You know, many lives have been changed in
these leadership conferences.
One of the first persons I met in
Pakistan, they said they were there now because
of this conference last year.
And I believe this is a strategic time.
I don't believe anybody is here by accident.
I don't believe God has brought you here
just to listen to messages.
In this country, most Christians have heard more
messages than Christians I meet anywhere in the
world.
We've got to get beyond sermons tonight.
There's got to be something more than just
another message in which we say, yes Lord,
I agree, that's good, thank you.
I think many of you know my favorite
C.S. Lewis quote, I give it all
over the world, but in case you haven't
started to read his book, some of the
greatest Christian books ever written.
He said we have a tendency to think
but not to act, a tendency to feel
but not to act, and if we go
on thinking and feeling without acting, someday we
are unable to act.
I've taken up that theme in my own
book, Hunger for Reality, calling it spiritual schizophrenia.
Turn with me to the book of James,
where we read very clearly this exhortation, and
really my message tonight is a series of
exhortations.
The ministry of exhortation is greatly neglected in
the church today.
We acknowledge in the church today there was
a neglect of Bible exposition, and there's more
and more Bible exposition going on and we
need it.
I've just been reading Campbell Morgan, who was
one of the great men to lead in
that emphasis of Bible exposition.
But you know in Whitfield's day, that goes
back before Campbell Morgan, all of his workers
were called exhorters.
They exhorted one another, they challenged one another,
and God wants to give some of you
as leaders the ministry of exhortation, and that
takes a lot of wisdom.
Tozer said the greatest gift needed in the
church today was discernment.
Exhortation without discernment can often be destructive.
And I want to share with you, instead
of just a more traditional message, though I'm
sure you didn't get any traditional messages from
our stick of dynamite from all nations, I
want to just share this series of exhortations
and trust that you can think about it
in the weeks and months to come.
And I do this because in James chapter
1, starting at the 19th verse, says, Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, let every man be swift
to hear, slow to speak, and slow to
wrath.
For the wrath of man worketh not the
righteousness of God.
I learned that the hard way.
Wherefore, put away all filthiness and overflowing of
wickedness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word,
which is able to save your souls.
Be doers of the word.
Doers of the word.
Not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the
word, and not a doer, it's like a
man looking at his natural face in a
mirror.
He beholdeth himself, he goes his way, and
immediately forgets what manner, what kind of person
he was.
But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of
liberty, and continue within it, he being not
a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the
work, this man shall be blessed in his
deed.
God is calling us to action.
God is calling us to be doers.
And this is something you're going to have
to search your heart over tonight.
Some of you may not sleep so well
tonight as you think about these things that
you've heard today.
Just this challenge of the Muslim world.
Just this challenge of China.
That alone should cause us.
I'm the kind of person that easily feels
guilty.
I don't think that's the biggest problem with
most people.
But I usually feel guilty, and I especially
feel guilty and wrestle with things if I
sense I've hurt anybody.
And if anything I say tonight really hurts
you personally, I really would like you to
write to me.
I mean that.
And say, look, you hurt me.
This is my background.
What you said collided with my background, where
I am.
I'm confused.
I'm hurt.
Can you help me?
And I'll send you this book, Healing for
Damaged Emotions.
This is one of the most significant books
in the 20th century.
Now, I can't send that free to too
many of you.
So you've got to legitimately be able to
say, look, you really hurt me.
And if you're hurt by somebody else, then
you buy the book.
They may have copies on the book table.
But I haven't been back to get all
of this as organized as I would.
That was also on my memo.
I will just throw this in.
By the way, my side messages are usually
better than the main street.
So don't tune out when I go down
the side road.
One of the most significant things you young
men and women can do if you really
mean business for God is to learn to
type.
Now, does that sound like a tangent?
Learn to type.
Because one of the greatest needs in the
work of God is for secretaries.
That usually starts with typing.
And I'll tell you, OM is faced with
a lot of problems.
And one of the reasons is we can't
get committed secretaries who really see this as
a ministry, not a secondary thing that they're
doing while they're waiting for the tide to
blow in with Johnny on top of it.
But it's a ministry that God has called
them to.
And I would really ask you to pray
that God would give us secretaries in Bombay,
in Lucknow, in other parts of the world.
Because it's a great need and it's a
great mistake we think that only preachers and
theologians are needed on the mission field.
We need mechanics.
We need secretaries.
We need people who know how to drive
vehicles, after some of the people I've just
driven with, I've got a special burden for
that.
This one brother I was with, I thought
he was in a bowling alley and the
people were the pins.
But it's amazing the wide range of people
that are needed on the mission field.
Anyway, that's a tangent.
