But I want to read two passages of
scripture.
The first one is in the first epistle
of Peter.
Remember, this is the word of God.
Verse three.
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant
mercy hath begotten us again unto a living
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for
you, who are kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation, ready to be
revealed in the last time.
In this ye greatly rejoice.
This is a key verse.
Though now for a season, if need be,
ye are in heaviness through manifold trials, that
the trial of your faith, the testing and
the trial of your faith, really being much
more precious than gold, that perisheth, though it
be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ, who having not seen ye
love, in whom though now ye see him
not yet, the meeting ye rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end
of your faith, even the salvation of your
souls.
Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and
searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto you, searching what manner of
time the Spirit of Christ who was in
them did signify when he testified beforehand the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow.
Verse 13 speaks about girding up the loins
of your mind, being sober, hoping to the
end for the grace that is to be
brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
And then gives that great plea for holiness
in verse 15.
As he who hath called you is holy,
so be ye holy in all manner of
life.
Then to the book of James.
Book of James, going to go back a
little bit.
Chapter 1.
Here again, please, the word of the Lord.
James, a servant of God.
Chapter 1 of the Lord Jesus Christ to
the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad.
Greetings, my brethren, count it all joy when
you fall into various trials, knowing this, that
the testing of your faith worketh patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that
ye may be perfect or mature and entire,
lacking nothing.
Many of you lack wisdom.
Let a mask of God who giveth all
men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall
be given him.
Let him ask in faith, not wavering.
For he that wavereth is like the wave
of the sea, driven with the wind and
tossed.
But let not that man think that he
shall receive anything of the Lord.
A double-minded man is unstable in all
of his ways.
Let the brother of low decree rejoice in
that he is exalted, but the rich in
that he is made low because of the
flower of the grass, he shall pass away.
For the sun is no sooner risen with
a burning heat, but it wither withereth the
grass, his flower falleth, and the grace of
the fashion of it perisheth.
So also shall the rich man fade away
in his ways.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptations, for
when he has tried, he shall receive the
crown of life which the Lord had promised
to him that love him.
Let no man say when he is tempted,
I am tempted of God.
For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man.
But every man is tempted when he has
drawn away of his own lust and enticed,
and when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth
sin.
And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth
death.
Do not err, my beloved brethren.
Let's just pray again.
God, this is your word.
We cannot take these things lightly.
We must receive what you have for us.
Reveal deeper meanings to these scriptures.
Open our own hearts to take steps of
faith that we may in fact do what
we have just sung about and present ourselves
in a way that we are wholly available.
In Jesus' name, amen.
There's a message I've been sharing all over
the world for many years.
I used to perhaps preach a little too
much.
I was sometimes going 800, 900 messages a
year, especially when we lived on the ship.
You could really get a lot of messages,
fill the auditorium, send them out, fill it
again.
And now I guess I only take about
400 messages.
So maybe it's 400 or 500 messages since
I was last with you.
Please forgive me if I've forgotten some of
your names or get confused in some other
area.
I know your church has been through a
difficult time, and I've been praying, and I
believe that disappointment can be God's appointment.
We must understand that.
Romans 8.28 is in the heart of
the New Testament, and that's something we also
need to realize.
I felt a burden to speak from some
notes that are in the back of my
Bible, and I've been there for many years.
So this isn't some message I have because
your church has gone through a special time
of crisis and got a little bit of
publicity or whatever else.
But this is a message I've shared all
over the world with God's people and firstly
with my own OM, Operation Mobilization leaders, because
I have this deep conviction that as God's
people we will be tested.
We will be tested.
I'm in a time of testing.
I remember in Kathmandu, Nepal, when I lived
in Asia, I lived in India for a
while, and then I moved to Nepal.
And I'd bring up young men, Indian men,
and give them a leadership training course and
send them back into India.
What a joy to see some of them
now, 20 years later, we're celebrating the 25th
anniversary of our work in India.
We have 300 full-time people in that
work.
Elizabeth Clark from your own fellowship worked with
us there for a while.
Now they're mainly Indians.
But I remember a message, I'm not sure
if I ever repeated it, but I gave
it in Kathmandu, somewhere that's probably on tape,
called the Big Test.
I believe many of the problems we have
today among our Christian leaders around the world
is because when they were young, they did
not lay proper foundations in their lives, in
the area of discipline, in the area of
the crucified life, in the area of openness
and honesty.
The acorns of the teenage years become the
oak trees of the 40s.
And this message I shared in Kathmandu was
called the Big Test.
And I said, I believe every one of
you young men eventually are going to have
a major test.
