In your Bibles to Acts 1 8, I
know you all know this passage of Scripture
It's just one of a number of passages
We're going to look at Acts 1 8
but ye shall receive power After the Holy
Ghost has come upon you and ye shall
be my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and
the uttermost part of the earth.
Let's just pray once again Living God take
this verse and drive it deep into our
hearts drive it deep into our minds and
Enable us to take the steps of faith
to obey for we ask this in Jesus
name Amen, the Word of God says to
whom?
much is given Much will be required You
may not think you've received a lot of
spiritual food this weekend You may come from
an outstanding church where you get a very
heavy spiritual diet.
Praise the Lord.
We have no problem acknowledging that there are
churches and fellowships that Are giving out more
spiritual food than we may be able to
give out.
We are all one together.
We're not competing We're working together for world
evangelism You need wisdom even how you share
what God has done in your heart this
weekend The Word of God teaches esteem others
is better than yourself You go back and
the first question should be with your friends
and others is what God was doing in
their situation this weekend If you're not a
good listener, you've already lost the first requirement
for being a good speaker or a good
communicator Take a legitimate interest in other people
Somebody might have got blessed right out of
their socks in your local church or in
some other meeting or conference I believe that
whole challenge of Philippians in regard to esteeming
others as better than ourselves is one of
the missing cords in the present-day success
oriented scheme of things Personally when I think
of operation mobilization my own fellowship that I'm
part of I am more aware of our
weaknesses and our problems than I am of
our great successes We have not come here
to present to you the ultimate in Christian
service the ultimate in on-the-job training
and it's so important to keep in balance
what we have received this weekend and in
a sense to take what we have received
here and Contextualize it into our own situation
back at university or on the job our
own church and our own family May God
give you great wisdom.
May you appropriate great wisdom?
While at the same time not being afraid
to speak out what God is doing in
your heart and life this first we have
very very strong emphasis first I'm a Holy
Spirit But you shall receive power When the
Holy Spirit has come upon you as we
stated last night We believe every Christian is
indwelt by the Spirit, but we believe Christians
need to be filled with the Spirit and
I believe Regardless of some of your vocabulary
problems that the Holy Spirit graciously filled many
people in this auditorium last night and this
morning again as you bat as you bowed
before the cross and Asked God to continue
that work in your own heart and life
those of you who made commitments It would
be do it would do well to get
a copy of that cassette tape That was
used of the Spirit the message to to
bring you to that point of commitment and
to listen to it a week from now
And maybe a couple of weeks It was
a message by Billy Graham on the subject
of commitment that made a great impact upon
me as a young Christian And I listened
to that message Regularly for a long time
for many years it was part of the
orientation that every OM person in the English
-speaking world listened to and The results of
that one cassette tape.
It's quite phenomenal Then we have the emphasis
on being his witness now we could talk
all afternoon about the Holy Spirit We dwelt
on that last night not enough, but we're
limited by time witnesses We shall be his
witnesses Now one of the strong emphasis That
God put upon our hearts as a fellowship
is that we should share the gospel with
the whole world We should witness to the
whole world whether they respond or not.
We want them to respond.
That must be our goal we must constantly
reevaluate what we're doing and try to improve
in communication and Do everything through prayer to
get a response, but we must not be
totally manipulated by the response factor This is
why OM was able to tackle the Muslim
world Where the response hasn't come because we
have men and women who stick to the
task with or without response We've been almost
25 years in the land of Turkey with
very little response there's been some have been
answers to prayer We've had similar struggles in
a number of countries in the process of
working and praying for more fruit We have
the joy of knowing we are obeying God
Jesus said my meat is to do the
will of the father and one of the
missing terms today and we must have this
as we leave here this afternoon is stick
ability a young man came to me just
the other day who was praying about leaving
OM in the middle of the year and
He shared with me and what a blessing
it was that God had convicted him that
if he couldn't fulfill his commitment to OM
when?
It was rough or tough Would he be
able to fulfill other commitments later on in
life's road including the commitment of marriage?