Let's get back to the main road.
What is the main road?
Can you tell me what I'm supposed to
speak on?
Actually, they've given a title to this message.
And that's right, the leader is...
I knew what it was, but I appreciate
it.
Let's get to my next scripture.
Keep James in mind and go to 2
Timothy 2 and we'll get into this soldier's
business.
It's very unpleasant, very unpleasant.
2 Timothy 2.
I really shouldn't take meetings as soon as
I get back from these trips because I'm
too excited.
A couple of years ago I said such
terrible things that I had to ban the
tape.
It's one of the few banned tapes.
I think Peter Maiden has it, sells it
on the black market.
2 Timothy 2, I can't even find it.
You get jet lag.
I knew I had jet lag as I
was standing on the escalator going down Victoria
Station.
You know why?
Because I left my briefcase on the trolley
in the main station.
I got halfway down, I thought something's missing.
I had two shoulder bags, one with tapes,
one with correspondence.
But there was something missing in this hand.
It wasn't my tennis racket.
It was an awful feeling to have a
lot of things in that briefcase.
And I, you know, got on the other
escalator going up, pushing my way, got by
the barrier without showing the ticket.
I thought I might have to buy another
one.
And there it was, still sitting on the
trolley at the top of the stairs there
in Victoria Station.
How many of you have ever been in
Victoria Station?
Isn't that a great, great place?
Victoria Station.
Anyway, anything that goes wrong tonight will blame
on the jet lag.
And if I keep trying to find Timothy
in the old...
Anyway, I can quote the verse.
Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, Endure
hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
You know, one of the reasons I think
a lot of...
Here's another tangent.
A lot of young Christians have so much
difficulty in their faith is they don't memorize
scripture.
Really.
Has this been emphasized today already?
I always try to find out what's emphasized
so I don't just repeat things.
But one of the greatest burdens I had
in Pakistan...
And this is another reason I'm nervous.
I'm not used to these big crowds.
You know, people think George Borough, the great
leader of OM, he only speaks to big
crowds.
Most all of my meetings for the last
two and a half months were between 30
and 100 people.
And I was just as motivated, I think,
with those meetings as I am here tonight
with this great crowd.
And I hope that when you take small
meetings, because leaders need to be preachers, not
in every case but in many cases, that,
you know, you'll never be ashamed or lack
motivation to speak even to a few people.
I remember I spoke in that great church
in Scotland.
How many here are from Scotland?
Not enough.
Too far.
We should run buses from Scotland and Hebrides.
I tell you, there's people up there, they've
got something.
I don't want to get into that controversy.
But I was in this huge church in
Strathpiffer.
Have you ever been in Strathpiffer?
Maiden spends a lot of time up there,
just about lives in Scotland.
No one has ever decided what Carlisle is.
But giant church.
Next to the OM team we had about
six people, maybe twelve.
And, you know, when I looked in there,
I just...
Terrible feeling.
And yet somehow the Lord gave grace and
just poured out my heart to those few
people.
Most of my meetings were small.
One of the things I was emphasizing, memorizing
Scripture.
I think I'd rather emphasize that than preach
a sermon.
If I can get you to memorize Scripture,
it could be the major factor in totally
revolutionizing your life.
How many of you already memorize Scripture systematically?
At least one verse a week.
I want to be generous.
Even one verse every two weeks you memorize
Scripture.
Be honest, raise your hand.
That's encouraging.
Almost a dozen of you.
I've just got Mike Wakely's message on positive
thinking.
But I believe...
He's the leader of the work in Pakistan.
If you have even a slightest interest in
Pakistan, you think that possibly, maybe, somehow, in
God's unusual, phenomenal way, you might ever think
of going to Pakistan, 90 million people, a
wide open door, that if I even start
thinking about it, I'm liable to go into
orbit.
But if you have any interest at all,
please write to Gary Dean, who's here, Mr.
Pakistan, or Mike Wakely.
Really.
Because I wanted to give a whole message
about Pakistan, and I don't have time.
Scripture memorization, I believe, is more important than
listening to more and more messages.
You learn to feed yourself.
You learn to meditate to the point where
it's memorized.
And I'd like you to put on that
feedback paper, if you'll commit yourself to try,
not promise, but to try to memorize two
or three or four verses a month.
I would like you to put that on
that feedback, and I want to pray for
you, at least once.
I want to pray for you with that
little piece of paper you're going to give
me, and say, Lord, help that person in
their Scripture memory work.
And I want to send you, it'll be
a couple of months, because it's just being
published, a tremendous little book on Scripture memory.
We're publishing in India, so it's costing a
fraction of what it would cost, but it'll
be a few months before I get that
book.