I mean a major test which can be
linked with a temptation.
God allows a temptation which in turn becomes
a test of our faith, of our love,
of what we're really made of.
And I pointed out something, and I know
I need to think this through more thoroughly
once again now, so many years have passed,
that many of the little struggles we have
are to prepare us for that big test
that's down the road.
So don't despise some of those little problems
that are coming into your life.
Don't think, well, you know, I just had
a problem with a puncture in my car
this week, an irrelevant thing to happen, just
a waste of time.
No, God can use that.
You just lost a job, that's a fairly
big test actually.
To lose a job, a lot of disappointment
in the job market today.
We must, as God's people, see beyond the
hand that may be grabbing our arm, the
hand of circumstance, we must see beyond that
to what is God doing through these situations.
I remember as a young Christian, I didn't
know really quite how to behave with women,
I was just a baby Christian, and I
took my girlfriend off in the woods in
my car and I started to neck, that's
an American term, I forget what you say
over here, but you're well tuned in with
all your American television stories, Dallas and all
the rest.
And I maybe began to go a little
further than just some kissing, just a young
man, and I was wondering what the Bible
taught about that, I'd just become a Christian,
I was just beginning to move a little
beyond the kissing stage, nothing in terms of
immorality, because I knew and felt that was
truly clearly wrong from the Bible, but all
those things that the Bible doesn't talk about.
And lo and behold, a policeman pulled up
behind my car.
You're not allowed to park in the woods
in this part of the country, especially with
your arms around a girl.
And the policeman banged on the window and
frightened me right out of the seat of
the car.
And he said, you know, you'd better get
out of here real quick before I do
something.
I was so petrified, I put the vehicle
in the wrong gear.
Instead of going forward, I went backward into
a large ditch.
This was an old Henry J, a manufactured
in the British Isles, and I couldn't get
it out.
The father of this young woman was an
alcoholic.
I don't think he liked me.
And easily, as a man who'd been through
divorce a couple of times, he didn't always
believe the best.
And I was nervous because I had to
get her home by 12 o'clock.
We ran down the road and we got
to a house and got on the phone
and phoned her father.
She was a ripe old age of about
18.
We called the father.
I said, look, I've had some difficulty with
my car.
Could you pick us up out on a
certain road and, you know, take your daughter
home and I can take care of my
car?
He came and he wanted to see the
car.
I said, I can help.
No, no, you just take her home.
I'll take care of the car.
No.
And he insisted on going to where the
car was.
You can imagine his thoughts and his lovely
little daughter was back in the woods in
a car that was in a ditch.
That was the end of that relationship with
that girl.
It went on for a few more weeks.
He accused me very heavily.
And this little baby Christian, somehow in God's
providence, went off to a church retreat in
the woods of New Jersey and sought God.
What was I to learn from that little
bit of folly with the police and with
the father?
And in those very early days of my
Christian life, I realized that if I didn't
go through radical, radical surgery of my whole
being by the power of God and the
word of God, that I would never make
it in my Christian life.
Too many problems.
Big mouth, big eyes, high energy.
I wouldn't make it.
That's when I began to devour books.
That's when I began to practice what the
Apostle Paul says, which is so seldom practiced
today.
It's hardly even mentioned in our Bible colleges,
in our seminaries.
Apostle Paul, first Corinthians chapter nine, he said,
I buffet my body.
Ooh, that sounds like asceticism.
Anything the church is against today is asceticism.
We want to enjoy the comforts of being
good, little prosperous evangelicals.
We have a movement out of the United
States that actually teaches all spiritual people will
prosper financially.
We know God does prosper individuals.
That's no problem.
But to say spirituality and prosperity always come
together is a little embarrassing if you've worked
as I have in the church in India
and Pakistan and Bangladesh and many parts of
the world where deeply spiritual people who often
know more about Jesus Christ than most of
us live very close to the poverty line.
Let us beware of just judging our Christianity
by our own culture.
Apostle Paul said, I buffet my body.
I bring it into subjection.
Lest after preaching to others, I become a
castaway.
God, by his grace, has kept this lustful,
loud mouth these 30 some years.
And in every one of these days of
these 30 some years, I've experienced that personal
revival that I want you to read about
in this amazing little book.
And I say this, especially to you young
people.
Because today what's going on in many places,
what is going on in many places in
the area of impurity among God's people, there
is no excuse whatsoever.
There is provision in Jesus Christ to live
in purity and reality and honesty.
And if a like me can learn it
at 18 and prove it until he's 51,
then there is scope for everyone and excuse
for no one.
Now at the same time, Satan is subtle
as a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour.