We need stick ability Corinthians says Be steadfast,
you know much about that Be steadfast unmovable
always abounding in the work of the Lord
knowing that your labor is not in vain
in the Lord Galatians backs that up and
says let's not be weary and well-doing
for you shall reap if he faint not
He shall reap if he faint not I
Get that I battled discouragement to a great
degree Discouragement from Turkey discouragement from Afghanistan
discouragement from Lebanon Discouragement from lands where we've
been praying my life 28 30 years perpetual
praying nights of prayer prayer and fasting tears
And yet we haven't yet seen the breakthrough
But the words ring back into my mind
we shall reap if we faint not I
think most of you know my testimony but
perhaps I could just share it in a
nutshell that I'm here because a lady prayed
for me for three years prayed for my
High school for 15 years prayed that people
would be saved and sent And when I
went to that high school, she put me
on her hit list and started praying for
me Prayed that I not only be a
Christian become a Christian, but that I'd become
a missionary.
I didn't have a chance from the word
go Talk about the reluctant missionary Some of
you don't feel called to the mission field
you don't feel you're the missionary type You
don't feel you're tough enough.
You don't feel your mouth big enough.
What is a missionary type?
I'm not a missionary type.
I Got a big yellow streak down runs
from the top of my head right down
to my toes The missionary, you know great
courageous David Livingston type moving through the jungles
with a giant Bible taking invading hordes of
cockroaches By the band bare hands and dashing
into the ground Just one cockroach is enough
for me You serve on the MV do
us and you're there, you know having your
soup and suddenly from the ceiling There it
is swimming around in your soup.
I Tell you there's a real shortage on
meat you need to learn to praise God
There are too many people today who are
living by feelings instead of by faith, they're
waiting for some nice Feeling that they'll become
a missionary Well, we got a lot of
blokes who are waiting for little miss missionary
to come along And if she's planning to
go to the field and she's attractive enough
He'll consider the possibilities after all life with
her anywhere would be worth it, right?
We need far more objective thinking Many of
you who may not have the gift and
the grace to be a long-term career
missionary Cracking or do or Arabic in the
middle of Saudi Arabia probably could make a
major contribution By giving two years of your
life to overseas spiritual guerrilla warfare and being
his witness Literature is still a vital way
to get the gospel out You don't need
a PhD or a theological education to distribute
powerful gospel literature Written for the mind and
the mentality of the target audience We can
now use film and video and audio cassette
But you need people to drive the vehicles
to run the projectors to cook the food
We live in a highly technical world It's
not any longer a matter of just getting
Bible teachers and theological graduates.
They are also needed But we need dedicated
arms and dedicated eyes Isn't it interesting that
one false cult has 30,000 on the
field short-term two-year people How sad
that some missionary leaders have written off short
-term work as superficial Would you call the
work of that cult two-year commitment people
superficial they've got over a hundred thousand converts
in Britain alone It's not superficial because they
train nationals when they return to America.
You've now guessed which cult it is They
send another 30,000 to take their place
It's about time that we understand the difference
between reality and geography Of course, we call
people to lifetime commitment to give the idea
that someone who serves for two years and
then returns hasn't made a lifetime commitment to
Jesus Christ is false Because his commitment to
Christ is not geographical Of course, we need
life-term commitments to missions it's interesting how
many of those end up back in Britain,
so they shouldn't boast too much about those
commitments a High percentage of life-term commitment
people also died on the field in the
first three years So I wouldn't want to
write that off a short-term superficial work.
It makes God look a little bit weak.
I As part of your ongrowing growth in
character in world vision in obedience to Scripture
to consider especially if you're still single two
years of cross-cultural communication on the front
lines of the spiritual battlefronts around the world
today Perhaps you could call that a Macedonian
call Because in fact People are coming to
me people from Pakistan people from other nations
and they're saying to me even National church
leaders.
Look we need more people We have a
program in The subcontinent area.