Put on the feedback, send me that book
about memorizing Scripture.
And memorize 2 Timothy, chapter 2, endure hardness
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Now I want you to turn to a
Scripture in the book of Acts.
The book of Acts.
This I definitely have found.
It's a bigger book, and it's easier to
find.
And I want us to look at that
place where this great Macedonian call came in
the 16th chapter, the sixth verse.
By the way, there is a special tape
policies of O.M. in Pakistan.
I'd be thrilled if they get sold out
back there to send you that as a
gift.
Just ask for it.
And you know these tapes are very, let
me teach you a little thing about tapes.
If somebody's punched the little plastic things out
of the back of the tape, you can
push chewing gum in there, and you can
erase over the tape without any problem at
all.
So that's a real bargain.
Anytime anybody offers you a free cassette, just
get it.
Just erase it.
Do whatever you want with it.
But I'll tell you, when you listen to
that Pakistan tape, you will not erase it.
You will not erase it.
Because God is doing something in that country,
and in all of the subcontinent that's very
special.
And in a sense, by just coming right
from there, after two and a half months
there, I used to live there for a
couple of years, mainly in India, I feel
I can share with you in this way.
Now when they had gone throughout Pergia, and
the region of Galicia, and were forbidden, that's
interesting, this is the real director of God's
work, isn't it?
Were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach
the word in Asia.
Have you ever read Tozer's devastating little booklet?
I just re-read it.
The waning authority of Jesus Christ in the
Church.
It's the strongest message to the Church I've
ever read.
I'm actually scared to distribute it, because it
gets people into extremes.
So I don't want you requesting that.
The waning authority of Jesus Christ in the
Church.
After they were come to Mycenae, they attempted
to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit allowed
them not.
The Spirit allowed them not.
And they passing by Mycenae came down to
Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in
the night.
And there stood a man of Macedonia beseeching
him and saying, Come over into Macedonia and
help us.
And after he had seen the vision immediately,
we endeavored to go into Macedonia.
Very subjective guidance.
Sounds like extremism to me.
We endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering
that the Lord had called us to preach
the gospel unto them.
Years ago, some people used to refer to
this as a missionary call.
This got twisted in people's minds.
That this was a message for you to
leave your secular job and to become a
full-time missionary.
And this led to this concept that to
become a missionary, you really needed a vision.
You needed a very emotional, special, paying call
to be a missionary.
I believe the devil has used that false
concept to try to hinder the work of
world missions more than we'll ever know.
And probably some of you are living with
that same illusion that God hasn't called you
to be a missionary.
Now, a sort of low-profile type of
call in which you're speaking more about the
guidance of God, you know, I'm not going
to oppose that.
But you need guidance to take up a
particular secular job.
You need guidance to decide whether you're to
go to university or whether you're to go
somewhere else.
And, of course, you need guidance if you're
going to be a full-time missionary or
even go out in short-term missionary work.
How I would love to speak to you
on 20 reasons why I believe in short
-term missionary work.
When I say short, I mean two years.
Now, I also believe in these summer training
programs.
I don't think of that as short-term
missionary work.
I think of it as just what it's
called, a summer of training.
And it also has a vital place.
And I think God has proven that for
a long time.
But more and more missionaries all over the
world, in the some 50 nations where I've
had the privilege of ministering, share with me
that they need both short-term and longer
-term people.
You know, I'd love to speak to you
on maintaining the balance in our missionary thinking.
I've even got the notes here in my
Bible.
I don't like to lose them.
And I've got about 30 points on how
to maintain the balance in your missionary thinking.
I touch a few of these things in
my book, No Turning Back.
But, you know, I think Satan is trying
to polarize.
Satan is trying to bring people with different
types of missionary vision into being at odds
with each other in order to hinder their
work.
That's why, you know, if somebody has a
strong emotional missionary call and they go to
the field, you know, praise the Lord, I'm
not going to judge them.
But, you know, God works in different ways
in different people.
And I believe that World Missions is closely
linked with the local church.
And the local church should be praying and
seeking because they have a vision and they
want to evangelize the world.
Who are the people in our midst that
we should at least talk to about this
possibility?
I know God uses many other methods.
But I think we're seeing more and more
the place of the local church in World
Missions.
And one thing I want to warn you
about this conference, we don't want to think
of this conference as being separate from your
local church.
And we hope that your loyalty to your
own Bible-based church will be greater as
a result of being here.
And not go back there just mouthing off
new ideas.
Not go back there as if now you're
some kind of a leader.
I know you won't do that.
But to continue for a long time with
your L plates.
I remember the day.
It was a great day in my life.