And Satan is attempting to destroy churches with
powerful testimonies like this church.
Satan is attempting to destroy missionaries as we're
seeing an increase of impurity and immorality on
the mission field.
And I believe we need to understand that
every little test in our life, it may
be in the area of food, it may
be in the area of our job, it
may be in the area of our emotions,
it may be a broken romance, it may
be some other kind of problem, it may
be small, but you need to take advantage
of those small tests to lay the foundation
for the big one.
Because it's coming down the road at you.
It's coming down the road.
Not just a few people are going to
be tested to the core of their Christian
faith, I would say a majority of Christians
who love Christ and who want to serve
him will be tested.
One of our men in India with the
very best testimony is being tested right now
to the very root as his older son
has somehow made a gigantic mess and it's
causing chaos and it's being talked about.
And it's a test, I just talked to
him on the phone again, that is beyond
anything he ever thought would happen.
Brothers and sisters, anything can happen to us
as God's people.
Anything can happen.
And to say that God would never allow
that to happen in my life, God would
never allow one of my children to go
to prison, a friend of mine who's a
pastor has just had his son put in
prison.
To say this can never happen in my
home, this can never happen in my job,
this can never happen, is just being naive
about what life is all about.
Anything can happen among God's people.
Now what we do when it happens, that's
more in our hand.
I've listed in the back of my Bible
seven ways that our maturity in Christ will
be tested.
As I said, I wrote this in a
long time ago and I've shared it all
over the world when I've had opportunity.
How will our maturity in Christ be tested?
Many people think that Operation Immobilization is mainly
some kind of massive evangelistic program.
If you'd like the inside information on OM,
let me just tell you that our first
burden from the beginning of our work is
spiritual reality.
It is revival, personal revival like that book.
You look at the leaflet, the seven major
emphasis of OM, and you'll discover what we're
really trying to say to God's people.
My address is on the back of that,
by the way, if you want to write
and lodge a complaint.
There's actually 14 emphasis in this leaflet and
we need every one of those in our
life.
Satan looks for one weak place in your
armor and he'll go for that place.
That's why we must declare the whole counsel
of God.
That's why I've gone all over the world
urging every pastor, every church to make sure
at least once or twice a year you
speak from the Bible what the Bible says
about sex.
Because there's over 500 verses in the Bible
on the subject of sex.
Billy Graham is one of the few who
speaks openly and honestly about sex.
And what a testimony this man has maintained.
He would never for years even be found
with another single woman.
People mocked at Billy Graham.
In OM we took on a similar practice
to avoid the appearance of evil because we
don't trust the devil and we don't trust
people's tongues.
People laughed at this OM policy, but some
of the most lewd magazines in America have
tried to push Billy Graham into the arms
of some promiscuous woman and just get one
picture.
That's all they need and that would be
front page right across America.
They've tried to nail Billy Graham again last
year and they couldn't find anything significant to
write any scandal about.
I am so grateful that my own spiritual
father, Billy Graham, has been an example to
me.
Yes, our first burden in operation mobilization, and
I'm sure it's true in your church, is
spiritual reality.
It's holiness.
It's not the size of what we're doing.
It's not that we have a big church
and a new church.
It's not that OM now has a new
ship.
We can match you.
You got a new church, we got a
new ship.
Big deal.
This must really impress God as he looks
down and sees that we have built a
church and sees that we have built a
ship.
No, God looks right through the wood or
right through the steel and he looks at
your heart and my heart and the Bible
says the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.
And I will tell you when the Holy
Ghost comes in power on a congregation, the
week after the elders will be packed with
people seeking counseling, confessing and putting things right.
Praise God for this issue of Christianity Today,
the best Christian magazine I know.
Reading it just as I came off the
train, the entire issue is given to the
problem of homosexuality, which at present is an
epidemic among God's people.
And few people say anything about it.
And this beautiful issue shows that there is
hope for the homosexual and they can come
into victory and reality and enjoy marriage or
be called to singleness depending on how God
works in their lives.
So our burden, and I'm sure it's your
burden, and it would be my desire that
we could recommit ourselves to this tonight, is
reality.
It's purity.
It's honesty.
Reality first, geography second, I often say.
Our first burden isn't to get thousands of
people to come on Love Europe.
In fact, if you understand OM, one of
the main reasons we try to get all
these people on Love Europe is simply to
be able to give them this message.
Half the people at Love Europe stood up
to recommit their lives to Jesus Christ.
Over 500 people were personally counseled, many of
them about deep sexual problems, some of them
seemingly into even difficulties with evil spirits.