I'm especially involved in Bangladesh Pakistan Nepal India
called eastward bound This provides a fantastic opportunity,
especially for British young people to to spend
two years in that part of the world
serving our national brothers and sisters It's one
of the most unusual and challenging open doors
I know anywhere in the world today There's
scope for highly educated people and the scope
for very ordinary people There's scope for mechanics
the scope for women and the scope for
men Some of you ought to write in
and find out what eastward bound is all
about Because if you spend two years out
there, there's a high chance that you're never
going to be the same once you come
back here it's not a total guarantee because
living for God is a day-by-day
walk and Going on OM doesn't guarantee that
you're going to walk with God all of
your life In fact, it may guarantee that
you become a greater target on Satan's strategy
program The Word of God says be not
ignorant of Satan's devices.
The Word of God says Satan is a
roaring lion seeketh whom he may devour The
Bible says Satan sometimes even comes as an
angel of light And one of my greatest
burdens are exo emers We're having a special
conference this summer in Holland for exo emers
For spiritual renewal and fellowship to take spiritual
inventory to see each other.
Some of us haven't met in 20 years
because we believe that in many ways the
40,000 exo emers have a greater potential
for evangelizing the world than the people who
are on OM at this present time Because
the key to world evangelism lies in the
hands of the local congregation And that's why
I wish I had time to give you
a course or a seminar on how to
relate to your local church how to understand
pastors and elders and deacons how to understand
what's happening on a local level the pressure
on the local level that sometimes keeping a
fellowship from sending out missionaries from sending out
finances and We need to work together in
partnership with our local churches in our local
congregations He are my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea
Samaria and the utter no uttermost part of
the of the world of the earth Why
do I so strongly ask people to read
operation world because this is one of the
few books That talks really about the unreached
people How many of you ever pray for
the Kurdish people?
It's one of the largest unreached people's groups
in the world 20 million Kurds with no
nation They're the people who were destroyed in
chemical warfare just last week How many of
you pray you've seen it on television you
pray for the Kurdish people 20 million souls
raise your hand there's good enough reason right
there God raising up a loud mouth movement
like operation mobilization Even if all we do
is hold weekends like this which represents about
one one hundredth of what we do We
need to be alerted to this This need
of the unreached people the uttermost parts of
the earth if you act if you want
acts 1 8 Terminology the Kurds.
What about the Baluch?
What about the Patons?
What about the Turkman?
What about the Wolof people?
What about the Uyghurs up in China?
Where they have almost no witness for the
Lord Jesus Christ How can we how can
we gather Sunday after Sunday in our churches?
Britain with one of the livest largest per
capita church movements in the world You've probably
never heard anything like that before.
Have you?
Because I tell you most of the people
who speak in our churches have never been
out in the 50 or 60 countries Where
we are involved therefore, they can only measure
Britain with Britain And if you measure Britain
with Britain, you realize there's enough work here
for all of us to remain here Nobody
needs to go, but you must understand my
brothers and sisters That there are nations there
are people's church groups people's groups Out there
where the church doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist You know, you had a
prayer meeting here in Birmingham just last week
or so Do you know how many came
to the prayer meeting?
15,000 people now if you can have
a prayer meeting with 15,000 people then
you should be able to send out 1
,500 missionaries out of Birmingham within the next
year or two or somehow something is wrong
with the praying Maybe it's overly introspective.
Maybe someone has forgotten what the Bible teaches
Because we are not just to pray for
revival You can't find one scripture in the
New Testament that says we just pray for
revival We are to obey the whole Council
of God We are to pray for revival
and we are to live in revival and
a lot of people are using this revival
thing as a cop-out for disobedience We
need the whole Council of God we've got
churches that can praise the Lord they can
sing choruses They can have all kinds of
wonderful fellowship times But if you call for
an hour of intercession They look at you
as if you were some kind of dinosaur
that came out of the Bible book of
Acts.
I Want to ask you what do you
know of intercessory prayer?
Have you ever read about a man of
God a woman of God that didn't know
about intercessory prayer Have you ever heard of
such people as David Brainerd?
Probably one of the most mighty men of
God that ever crisscrossed the world Who had
spent whole days even in a log a
hollow log crying out to God who shook
North America like few men What of Jonathan
Edwards?
What a Whitfield and Wesley Do you think
these men would tolerate the kind of superficial
evangelicalism and charismania that we propagate in Great
Britain today?
You say hey, wait a minute you're getting
angry.
Yes, I am And I see a place
for anger and righteous indignation in the Word
of God.