After driving for 20 years, I took the
British driver's test.
I had been praying.
I had many people praying because I'm not
a very good driver.
And a lot of bad habits.
But I went forward in the name of
the Lord claiming that verses.
And got behind the wheel.
I had this absolute stoic giving me the
test.
And it was an emotional moment in which,
well, he just said, Mr. Verwer, you've failed
the test.
So we just kept the L plates on
and I took lessons, over 10 lessons.
Cost a lot of money, but the Lord
can provide.
I think we pay that bill.
And it was a great day when I
finally passed that test.
You are a learner in training.
If you've come into OM, we consider the
first 10 years training.
And I hope that somehow we can really
understand there are no shortcuts to the kind
of apostolic ministry that we are longing to
have in India and Pakistan and Bangladesh.
And it was my joy on this trip
to meet OMers who have been 10 years
in training and to see some of them
now in that kind of ministry.
Planting churches even among the most contrary religious
groups where there has been very little fruit
up till now.
And if I got talking about that, we
would surely never get out of here.
Leaders in training.
Some of you are probably going to discover
through this leadership conference that you're really not
ready for much leadership yet.
And you need to slow down a little
bit and start memorizing the scriptures and get
your basics sorted out.
And in God's timing, He will give you
some responsibilities.
The Word warns us against laying hands too
quickly on people.
That's why I've never been very pro-youth
movement even when I was 18 and got
a group of older men around me who
I've been responsible to for 27 years.
And we need older people and we need
your churches and your pastors and it's together.
That's why I don't like the word para
-church a little bit too much like paralyzed.
The teams that go out from OM are
men and they are longer term people sent
out by their local congregation.
That congregation is obeying God.
We are obeying God as the teams in
different parts of the world.
There has to be some structure.
That's where the name OM came in that
this work may be done decently and in
order.
So this Macedonian call to me is not
some special thing that is for people who
are now supposed to become missionaries.
Paul was already a missionary.
He was already a missionary.
He was already moving.
I love what John Hyman said.
It's hard to guide something that's not moving.
I think of our ship when it leaves
a port like when it left Karachi and
had to sail off to the Gulf.
And when that ship sailed out of Karachi
you can be sure it didn't arrive in
the Gulf the next day.
It only goes at about 14 miles an
hour or less than that often to save
fuel.
But you know when the captain leaves the
port at least he always makes sure he's
going in the right direction.
You cannot leave this conference as a Christian
leader.
You cannot leave this conference not having arrived
at some lofty point in your Christian life.
But brothers and sisters you can leave this
conference by God's grace going in the right
direction.
I believe in a sense I come this
evening with a Macedonian call.
I went to Asia on this trip though
I've been ministering in Asia for 20 years.
I very much went as a learner because
I have not ministered a lot in Pakistan.
I spent a lot of my time far
more than speaking, listening, reading powerful books like
the People's Movement in the Punjab.
And if you're interested in world missions you
need to get into these great missionary books.
You need to get into that book Perspectives
on the World Christian Movement.
That is equivalent to one year at any
seminary.
Better in my view.
Unbelievable book.
It's that thick.
I don't know, do you have any of
those on the book table?
I've got a bunch of them in my
office.
I almost grabbed them.
Probably would have left them on the escalator.
But there are great missionary books.
We'd be happy to send you a list
of such books.
You can go down to your Christian bookshop.
Tremendous bookshop here in Birmingham.
I think CLC, probably others as well.
Fantastic.
I had the joy of opening a CLC
bookshop in Karachi just a few days ago.
I just think that's one of the great
works of God.
CLC.
And if you've got any interest in literature
contact CLC.
They'll sign you up before you can almost
even get on OM for training.
But they do like people to go on
OM for training as well.
And I just really, I come back to
you from Pakistan, from Nepal, and I speak
on behalf of the church because church leaders
have given me permission to do this.
And I say, will you come and help
us?
Will you come?
Will you give even two years of your
life?
I've heard some pretty destructive things at times
said about short-term work.
Usually when I've investigated those people had a
stereotype view of what short-term work was.
Believe me, the short-term work we're talking
about in OM is no shortcut.
And almost every major mission society in the
world has OM graduates.
And our relationship with most mission societies is
something that we are very, very encouraged by.
And in Pakistan almost all the church leaders,
and I was meeting even with bishops, they
are thrilled with what OM is doing in
Pakistan.
And they are saying we do need the
right people.
And again and again they tell me I
have the same thing in Egypt.
I didn't get time for this on this
trip or my previous trips.
We want these OM teams.
We like them.
We like them because they are international.
We like to see Asians and Europeans and
others working together.