And many found a new life, though we
know that's an ongoing process.
One of these seven areas where we're going
to be tested.
The first area I've listed in my Bible,
you can write this down.
This isn't copyright.
You can write this down and preach it.
Go out on the street corner.
I don't know if you do any open
air ministry, but we saw a lot of
it very fruitful this summer.
The first test that many of us are
going to have is the test of misunderstandings.
Do you ever have any misunderstandings in your
family?
I've reared three children.
They're all grown up.
I saw my daughter yesterday as a bridesmaid
in one of my best friend's daughter's wedding.
I can't hardly believe it.
She was born in Leigh, Lancashire.
Dr. Hunter, now with the Lord, his wife
is here this evening.
It's so good to see you.
And she's 25.
Life goes by very, very quickly.
But I can tell you in rearing my
children in our home, we have had misunderstandings.
Sometimes I was trying to say something, and
people were hearing something else.
Yesterday, I had four misunderstandings with my wife
in one day.
Because we had two weddings, we live a
little bit of an active life.
Little things like, you go over here and
meet me.
And she hears one thing and I do
something else.
And so she's sitting there waiting and waiting
in the rain after the wedding, and I'm
not showing up.
I'm in the car working on my letters,
which I have a bit of a neurosis
about, thinking she is going to meet me
in the car.
Suddenly, it dawns on me, she's waiting for
me.
I jump in the car and find her
on the corner.
And though my wife is a relatively patient
woman, sometimes, you know, just a little bit
of a struggle.
I did a similar thing after the second
wedding.
She thought she was going to drive me
to the station.
I decided to go walk to the station
on my own.
The wedding was very long.
I was late for my evening meeting.
So she came out looking for me to
drive me to the station, and I was
gone.
Where's my husband?
Has anybody...
You always look really interesting when you're asking
people if they know where your husband is.
In our churches, in our OM teams, at
the Quinta, at Brussels, in Bombay, the major
problems we often have, the major tests are
linked with misunderstandings.
In fact, often when we have one crisis,
we get that crisis resolved, but at the
same time, other misunderstandings come.
And we see, in the way the devil
works, that the biggest problem wasn't the initial
problem.
The biggest problem becomes the misunderstandings that come
afterward, and then sometimes the gossip or the
confusion, because when we're trying to evangelize the
whole world, there never seems to be enough
time to get all the misunderstandings sorted out.
How many of you pray for Operation Mobilization?
Could I take my survey?
You actually pray for us once a week,
once a month.
Could you raise your hand?
Okay, we've got a few.
Either the rest of you are new, or
last time I was here, I made zero
impact, or you're praying for too many people.
That's probably a misunderstanding.
Would you pray for us right now?
Because I'll tell you the truth, in OM,
we have got a lot of problems.
We've got a lot of misunderstandings.
Every month, we have 10% less than
the amount of money we need to function.
That alone creates tension in our central accounting
office, in our financial control office, as people
phone in from all over the world.
Is there any money?
We need extra money.
This lady's having her baby.
Her prayer partners have given her some money
for this baby.
Why can't we get the money?
The money's stuck in some bank on the
other end of the world.
The Brazilians who came on Love Europe could
not get their money out of the country.
If we take it out, it's worth half
of what it actually is.
That is difficult.
We have got misunderstandings, and one of the
reasons we are rejoicing, we're pressing on, we're
not going to let this hinder us, though
it will in some ways.
We know that misunderstandings are part of life,
and God can use them.
God can use them.
So often my failure to communicate properly to
my own wife has humbled me, has caused
me to repent, and that has enabled me,
I'm not defending any of that, I repented
of it, but that has enabled me to
be more patient with other people, and that's
one of the great needs in my life.
Because as far as I'm concerned, in my
humanity, most people are going too slow.
Most churches are going too slow.
I find the whole Christian scene really quite
unbearable at times, but when I repent of
my own sin, I see my own weakness,
then I am less judgmental toward others.
So God has actually used my failures, not
defending them, to teach me Christ-likeness in
other ways, and in the end of the
day, the devil is the loser.
So I thank God for misunderstandings.
If I caused them, if I've sinned, I
repent of that, but I thank God that
he can overrule misunderstandings.
We have a few hundred in OM right
now, considering the number of people, considering our
involvement in a hundred nations, that's not really
many.
Would you like to see our fax bill
or telephone bill?
You would really be surprised.
But you see, God has given us a
thousand, eight hundred people who are in the
midst of one of the greatest spiritual invasions
the world has ever seen, working with churches
and working with other agencies.
There are misunderstandings recorded again and again in
the Bible, even in the life of Jesus
Christ, for he was misunderstood.