I love his people I love the church.
I serve the church.
Most of my ministry is not, you know,
and it is in the church Brothers and
sisters we must obey God Word of God
teaches that obedience is better than sacrifice in
the Old Testament The prophets cried out against
religious form people were dancing people were praising
people had all kinds of forms They had
all kinds of little things.
They went through they became taboos and they
became very important, but there wasn't justice There
wasn't righteousness.
There wasn't love.
There wasn't purity and there wasn't obedience and
because of that the judgment of God fell
upon those people We need to obey God's
whole counsel and if we do intercessory prayer
will become a vital part of our Congregational
life and we will not be embarrassed again
in a meeting when we discover that only
ten people even Pray for a whole nation
of 20 million souls who have been on
television all week This is not some extracurricular
activity for a few missionary nutcases who hold
weekends conferences to get young people excited or
challenged or committed This is the Word of
God that is preached at all of our
conferences and all of our churches throughout the
country and let me bring This into balance
by saying that Britain has some of the
greatest missionary sending churches.
I have ever been in They may be
a minority, but they are here and I
might also add as I shared in my
seminar That many of the new churches and
new fellowships are acknowledging I met together with
many of the leaders that world missions must
be a priority in this coming decade That's
encouraging in that same meeting of Christian leaders
from the new churches It was a humbling
experience to be asked to lead an intercessory
time of several hours Many of those men
had never been in that kind of intercessory
Touched the nation's and the unreached people of
the world time of intercession in their life
They're planning a similar conference in a much
bigger conference center.
I Pray that intercession will again be part
of that conference How many of you have
ever been in a in a night of
prayer?
We're not saying that's the answer to spirituality
We know if the Holy Spirit isn't in
it could be the height of hypocrisy How
many of you have ever been in a
night of prayer even up even just a
midnight, you know in India sometimes they go
right through to 5 in the morning and
Find it difficult when you get up the
next day, but you know just to midnight
Most of us had watched films to midnight.
I went off to see that film when
I was in Australia The last emperor of
China have you seen that thing long man?
That's a long film Nobody walked out even
though it was dull part of the time
Have you ever seen dr.
Zhivago or Reds or some of these other
epic films?
People don't generally fall asleep walk out So
many of our churches we want to always
finish dead at 12 o'clock I always
get the little notes dear brother.
Be careful of the time Be careful time
our service is accustomed to finishing here 12
o'clock dead at 12 o'clock And
most of the people are dead at 12
o'clock Isn't it interesting when we fall
in love we like to spend time together
I remember when I fell in love I
tell you Chicago shook when I met this
little chick behind the desk renting films And
I tell I did everything I had it
timed from where she was living to where
I was living in the YMCA I had
a cut through a park I think I
had to jump over a bench in order
to get the timing back because a moody
Bible Institute They have some kind of rules
about when you should get in there Just
every minute I was with this lovely little
beautiful gift.
He spent hours together We googled in each
other's eyes We sat together looking at Lake
Michigan Doing nothing Can you imagine the pain
of a character like me doing nothing only
love to do that?
But somehow with Jesus all of our talk
about love Somehow we like it short and
sweet.
Let's have a little prayer Little talk with
Jesus then even our choruses sometimes have a
bit of a shortness to them that somehow
leaves you feeling that something is missing When
did you last have a half day alone
with God as a teenager I started the
habit of spending half days with God then
days with God.
I Often went into the hills of the
mountains people didn't know where I was gone
It wasn't all success My life is sprinkled
with failure I'm more aware of failure than
I am of the success in my life
But failure can be the stepping stone to
success Erwin Lutzer wrote a fantastic book Failure
backdoor to success.
What a fantastic book Haven't even read it
that the title just broke my heart But
I remember once going for a time of
prayer in Spain And I you know, I
I decided if the Lord Jesus could pray
through the night alone I could you know,
I was going to go through the night
alone now I'd been in nights of prayer
with other people, you know, it helps get
somebody else praying and helps keep you awake
and Usually, you know and when we talk
about a night of prayer, it's a half
night of prayer or extended prayer and there
are other people But it's good to have
a night of prayer or extended prayer alone
with God in your Bible So in great
boldness, I went outside the city of Madrid
for this night of prayer went out in
the afternoon And I was gonna fast I'm
gonna fast I brought this piece of bread
with me that I would I thought I
would Eat in the morning when I finished
breaking through and taking Spain for Christ.