We like them because they come as learners
and they submit to the church.
We like them because so many of them
want to learn the language and the culture,
they live on our level and they fit
in.
I cannot begin to tell you how well
that team in Karachi has fit into the
church in Pakistan.
And I believe one of the reasons this
is possible is because of OM's emphasis on
balance and on patience and on love.
These young people work with the church even
when there are problems and mistakes in the
sense there is a lot of church difficulties
in Pakistan.
There is a lot of division.
And these young people instead of being judgmental
or feeling they have all the answers because
they had so much training in this area,
they know they are just learners.
Who are they to judge the church in
Pakistan?
And they serve.
They serve the church and they work with
the church.
I have just come from 24 hours in
Jordan.
And one of the men who spoke in
my meeting is considered a leading missionary authority
in the entire Middle East.
He spent 50 years in the Middle East.
He speaks fluent Arabic.
And I was embarrassed by his introduction and
the compliments he paid to OM's powerful work
in the Middle East and the Muslim world.
Young people, there is a Macedonian call from
the church in the Middle East and Pakistan
and India for young men and women to
come out and help them for one or
two years.
They then agree with the fallacy that during
that time those young people can see whether
this is something they really can fit into
as a career.
I believe it is often a mistake to
get a fixed idea of your exact career
and your exact country before having exposure and
experience and understanding of what missionary work really
is.
Now, I know God works in different ways
in different people and unusually gifted and strong
people that get a definite word from God
before they ever go out and they go
out.
I say, praise the Lord.
I would never judge.
God gave me some pretty fixed ideas in
my own country before I ever went out.
But you know, it was because I went
to Mexico when I was 19 and I
discovered that I was an ugly American full
of zeal but unable to discern between that
which was American culture which is so often
offensive and so often hurts people and so
many times in those days I hurt people
and God, when I was just 19 and
20 I was young I was still not
so set in my ways broke me and
humbled me and united me with Mexicans and
when I went to Spain I was I
guess 21 or 22 by then the same
thing happened.
I think it was only because of that
early training that I've ever been able to
accomplish anything in cross-cultural communication.
Yes, I give you a Macedonian call for
the subcontinent area.
I know there are others that would give
you a Macedonian call for other parts of
the world because the need is so great.
But can you think of anything as great
as a subcontinent where we have a thousand
million souls?
A thousand million souls we say.
We say in the States a billion souls.
That's Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and India
put together.
When I think of how the Americans had
swarmed into South America, literally thousands and thousands
of missionaries.
When I was a student back at Moody
Bible Institute, I read a leaflet, South America,
the neglected continent.
I wrote a little paper on missions in
South America.
And the Americans sent thousands and thousands of
missionaries to South America and literally tens of
thousands of churches.
Now South America is becoming slowly a missionary
sending area.
Of course there still needs there.
They could get visas.
Many of them went to Mexico as tourists.
Some went in and out of Mexico 15
years as tourists.
But Americans have had very little input into
India in the last 20 or 30 years.
They had some, and there are some beautiful
American churches still there.
But generally speaking the subcontinent has had to
be the responsibility of commonwealth and British people.
I believe in God's providence.
He turned my direction around.
I was headed for the communist world.
You all know my friend Brother Andrew, God's
son.
direction and instead of going to the Muslim
world, which was the first place on my
heart, and still is in many ways, or
the communist world, which was so much on
my heart, I ended up in Great Britain
in February 1962.
And this became my home.
And I'm very seriously, I really appreciate your
prayers, I have been closer than ever to
making the decision of being a nationalized British
person.
No problem for me.
The only reason I hold back is that
Americans who I dearly love are it.
And I believe this is the place that
God brought O.M. when it was just
being born, and one of the reasons was
that this movement was to be a major
force for God in the Indian subcontinent.
So I leave that Macedonian call with you.
And none of this is going to become
a reality, and you and I are not
going to be able to respond to this
kind of call and go to this kind
of hard place if we're not soldiers.
And that's why we wanted to emphasize just
a little this need to enroll as a
soldier in God's army.
When I was in Kathmandu a few weeks
ago, a whole group of the Pali soldiers
went running down the road right where my
wife and I were standing.
There must have been 500 of them.
And I was watching them train.
And wherever I go, I'm interested in watching
people involved in the military, the training.
You know, on the way back on the
plane two nights ago, they were showing a
film, and it was based on American high
school football, which you would not call football.
Sort of a combination of rugby, cricket, basketball,
football, and chess.
And it's called American Football.
And it is unbelievable.
It was a very real film to me
because I was in that scene when God
saved me.
They showed an American pep rally where the
guy was screaming at the students to rededicate
their lives to football.
