again, I'll die.
Great, wonderful.
You're just learning to fly.
What good will it do for us to
bottle up all of our feelings and never
express ourselves and never open our mouths?
How will that help us?
Of course you just can't do this anywhere
and everywhere.
We'd prefer it not in the dining hall.
And there's not enough toilets to do it
in the toilet.
But that's what the discussion groups are for.
To express yourself.
Most of you are not that intensive.
You're not as emotionally mixed up as me.
But I hope you will learn to share.
And if you don't learn to share, you
will join the ranks of hundreds of thousands
of other evangelical phonies who go around with
their big smile, isn't Jesus wonderful?
And it's not real, and they know it.
I was reading in Hebrews yesterday how we
should not forsake gathering together.
And I just believe this fellowship is so
important.
A revolution of honesty.
And then lastly, though there are many other
things I would love to incorporate in this.
Well, just these two final things.
There is the practical things that we have
to get done.
That makes it valid in itself as well.
We can't possibly organize what we want to
do next year without a couple of weeks
together.
It involves literally thousands, thousands of interviews in
the next 20 days.
Don't think that your situation is going to
be solved with one interview with one leader.
We have to discuss.
We have to cross-discuss.
We have to pray.
We've got to get the Lord's confirmation about
certain strategies.
The ship is only one of many things.
I personally feel the conference is too short.
But we had an election, and I lost.
But there is a lot to be done
in these few days, and for everything you
see, there's ten things going on behind the
scenes, often late into the night.
And then, of course, there are so many
practical things you need to learn in connection
with your field that you're going to in
the many different messages.
Some messages you won't get as much as
other messages.
That's normal.
God just can't speak strong in every message
to every single person.
If he did, many of you would get
a short circuit anyway.
And you're going to find a great cross
-range of speakers.
Those of us who will be at the
Coordinators' Conference are going to have the joy
of listening four times to a brother, Chua,
from Singapore, who is the leader of the
International Fellowship of Christian Students, IVF International.
We're going to feed on the word, because
we need it.
And we're going to have many different speakers.
Some of them will even contradict one another.
We don't have one little line we're trying
to push down into your head.
You're going to have to search the Scriptures
and see if these things sow, whether it's
George Berler speaking, or Billy Graham, or whoever
else we bring in.
Training.
It's important.
And lastly, I believe God wants to bring
revival.
I know that word has lost its meaning
in many places.
I believe God can pour out His Holy
Spirit upon us in these days.
Acts 4.31. There has to be the
crisis and the process.
I believe more than general revival, when God
does work in a special way, God's sovereign
timing plus prayer is the ingredient for that.
And repentance.
But I believe as we pray toward that
and work toward that, we have the privilege
of appropriating personal revival as God's children.
We are alive in Jesus Christ.
Let's learn to claim that.
Let's learn to live in the light of
that.
Vance Havner said, if we had more vival,
we wouldn't need revival.
And if you want to pray for those
of us who are leaders, pray that we
may be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Pray that we may know personal revival.
Without that, this movement is doomed even if
we had 25 ships.
We need God.
We need the reality of the Holy Spirit
daily.
We need the brokenness that only the Spirit
of God can produce.
And we know that God can give it.
He's given it in the past and He
can give it again.
Not always in the same way.
Sometimes it's rather noisy.
Sometimes it's very quiet.
Sometimes it's in a prayer meeting.
Sometimes it's just one by one.
Two by two.
God touching.
God breaking.
God healing.
Healing relationships.
Whenever I go, people expect me to speak
about the ship.
I actually don't like to speak about the
ship.
I sometimes announce in the church, I'm going
to speak about the most important ship tonight.
Oh, oh, he's going to speak about the
second ship tonight.
Or he's going to speak about Lagas.
And then I start speaking about relationship.
And then I start speaking about fellowship.
And then I start speaking about worship.
I'm sorry for the interpreters, but I couldn't
resist that.
Just explain what I've said.
And God wants to do that in these
days.
Earth's new revival.
To bring that healing in relationships.
That reality of fellowship.
And that joy of worship.
For the joy of the Lord is our
strength.
Let us pray.
Just a few moments of silent prayer together.
Oh God, we know you have brought us
here for a divine purpose.
We praise you that you have given us
this privilege.
We praise you for all you have done
this last year.
By faith we praise you for what you're
going to do this coming year.
Open our hearts, oh God.
Break our hearts, oh God.
Take away wrong attitudes.
Even toward this conference.
Or toward any brother or sister.
That we may walk in repentance and brokenness
and revival.
That our cups may be full and running
over.
We thank you for the revival you brought
to Ezra.
Through the reading of the word.
And we pray, oh God, do it again.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Let's stand and close by singing, seek ye
first the kingdom of God.
No shortcuts.
Each verse repeated by the men as the
girls worship.
We all worship the hallelujahs.