This was under Franco We needed a lot
of prayer I can tell you But you
know, it didn't work I about 2 in
the morning or 1 or 12, I don't
know I fell asleep Out there by the
river, of course It was very hot in
the day, but it said and got very
cold at night and I wasn't dressed properly
real understanding of the culture So eventually I
woke up cold I Decided I'm gonna eat.
I'm gonna eat.
I looked around for my bread.
I never forget.
This is gone To this day.
I don't know what happened.
I think Perhaps a wild animal came along
looked at me didn't see any meat and
took the bread Don't be discouraged because you
fail in your prayer life.
Don't be discouraged because your mind wanders Beware
of super spirituality beware of becoming impatient with
your spiritual growth rate Don't feel you're an
extra evil person because in a prayer meeting
some beautiful girl walks in and blows all
your circuits Now some people think well that
kind of experience that just happens to young
carnal Christians Well, I'll tell you not many
years ago.
I was in a prayer meeting in Switzerland
that I'll never forget It was an extended
time of prayer and I was trying to
get through to God and I tell you
a Swiss woman walked through the door that
blew every romance last circuit right out of
my head and She sat down in the
prayer meeting.
I Actually, I think I began to physically
shake I'm sure none of you have this
kind of problem, but you know, you can
pray for me.
I Found myself praying I learned years ago
a way to pray where people think you're
praying and actually you're trying to check up
on what's Going on, you know in in
real travail, you'll hold your hands over your
face Looks like you're praying and then you
open there And I found You know, I
found that I kept trying to pray and
kept looking at this girl and oh god,
forgive me Forgive me forgive me, you know,
forgive me for telling the truth I know
in our society you can get real real
problems for telling the truth But you know
the Lord gave that victory in that prayer
meeting and I Never saw the girl again
much less ever touched her and I can't
even remember what she looked like You know
infatuation is tearing the Church of Christ apart
Married men married women getting infatuated with other
men and other women.
Do you think it's just in America among
the TV stars?
It's going on up and down Britain There
was a character in London had a word
of prophecy that he had the wrong wife
And so he divorced his wife and he
took on another wife.
That was more inclined to his present particular
religious gymnastics Satan is a liar He comes
as an angel of light a man in
one of the biggest churches in an Asian
country Took verses out of context and took
on some concubines to meet his needs Did
you ever read this read the story of
the children of God now called the family
of love one of the most sinister ugly?
cults in the history of the church I'll
send you the full hardback book written by
David Moses Berg's daughter She was crowned queen
of the children of God in a warehouse
in Bromley when I was living in that
town and that night was Supposed to commit
incest with Moses Berg, but she refused and
eventually she was she left and was delivered
from the children of God Unbelievable things have
happened in that cult people sometimes wonder why
You know when we get a little nervous
about extremism and we preach out against extremism
Because if lukewarm this has taken her thousand
then extremism has also taken her thousand We
must avoid both Extremes Being God's witness to
the uttermost parts of the earth Realizing God
uses all kinds of people Realizing we are
living in 1988 not 1888 in the subcontinent
of India alone There are 1 billion people
1,000 million people It took until about
1830 for that many people to be living
on planet Earth Try to understand this Around
1830 we got the first thousand million people
billion people on planet Earth Now we have
that many in India and the surrounding countries.
We have the same number in China therefore
there must be There must be a forward
advance for the gospel That is in line
with world population and what we are really
facing in terms of the task Do you
think some of us Characters like me want
to get in ourselves a replacement ship for
love.
Do you think this is something?
We're worse.
This is sort of a little ego trip.
We like we're into ships.
We're sort of spiritual anaesthetist.