And this is exactly where I was when
God found me.
And I thought, I remember back in my
high school days, grammar school days, you would
say, the commitment these men had to football.
I heard about these two people who were
skating last night.
Did any of you see that?
Probably
not
perfect.
Something like that.
I've watched just enough of this skating.
I went to a special thing with one
of Britain's greatest skaters.
And I couldn't believe it as I read
about this.
The training to be an ice skater.
And it's the same in sport, other sports.
The training for the Olympics, the training to
be a soldier.
Where is this kind of training in the
church?
Where is this kind of single mindedness to
prepare people for the work of God?
Where is this kind of training for getting
effective people in evangelism?
Do you understand had the joy of being
with one of our men in Bangladesh.
A man who caught his vision at Cambridge
University.
He went out, I guess, to India first,
then Bangladesh.
And he determined by God's grace to learn
Bengali.
And he was interpreting in my meetings, and
I saw some of the missionary mouths dropped
open because they didn't know this brother was
living mainly out in the villages, as he
spoke and interpreted absolutely fluent Bengali.
That doesn't fall out of a tree.
Many people
in
the don't know how to do what we
should do instead of what we feel like
doing.
That's why Paul said, I buffet my body
and bring it into subjection lest after preaching
to others I become a reprobate.
That's Paul.
I know those are strong words, but you'll
have to take it out with Paul when
you see him.
Some people think O.M.'s message is too
hard.
I've often been criticized.
My message is too hard.
I heard about this Bible school in England.
It was a women's school.
And they needed dozens of aspirins for all
the girls.
Now that was in my early days.
I was a bit extreme.
Now everywhere I go, I speak about balance
and love.
Actually, I was speaking about it back then
as well.
Maybe I speak about it more.
You can't win if you're a preacher.
I preach so much now about balance.
My daughter came to me some time ago
and said, Dad, you're getting really extreme on
this balance thing.
What are you going to do?
And I know, and one of the reasons
I brought this album of cassette tapes that
the things I say need to be brought
into balance.
But if you're not committed, if you're not
on fire for God, if you're not in
God's training program, if you're not a soldier
in God's army, then there's nothing to balance.
There's nothing to balance.
We need commitment first.
I don't think too much enthusiasm is the
greatest problem in the average church.
Forgive me, I don't want to judge your
church.
This is an A.W. Tozer quote.
But he said he didn't feel too much
enthusiasm was the greatest problem in the average
church.
You know the quote.
I always give it.
A lot of you look new.
Let me give it again.
He said to think this was the greatest
problem in the average church was like sending
a squadron of policemen to the nearby cemetery
to guard against the demonstration by the residents
at midnight.
We need a baptism by fire.
Hebrews says our God is a consuming fire.
And if we're converted people, if we're born
again people, that fire is in our hearts.
Romans says if you have not the spirit
of Christ, you have not Christ.
God's training program means enlisting in his army.
It's rough and it's tough.
And I pray that you'll search the scriptures
to see if this is so.
Pick out perhaps David Watson's book, Hidden Warfare.
What a blow to hear when I was
in Pakistan that this man went to be
with the Lord.
You know, he has left behind his books.
He has left behind an example.
I only met him twice once when we
had lunch together.
Here was a man that believed in the
spirit of warfare.
Here was a man who was saying very
similar things to what we have been saying
these 27 years.
It's a battle and we must enlist as
soldiers.
We must get Ephesians 6 and memorize it
and then make it part of our practical
manual.
I hope you've all been given the leadership
manual, especially if you're thinking about coming on
OM and helping us in some of the
leadership training responsibilities.
But if you don't have that OM leadership
manual, because sometimes it is a little hard
to get, I'd be happy to send that
to you.
If you think you're going to get involved
with OM, you'd like to know some of
the principles and practices that we have as
a movement and have been trying to learn
these 27 years, put that on your feedback
paper.
Send me a leadership manual of OM and
I'll be happy to know.
There's no hidden secrets in that book.
I want to close these thoughts by giving
you seven reasons why you should consider enrolling
in God's army and in the part, because
I want to be specific, in the part
of God's army that is reaching out to
the unreached people.
You know Acts 1A, you shall receive power
after the Holy Spirit has come upon you
and you shall be my witnesses, Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.
These little prayer cards are like gold nuggets
giving 70 of the most needy areas of
the world.
I wish I could share with you about
Nepal.
I've just done another tape.
I'll be happy to send that one to
you as well.
The Challenge of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
I shared this in Karachi a few days
ago.
When I lived in Nepal in 1969, we
had a thousand believers.
We used to meet for nights of prayer.
I lived there for two years.