Do you ever feel misunderstood by your church?
By the leaders?
By your wife?
By your children?
Will you learn how to receive that?
Don't let it cause you to panic or
do something foolish or overreact.
I'm an overreactor, nothing to do with atomic
energy, especially in committee meeting.
I'm a poor committee man, very emotional.
The board member on the other side of
the room says something that I totally disagree
with.
I'm in high gear.
I'm moving straight at it.
Praise the Lord, I don't do it so
much anymore.
But when I do it, people get hurt.
You know Peter Maiden?
How many know Peter Maiden?
He's my associate international director.
And when it comes to situations where it
looks like I could easily lose my cool
and say something hurtful, I say, here I
am, Lord, send Peter.
A phlegmatic, semi-unemotional Cumbrian, never seen him
hardly ever lose his cool in a board
meeting.
When I'm steaming, you can see the smoke
out my ears.
This is why I so believe in teamwork.
Misunderstandings are so easy.
And if you're emotional as I am, if
you're a reactor, you feel things deeply, you're
a preacher.
Preachers are always dangerous in board meetings because
here I've got 45 minutes.
I can just speak.
You just sit.
You're a captive audience.
We've locked the doors, by the way.
I can just pour it all out.
It's great.
Some of you don't look so great, but
I feel great.
But board meetings, committee meetings, rearing children, households,
problem solving, which at times I've been weak,
totally different.
You've got to listen.
You've got to be quiet.
Let the other people speak.
Misunderstandings can be one of God's great platforms
for learning holiness and reality, learning teamwork.
Stop trying to do it all yourself.
And it's exciting.
Don't be resentful because you've been misunderstood.
We all have had similar experiences.
Don't let even a root of bitterness come
in.
We're warned about that in the book of
Hebrews.
The second way our maturity is going to
be tested, I'm going to have to speed
up a little bit, is criticism.
Now these two are very similar.
Every man and woman of God that has
ever lived, has ever done anything, has been
criticized.
I want to ask you, and I know
this message isn't exactly for babes in Christ,
but you can glean something from it.
I don't know if any of you are
babes in Christ, but if you do anything
for God, you will be criticized.
And sometimes, this is the hard part, it's
your own fault.
It's your own fault.
I thank God for my critics.
Right back to my Bible college days as
a student.
A man came to me when I was
being recognized as a great student leader.
He took me into a room aside and
he said, you know, I find you a
very unfriendly person.
I thought I was friendly.
Apparently, I was not saying hello to him.
My type of temperament, pragmatic, get the job
done.
We easily communicate lack of friendliness.
Instead of defending myself, somehow, because I had
read Calvary Road or something similar, I said,
you know, I think you're right, and I
broke, and I said, pray for me.
Years later, I met him.
He never forgot that experience.
He's a close friend, a supporter.
We had lunch together a few years ago
when he flew over from the States, runs
a Christian radio station, and you can be
sure he's pushing Operation Mobilization.
You will learn more from your critics than
you will from friends.
We all need someone who we're able to
walk in the light with.
One of the reasons I'm still in the
ring is I've never kept anything in.
It doesn't mean I have to share it
everywhere, but I have people that I can
really walk in the light with.
My struggle in this area, my struggle in
that area.
How are you doing in handling criticism?
Maybe on the job, in your work, maybe
in the church, maybe in the home.
How is it, fathers, when your daughter has
roast father for lunch?
You're not there, but just happen to hear
a little bit of it in the other
room.
Children have been able to divide mother and
father right into two teams, as we sometimes
as parents think differently about discipline and about
what children should do or not do and
where they should go and not go.
Criticism is a way we are all going
to be tested.
The third way we're going to be tested
is something a little unusual, so I have
it listed here.
It's the test of suddenly having extra money.
Now this is a test that no one
will probably even notice because it's a private
affair, but many people, when they have fallen
into sin, you discover that money was involved.
I once had a young man who had
terrific problems with impurity and immorality and he
went through a great long period of victory
and he said, you know, I have to
be honest, the reason I got the victory
is I didn't have any money.
In OM, you give us so little money,
I couldn't go out and do what I
wanted to do.
That's a bad testimony, isn't it?
But it is amazing how dangerous excessive money
can be.
If you've seen some of the big wipeouts
in America among some of these famous people
like this one great TV star, you will
notice that money and immorality go hand in
hand.
That's why I believe the call to a
more sacrificial lifestyle, the call to live a
little closer to the line with our money
invested for the kingdom, is a safer way
to go, though nothing is any total answer
to enemy's subtle attacks outside the armor of
God and the reality of Jesus Christ.