I mean We're into ships We've had enough
of us ship some of us Rex Worth
who was the chief engineer on Dulles He'll
tell you about what life on a ship
is really about what it is to work
in a stinky smelly hot boiled over ancient
relics engine room Literally sometimes risking your life
I'll tell you the reason we went into
that second ship, which was in the doulas
an enormous step of faith for OM We're
still shaking from it Was because we believe
that men and women needed the gospel Because
we saw that God had given us open
doors and God was giving us people and
God was giving us Expertise and God was
giving us credibility and prayer partners God was
doing incredible things that we could not deny
and we felt compelled to take that step
of faith as hard as it was Do
you think we want to go into love
Europe at all sounds wonderful love Europe?
OMS greatest largest single initiative into Europe in
the history of its work Maybe up to
5,000 people Attending a teaching Congress getting
involved in a night of prayer and launching
out across the shake Europe starting in the
summer of 89 Do you think we want
this?
This is we need more to do.
I know I'm right We're all sort of
sitting around looking for work I go around
most of OM and see what people are
doing and I will tell you we may
have a lot of weaknesses But we don't
have too many lazy people and the ones
that are lazy are often working harder because
they feel so bad about it We are
short staff in our offices We sometimes don't
have people even to make out the receipts
when the gifts come in We live in
a complicated world with tax laws.
We need accountants Our vehicles one-third of
them on OM need to be replaced.
They're broken down.
They're old We need mechanics or new vehicles
in our desire to identify with the poor
and relate to the international scene We don't
feel we should get a lot of new
vehicles.
We have a few therefore We need mechanics
who will keep these old vehicles four hundred
of them across the world mobile for God
That's somehow in the next decade We may
have the greatest forward thrust united with other
mission agencies that the world has ever seen.
Do you believe it's possible?
I believe it is especially with the likes
of you I've grown to like you in
the last two days I have a real
hang-up in this area and I somehow
believe if you will let God have his
way in your life I somehow believe if
you will obey what the Spirit of God
gave you last night day by day through
Through difficulty through trial through discouragement Then you
will be part of God's great plan to
reach the nations of God's great plan to
build the kingdom I'm not going to argue
over the terminology I Want to see the
task that Jesus Christ gave us in Acts
1 8 and in the other passages of
the Great Commission Become a reality.
He shall be my witnesses.
I wonder how many of us Would be
willing to make a real change in direction
in our lives as a result of what
the Spirit of God is saying You're going
one way you think you've got God's plan
I Wonder if you'd be willing to make
a right turn and become a spiritual guerrilla
fighter for King Jesus When the government of
Britain called for men to go into the
army in the first war in the second
war in every other war There were plenty
of volunteers and people counted it a privilege
Do you know what's going on in Iran
right now as hundreds of thousands of men
and women now many women volunteer to be
martyrs Thousands have been martyrs Eleven-year-olds
are sent across the minefields to personally blow
up the mines with their feet their mothers
dance at the funerals that I had given
another son to Allah as Islam increases in
its fanaticism beyond anything historians ever imagined.
I wonder if there are some today That
would be willing to go out across the
devil's minefields spiritually speaking Maybe risk your future
Maybe risk that lovely little retirement program.
You've already been thinking about in that lovely
little coastal cottage in Wales Maybe risk even
your life even your health that one more
nation may be reached that one more unreached
people's group may be Penetrated that one more
soul every soul is of unbelievable value may
be with God in eternity Do you think
it's easy for a character like me to
even believe this?
You think I'm some super wound-up man
of faith You're wrong I'm a struggler.
I'm a doubter My grandfather was an atheist.
My father was materialist And from the day
of my conversion to this day the things
I haven't understood about the Christian faith the
things I haven't understood about the Old Testament
There are doubts that I fought with to
the point of weeping But brothers and sisters
I can tell you what an old Scottish
theologian once said that great faith Is not
in the absence of doubt and questions great
faith is as we battle through with our
eyes upon Jesus Christ If I'm not on
the right road, then maybe you can tell
me what the other options are Because I
see in the light of the world condition
in the light of the Word of God
in the light of creation in the light
Of the prophecies of Scripture in the light
of the great infallible truths and the tremendous
evidences for the Christian faith That there is
only one way to go Absolute total commitment
to Jesus Christ to world evangelism to loving
and giving ourselves to others.