I had one of the first pastors' conferences.
There weren't many.
And God just gave me a love for
those Nepali people.
In the fifties, when the first missionaries trudged
up the mountains, there were no believers in
Nepal.
In 69, when I lived there, and 70,
68, around that time, there were about a
thousand.
I just spoke again to these Nepali Christian
leaders.
There are now 20 to 30,000 believers
in Nepal.
And it's against the law to become a
convert to the Christian faith.
Believers are in prison.
And I wouldn't want what I just said
there put in writing.
Some other group that works there may do
it.
But I'd rather not have it come from
me in writing.
But there are now 20 to 30,000
believers.
And it's amazing, they're scattered all around the
mountains.
Our little O.M. team there, they put
a pack on their back filled with
people special campaign for me.
And here was a little church about twice
as big as this platform.
There must have been 200 people.
They each get a little squeeze on the
floor.
It's amazing what God is doing in Nepal.
Praise God, the young man who was our
bookkeeper on ICT is now in chain with
the United Mission in Nepal.
Brothers and sisters, God has brought you here
for a special purpose.
In my heart I can tell you I
didn't want to come.
God knows I'd rather be out in Asia
permanently.
And I don't believe we're here just to
get more messages.
We got more leadership conferences now being planned
for Britain, more conventions, more meetings.
We got more cassette tapes.
We're the most preached out people in the
entire world next to the Americans.
God has brought you here tonight for commitment.
God has brought you here tonight to make
the kind of commitment John Imus made 20
years ago, to be a doer, to start
going.
I want to give you just seven more
reasons very quickly why you who are sitting
here in this hall need to consider going.
Number one, because the need is so great.
Many of these countries I've just visited have
about one hundredth as much evangelism as London.
This is a year of mission England.
It's hard this year to talk to people
about world missions.
I will tell you, next year is coming.
When mission England closes down, I am going
to take out my trumpet and by God's
grace you will hear it from Scotland to
Cornwall.
Don't you feel you should use a low
profile, more quiet approach?
I'll let you use that.
God uses all kinds of approaches.
The need is so staggering in these countries
that it's difficult even to compare.
It gets ludicrous.
So I won't do it.
But the need is there.
Number two, few are going, let us understand
this really well, many of our British mission
societies are desperate for the right recruits.
Unlike OM, they can't just take every trainee.
We can't take everybody even.
But they are desperate for the right kind
of men and the right kind of women
and every mission leader I meet with.
I was just with Arthur Punt of the
great BMMF mission.
Quite a few people joined BMMF.
OMF, CLC, UCCF work around the world.
They need the right kind but few are
responding.
I can list you ten booby traps that
catch people so they never get out of
Britain for anything long-term or even two
years or serious.
And though we're expecting, some are expecting, an
avalanche, the greatest avalanche of missionaries from America
than ever before.
I am personally persuaded after visiting America many,
many times and meeting with many Americans that
the obstacles to see this large number of
Americans being really effective in the world today
and in the present political scene today, I
believe it's just so big that ultimately only
a few of that great mass who are
interested will ever make it.
That may be true here as well.
The Lord knows.
But Europe must play her vital role.
Europeans are generally far more accepted in the
world today.
There is far more open doors with that
commonwealth passport.
We must not miss this opportunity that God
has given.
We must not think someone else is doing
it.
A lot of the statistics about third world
missionaries are completely distorted.
You hear great statistics about Chinese missionaries.
Most of those Chinese missionaries all over the
world only work among Chinese.
In fact, when I was in Hong Kong
they were all reading an article why the
Chinese people only need to go to the
Chinese.
I just went to same magazine that wrote
that article then they wrote my article.
Chinese ought to go cross-cultural.
That's why you find so many here in
pagan England.
But it's a challenge that we must not
miss.
Number three, few, very few get as far
as you have right now.
To give a whole weekend in a conference
with a movement that's known for its emphasis
on world missions, the unreached people, the ends
of the earth and the Muslim world.
Most people are scared to come to this
kind of meeting, especially if they hear I'm
coming.
I've had people actually tell me I didn't
go to the meeting, I thought you would
be there and I was afraid God would
call me and leave me to be a
missionary.
At least they're honest.
The very fact that somehow you've got through
all the gossip and now that OM is
much older, there's a lot of stories, a
lot of gossip, you know, OM doesn't feed
you well, don't go with them, just look
at George Burwell, don't go with them.
All kinds of stories.
I hope you'll write us about some of
the gossip you hear so we can repent
or put it right.
Very few get this far and if you
don't go after getting the kind of material
you received here, the literature you get here,
the message we're giving you here, if you
don't go, who will?