Maybe you don't have much money, maybe you're
hoping someday that you're going to inherit your
aunt's fortune when she goes.
We don't like to think like that, do
we?
But some people do.
If ever sudden money comes into your life,
beware, take heed.
Be sure you put it all in the
hands of God and then say, Lord, now
how am I supposed to use this for
your glory?
We are so weak, we are so vulnerable,
so easily when a lot of money comes
in our hands, even whole churches have gone
through this kind of thing, the enemy gets
in.
I think of that word that's found in
1 Timothy.
I have a lot of verses written here.
I can't read the verses in my notes
anymore without putting my glasses on.
But look at 1 Timothy 6.10 just
very quickly.
There are a lot of other verses that
I really wanted to look at.
For the love of money is the root
of all evil, which while some coveted after,
they have erred from the faith and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows.
There's not many verses as strong as that.
The temptation that comes, the testing that comes.
Praise God for people that have passed the
test.
I was reading about an American character.
I'd like to meet him.
God has blessed his business.
He's in stocks and investments.
He and his wife started off with a
few thousands and then they had a few
hundreds of thousands and now they probably have
maybe 200, I mean several millions of investments.
I don't even understand all of this.
And they're still living quite carefully and giving
it all to God.
And they're still in the race of holiness
and reality.
It is quite amazing, brothers and sisters, the
money that is being released for the work
of God from men and women who know
how to handle this big test that can
come.
I have written behind it, right next to
it, the fourth area.
Success.
Success can be the great test of maturity.
Take heed, lest ye fall.
Buffet your body, bring it into subjection.
First Corinthians nine.
Lest after preaching to others, you become a
castaway.
Praise God, sometimes for failure.
At least we come out of it with
a little humility, and that's worth more than
gold.
What is humility going for on the stock
exchange down in Manchester?
What's humility going for?
It's an expensive commodity.
There is not enough of it.
The lack of it breaks families, breaks churches,
breaks evangelistic teams, and breaks people's hearts.
One of my favorite books is Andrew Murray's
brilliant book.
The title is Humility.
No, I've had some failures in my life.
I thank God that through those failures, I've
learned humility.
The pain of the failure, which none of
us want, can bring big dividends as we
stand on Romans 8.28, as we develop
maturity.
We learn to think in a godly way.
We learn to get the right balance of
scripture.
These things cannot hinder us in our walk
with God.
Beware of success.
It comes often as a back door to
failure.
The fifth way that will be tested might
surprise you.
No, I guess not.
It's failure.
That's right.
Just as great success can test you, and
you can fail that test, so also great
failure.
Because through that failure, discouragement comes in.
Disappointment comes in.
Not easy to have your church written about
in the local paper, is it?
How are you handling that?
I hope you're not just keeping it all
in.
Pretend nothing's ever happened here.
Just smile and go on as usual.
That's what we Christians do.
That's why we blow our marriages apart.
That's why we blow our friendships apart.
You've gone through a trial.
You've gone through a time of testing.
From my feeble understanding, you are doing relatively
well.
Because I've seen things hit churches.
I've been in this ministry for 37 years,
and the church completely came unglued.
And at the end of the day, there
were hundreds, hundreds of people hurt, some of
whom totally abandoned the Christian faith altogether.
Because Satan doesn't go for small stakes.
Satan doesn't go for one or two people,
or one or two ministers.
And we've seen, and the story of it
is written in this book, how God can
restore ministers, and God can restore preachers.
And I've been saying for over two years
that this is the most significant book of
this decade.
The man who wrote this book was just
the main speaker at the OM conference just
a few weeks ago.
Well, Satan's not after one or two.
Satan wants to blow this church, spiritually speaking,
right off the face of greater Manchester.
Satan is not happy if a few people
are hurt, especially if they're repenting and trying
to get back to square one.
Satan wants to see hundreds of people turning
on each other, hundreds of people bitter, hundreds
of people just unable to function.
I have had to counsel people who have
gone through such hurt.
They were unable to function.
Some of them had nervous breakdowns in the
process.
Some have even committed suicide.
We've had several ministers commit suicide in Britain
in this recent decade.
Half the time, you don't hear about such
things.
When are we going to face the reality
that as God's people, we are in spiritual
warfare?
As God's people, we can't afford these flimsy
little half-attended prayer meetings.
As God's people, we can't afford neglecting the
word of God.
We can't afford neglecting discipline in our lives.
We cannot afford living in a closet with
the shades pulled down so no one knows
what's going on.
Don't be afraid to weep with those that
weep.