I Want to ask you to examine the
scriptures and see if this be so and
if it be so Then make an irrevocable
commitment to obey the Great Commission to reach
the unreached To take the gospel to every
nation every people's group Yeah We go further
than that to every individual to be his
witness and also through prayer and faith to
see living churches born in each one of
these people's groups that can multiply and reach
the rest of that people's group with the
Word of God if you go out even
for only two years and Disciple a few
nationals who know the language already and carry
on in that country For 20 30 years
planting churches, would you call that a superficial
experience?
I don't think so Borden of Yale was
one of the richest most brilliant graduates of
Yale University His vision was the Muslim world
He gave his fortune to God.
I tell you it was a lot of
money and he was highly misunderstood and he
launched out to the Muslim world And within
a few years yay, maybe a few months
Borden of Yale was gone But there's no
one that studies missiology or the Muslim world
that doesn't know the name of Borden of
Yale Well, anybody know your name a hundred
years from now Will it be one soul
one church that's going on because you obeyed
because you were willing to go the extra
mile because you were willing to take God
at his word and So a hundred years
from now Someone in a missiology course at
a seminary or theological school will read about
so-and-so who was turned around in
Birmingham in 1988 and Reached another character who
reached another character who maybe who maybe reached
a Billy Graham and brought a million souls
to Jesus Christ the ricochet effect the multiplication
effect the teamwork principle The domino effect with
Holy Ghost pushing the dominoes is one of
the most exciting principles.
You can ever get involved in it Will
you do that?
Will you take some steps of faith will
you follow through as you leave this place
Will you write to us and let us
know how we can help?
Will you be honest about where you really
are and learn to confess your faults one
with another and pray for one another that
you May be healed We are aware that
great healing must take place here One of
our favorite books is healing for damaged emotions
But the Holy Spirit has been healing people
long before any of these books were ever
written Because the Word of God has a
message of healing So few people today even
memorize scripture It seemed somehow today we want
the blessings without the responsibility We want to
be spiritual even if it's a quasi spirituality
at minimum cost We're quickly told that if
we have any discipline that somehow we're getting
into bondage I heard someone mouthing off about
people who feel they must have their quiet
time every day, you know characters like Billy
Graham In bondage I confronted somebody once who's
going on about that and I said, excuse
me Are you into this eating breakfast every
day?
Oh, oh, yes.
Yes Bondage brother.
Let me lay hands on you and have
a prayer.
I don't believe we should be superstitious And
I have some pretty skim slim quiet times
times And sometimes with my kind of mentality,
I am naturally unspiritual I'm a natural backslider.
If God doesn't meet me every day.
I get a sour attitude.
Just ask my poor little wife.
I Need the touch of God the kick
of God the thrust of God every day
That's why I love to read these dynamic
sermons in print That's why this morning when
I went out for a walk in the
country.
I was listening to a challenge ministry tape
and music tape I'm just a kind of
character.
I got big leaks.
Some of you got small leaks Don't be
judgmental And I need to be filled again
and again and again And it's not just
spiritual things that keep us going and I
just throw this in in these last few
minutes beware of super spirituality Beware of getting
to the place where you no longer read
a secular magazine You're no longer enjoy a
good concert or a good movie or a
good game of tennis or chasing your wife
around the garden in her bathing suit or
whatever else Because if you deny the human
factor you will deny a part of you
that God has created very important we don't
want anybody standing in the streets out here
after this meeting to get 100 gospel tracks
and 64 sermons within the next two hours
It's not what you do in the 10
minutes when you leave here that counts that's
important But it's what you're doing tomorrow in
the next day and next week and next
year Learn God's pace for your life Don't
try to run at someone else's pace There's
so much more we would like to tell
you some of this I've shared in my
book.
No turning back You're unable to buy one
right to me and I'll send it to
you free But I share in that book
basic principles of survivalship perseverance how to bounce
back when you're discouraged how to bounce back
when you're angry and you just hit the
vicar in the nose how To bounce back
when you feel like running off and getting
for other women how to bounce back when
you failed Because our burden as we bring
this conference to a close Is that you
may be a marathon runner for Jesus?