Your uncle?
Your grandmother?
Ah, maybe your little brother.
I've heard these dear, sincere young people that
go to missionary meetings and they go home
and they challenge their younger brother to respond,
become a soldier of Jesus Christ.
They go apply for a job at Harrods.
Number four, there are endless open doors.
Here again, I wish I could speak to
you for a week about the open doors,
open doors.
Even in these communist countries, I wish John
could speak about that.
And for those that are not healthy enough,
those that have other problems and those who
have a special calling, because I think you
need a special calling.
believe that through prayer, as we begin to
move by faith, as we get into God's
training program, we can see resources, we can
see the money.
Money is not the biggest problem.
It's a problem, but not the biggest problem.
The biggest problem is the coldness of our
hearts, our love for ease and Zion, our
unwillingness to be the kind of committed disciple
the Bible talks about in hundreds of different
verses.
And then number six, you know, God can
easily stop us.
God stopped me from my India vision, God's
providence.
I had to leave India.
Then I was living in Nepal, then I
was living on the other side of India.
And again, the providence of God put me
back in London.
I believe very much in the providence of
God.
And in the providence of God, many of
you, even if tonight you make a decision
to start moving toward the ends of the
earth, many of you, God will stop by
divine providence.
There are so many ways.
I know that Peter Maiden would like to
go.
I'd like him to take over my job
as area leader for the subcontinent that someone
just suggested.
But he has many, complications to be able
to move his family.
What's the last count on your family?
Three children and just one wife.
I believe the answer in the light of
so many complicated family situations, the enormous expense
of sending out these families, and also the
situation so many churches are in, generally unwilling
for this kind of thing, at least to
any great degree.
There are beautiful exceptions.
One of God's not bypasses but parallel roads
is young men and women giving two years
of their lives in these countries.
Believe me, there are many ways God can
stop you in terms of a long-term
missionary career.
So many after a time come back and
go to school.
some who return, but the number who return
after further education is unbelievably small.
We cannot build on that.
We cannot put all our eggs in one
basket.
We must have various strategies because the need
is so great, the time is so short.
I believe many of you should start moving
in the directions of the regions beyond.
Seventhly, I believe many of you should go,
because as you begin to go, even if
you don't make it, illness or some other
problem, other people will follow you.
You want to be a leader?
Just obey God.
Let him fill your heart with vision.
And you know the reason some of this
seems so unreal?
We don't have a vision.
Ask the Lord tonight, oh God, give me
a vision, a vision of the lost people
and of what can be done and how
God can use you.
I will tell you, these things will begin
to become like a piece of cake.
If you think the life of being a
soldier, the life of discipleship, of denying self
and following Christ, taking up the cross is
some kind of purgatory, you're wrong.
It's the most satisfying, joy- filled experience
you could ever have.
Twenty-nine years ago I was saved.
On almost that same night I began to
move in this direction.
Within a few months I sensed God was
leading me to be an overseas missionary.
And I've never had a day in twenty
-nine years when the joy bell of God
hasn't rung.
I will tell you, it's not only joy
bells, sometimes it's unbelievable.
It's almost hilarious.
The joy of the Lord is our strength.
This is not some kind of Christian purgatory.
This isn't some plan in which God forgets
the real you and destroys your personality.
No, He will make your personality more beautiful
for His glory.
I wish I could talk to you on
this whole thing of personality and how God
works through people, all kinds of people.
And lastly, I believe many of you need
to think of going because He uses weak
people.
Don't feel inhibited by powerful, overwhelming books, powerful,
tapes, or powerful, preachers.
At least until I can send you my
cassette, Nine Confessions of a Weak, Struggling, Bungling
Missionary.
Why did God bring O.M. into being?
Probably because I would have been rejected if
I applied to any mission society.
I don't know.
I'm not sure he's that merciful to any
one character.
You know the testimony of this feeble work.
God uses weak people.
I believe O.M. is a training program,
a missionary training program for ordinary people.
If you're already mature, you're in the scriptures,
you're growing in the knowledge of God and
theology, you've got a disciplined life, of course
we'd be happy to have you.
Oh boy, I tell you we could use
a few like this.
But I tell you, maybe you should just
join one of the mission society who is
desperate for such personnel.
But if you're a weak struggling person, you're
not sure whether you've got a calling or
not, you're not sure whether you can ever
eat hot food or not, you don't like
smoke coming out of your ears, or you've
got other hang-ups, then I believe you're
in the right building at the right time
and O.M. might be the right movement,
at least for a couple of years.
God uses weak ordinary people, even characters like
me who find it totally impossible to stick
to their time when they're told to finish
at 9.30.