Don't be afraid to tell your neighbors, yes,
we as Christians are not perfect.
We do fail, but God forgives.
I never put one of those bumper stickers
on my car.
Jesus saves and, you know, turn or burn
various bumper stickers because I'm not a good
enough driver.
Put a Jesus sticker on my car when
I'm driving around.
The way I drive, I'm usually listening to
a sermon and I'm usually praying and I'm
just not a good driver.
20 years of driving, I took the British
driver's test and failed.
Took it again after much prayer, failed again.
Spent 100 pounds on lessons, got the whole
world praying for me and finally got my
British license.
Talk about humility.
My wife, well, I never felt really she
should drive.
I felt, my wife, driving is not your
thing.
She announced to me a couple of years
ago, I'm going to drive.
What?
The British driver's test.
You knock and you never pass it.
I failed it.
25 years driving.
My wife takes a few lessons, goes down,
takes a test first time.
Passed.
Ever since I've been sitting there in the
passenger seat.
Failure can be the backdoor to success.
Spiritual warfare.
Realizing that a success can be the backdoor
to failure.
So failure, failure can be the backdoor to
success.
That disappointment can become God's appointment to go
deeper, to deal with real issues, to face
Christianity as it is.
By the way, I finally found a bumper
sticker that I could put on my car.
It says, I'm a Christian, not perfect, only
forgiven.
Hallelujah.
I will tell you, God can even use
those newspaper articles to give you opportunities to
share your faith.
And we know that what has happened here
is happening in every level of government.
It's happening in every level of society.
Let's not be naive.
It's a plague.
It has been for many years.
We don't have to go around with our
heads in the sand.
We can speak out that we are God's
people.
Not perfect, only forgiven.
And God can use this event to bring
the greatest harvest of souls into your church
that you've ever seen in the history of
your whole ministry.
Looks to me like you've still got a
little room.
Failure.
Bounce back.
Learn how to use it.
The sixth, and then we just find difficult,
is suffering, especially physical suffering.
I wonder if there's anyone here tonight you're
going through a time of physical suffering.
I often go to churches and people come
up to me after when we pray together,
I discover they have terminal cancer.
What a challenge that is to me, to
meet a man in church rejoicing in Jesus
Christ, who knows he's sort of on his
way anytime.
I tell you, there is great hope in
Jesus Christ.
In the midst of suffering, even the most
difficult, there is hope.
There is peace.
There is assurance from God's word that this
life is just so small, like a blade
of grass compared to eternity.
And God can give grace in the midst
of that test.
Surely, in one sense, God is preparing all
of us for death, all of us for
that moment when sometimes you don't have any
time if you're killed in an airplane crash,
but most people have time to contemplate their
death.
One of the great joys this year is
to have my father traveling with me, two
sessions.
He almost came tonight, two six-week periods,
because my mother a year ago this month
went to be with the Lord.
My dad's 83.
He's got a heart condition.
He knows he can go anytime.
He's a man of faith.
He's a man of God.
And he has to see him persevere day
by day in joy and with a smile.
Today his big feat was to go back
from Houston station on his own through London,
which he's never done in his entire life.
And he doesn't understand most English people when
they're speaking.
That's what he says.
So he asked for information, which is usually
a Pakistani anyway, doesn't understand what they're saying,
and tries to get back through London to
West Wickham, which is way south.
Anyway, I phoned him from the train and
he made it safely.
What a joy it's been to be with
my own father, because I left home at
18 and hardly ever had time back there.
And he's the demonstration, and I know some
of you are as well, that in the
midst of the great test of suffering, of
physical illness, or other kinds of suffering, we
can stand.
It's not easy.
Sometimes you'll be weeping.
Sometimes you'll be frightened.
Great faith is not in the absence of
fear.
Great faith is as we redirect that fear,
which alone actually can give us extra energy.
I have great struggle with fear.
It's an energy producer.
Turn it around, load it up, shoot it,
right back in the devil's face.
And men who often have struggled with fear,
as been true in my life, do courageous
things for God.
Because our strength is not from ourselves, but
from God.
The last test that I have on my
list is the test of a deep infatuation.
I didn't write this here in the last
few weeks.
I wrote this here many years ago.
And I know that some of you, I'm
not interested in the past.
That's not my big thing, the past.
I know that some of you, in the
years to come, are going to be tested
through deep infatuation with the opposite sex.
Now, a word, first of all, to single
people.
Because infatuation has to be handled one way
by single people and another way by married
people.
If you're single and you get a heavy
dose of infatuation, there may be something in
it.
Cool it, think it through, pray, and then
take your next step.