And I got back to the home where
I was staying last night the finals single
women's ice world championships were going on You
say how do you get a spiritual challenge
watching that kind of worldly event I Will
tell you When I see people in the
secular world the discipline that they go through
the commitment They have to sports to the
arts even film people When I read about
tennis players and and rugby players and football
players, not all of them, but many of
them discipline zeal Perseverance downright fanaticism and amazing.
It's admired by our society They give me
I'm even admirer of your prime minister Maggie
Thatcher, I don't agree with everything I don't
even understand everything But I will tell you
she's tough and she's rough and if we
don't have some tough-minded Optimists within the
body of Christ.
We're not going to evangelize the world I
remember when they almost blew her to bits
in Brighton and then she was on the
way to Indira Gandhi's funeral in New Delhi
and these little wheezy reporters pushing the microphone
in the phone Well, don't you get a
little nervous about going off to New Delhi?
And she said she said something along the
line of well, you know, we just learn
to live with this or something like that
Often as Christians we are so we are
so thin-skinned a little bit of criticism
Oh, haven't you heard someone in the church
doesn't love you?
Many a man of God many a man
of God many a woman of God with
all the preaching with all the teaching with
all The zeal has gone down in flames
when the first little criticism has come up
Young person if you do anything for God,
you're gonna get criticized Don't revel in it
learn from it But I will tell you
if you go from here and burn out
for Jesus Christ to do his will and
to evangelize the world You're gonna get criticized.
You're gonna make mistakes in the process But
how else are we going to learn?
How else will the job be done Learn
to use criticism as a challenge as a
stepping-stone Learn to forgive people now when
they come to you the world does that
all the time we get Christian Oh, I'll
forgive him this guy really double-crossed me
and If he comes and apologizes, I will
definitely forgive.
Oh, I'm just so impressed What is God's
way you should forgive at the moment of
impact if you hit you on one cheek
you turn the other That doesn't mean you
can't speak up.
That doesn't mean you can't confront but it
means that you're developing Revolutionary forgiveness toward all
of God's people and people in general For
I thank God for my critics For they
had so often been the ones that God
has used to drive me closer to Jesus
I Challenge you be a fighter for God
and when you're knocked down just get no
big deal Did you see Rocky for terrible
film?
Only in a cinema could they do that
he was hit so many times by this
Russian gulag Who's actually a sweet that no
human being could have ever lived but there
it was was it around the 14th or
15th round?
He was getting up and up and up
and he won the fight good old Sylvester
still No I know most of you probably
can't relate to that film But I can
relate to that film because I had been
knocked down by the dirty devil and by
some of his friends so many Times that
I thought I might as well bring my
cot to church But I learned how to
get up and if you're down even yet
I pray that you may get up and
get back in the race and start running
Last night on that ice skating program the
thing that touched my heart wasn't the East
German woman who won It was the American
girl a brilliant skater who fell And my
heart just went out because though she fell
there was immediate Her hand just touched the
ice and she was back and skating in
perfect poise Dear old John Haggai in his
book how to win over worry and care
that helped revolutionize my life said prayer plus
poise plus praise equals perfect peace Hallelujah, I've
known that every day in my walk with
God and that's your inheritance in Jesus Christ
When you fail when you fall get up
When you feel your hand touching the ice
get up, you know what to do.
You know what God can do And you'll
discover that someday 20 or 30 years from
now just like me You'll be still running
the race a few arrows in the back
black eyes Knees are wobbling need glasses just
to see the Bible, but somehow you'll be
pressing on for Jesus Christ Hallelujah, let's do
it together for the kingdom of God and
for world evangelism.
Amen.
Let us pray living God Forgive me if
I have gotten too excited this afternoon, you
know, I have a real need in this
area But Lord if I'm too excited, I
know there are people here That suffer from
the lack of spiritual excitement in their lives.
They've got spiritual myopia They've got the blues
and the goose and the ooze and they
need a Holy Ghost kick to do your
will and go your way Be it to
the ends of the earth or to the
ends of the street Father do a new
thing in our midst as we examine ourselves
as we fill out these little evaluation and
commitment papers That we may take steps of
faith Even if it be with fear and
trembling for we ask we ask with all
of our hearts in the name of Jesus
Christ our Lord Amen