If you discover the person is a Buddhist,
or a Muslim, or a person with the
name of Christian, but is not really a
Christian, then you're going in difficult, dangerous territory
if you start some kind of a relationship.
No matter how much your heart is pounding,
no matter how much this lights up all
the bulbs in your head and clips your
circuits, you're a fool.
And the devil, the devil is a specialist
in trying to make this emotional thing and
the sex thing the biggest thing in our
society.
The lie comes through the television, the lie
comes through our magazines, and it's a distortion.
And a young person, Billy Graham said, if
you don't win this victory, he was speaking
to 10,000 students when he said it,
you lose the biggest battle of the Christian
life.
I tell you, when I heard that on
tape, it hit me like a lightning bolt.
And I listened to the tape 20 times.
We've got to declare war against impurity in
every form.
As a married person, the battle in some
ways is easier because you know the moment
it's coming at you, and I've had it
many times.
I had 32 different girlfriends from age four
to age 16.
I know a little bit about infatuation.
You say it was puppy love, but I'll
tell you it was real to this dog.
And even after I became a Christian once,
I was up in Sweden, I saw a
girl, blew every circuit in my head.
I was ready to leave my wife.
I was ready to do the most foolish
thing a man could ever do.
But somehow, I had found these basic biblical
principles when I was young and had worked
them deep into my life.
Somehow, in God's providence and mercy, and these
things are a mystery to some degree, I
stood firm.
And God took it away as fast as
it came.
Satan is a roaring lion, seeking whom he
may devour.
And how real this warfare is that we
are involved in.
I pray that if anyone, anyone here tonight,
is fooling around in any way, with any
form of impurity, or any infatuation, no matter
what kind of emotional trip it gives you,
it may even be all fantasy, that by
faith, you would turn from it tonight.
That you would refuse to go down that
road.
I'm sure I spoke about this one other
time, of how if we know in our
mind a particular road is a dead end
street that leads to depression or discouragement or
illicit infatuation, then we don't go down that
road.
We don't start down that road.
We don't go near that particular place.
If it's a particular person, then we have
to, to some degree, avoid that person, as
Billy Graham has practiced.
Lest the enemy make a fool of us
and try to drag our families and our
church into the ditch.
I know this is a little strong, and
I close with this thought, which I know
is heavy.
When Jimmy Swaggart, that big American evangelist, fell
into this impurity, humanly speaking, he set the
work of God back in the Muslim world
15 years.
You cannot believe the mockery we have had
from the Muslims over the Swaggart crisis.
You may not know anything about this, but
Jimmy Swaggart was not my kind of preacher,
and I never agreed with him.
But he's a brother, and I loved him,
and I tried to pray for him.
And I never realized how famous he was
until after that fall, and it went on
the press throughout the whole world.
And Muslims in the marketplace of Peshawar, Pakistan
were talking about it.
And in Kuwait, when I got there, and
they now have video cassettes that are unbelievable
and are showing them to the Muslims all
over the world.
Because Jimmy Swaggart, before that, or in the
midst of that, had debated one of the
leading Muslims in the world.
So you can imagine what is being said
in the Muslim world.
The crisis that we have faced here can
be used mightily of God.
The crisis of your own personal situation in
one of these seven areas can be used
of God, but it will take a lot
of prayer.
It will take a lot of diligence, a
lot of work, a lot of openness, and
honesty, and reality.
And I pray that all of us would
be willing to pay that price.
God can turn it around.
He already has.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we thank you for
your grace, which is sufficient in the midst
of weakness.
We thank you that we can have, on
one hand, the strongest challenge toward holiness and
purity, and on the other hand, the strongest
message of mercy, and grace, and forgiveness.
That our broken world can be rebuilt.
That our broken lives can be rebuilt.
That failure can be the back door to
success.
And we believe that by your grace, you
are going to use this church, this fellowship,
more than ever before.
We stand on your promises.
We stand on your word.
We turn from our own feelings, our own
hurts, maybe our own doubts, and our own
confusions, our easy questioning, why, Lord, we turn
from that?
For we are not your counselor.
And we give ourselves wholly to you to
do your will and to use the small
tests of life to prepare us for the
big one that may be coming down the
road.
And if we ever fail that one, which
is the worst thing we can ever do
in many ways, then we still believe there
is a second opportunity.
Because your grace and your mercy is without
end.
And we are your children.
We are your family.
And you love us as much when we
have fallen flat on our face as when
we're standing winning five people to Jesus.
Oh, Lord, we thank you.
And we praise you.
And we worship you together.
In Jesus' name, amen.