Let's pray and ask the Lord to help
us as we continue on from last night
on survivalship, on how not to grow weary
in the great task of evangelizing the world.
Let's pray.
Lord, I just thank you for these books.
I think of nations where they have so
few books, not even a fraction, not even
one-tenth of what we have, not even
one percent of what we have.
Help us to get involved in spreading your
word, in investing in Christian liturgy.
We thank you for cassette tapes.
Thank you that in our day we can
be involved in spreading the message of spiritual
revolution.
We think of that political revolution that took
place in Iran through the cassette tape.
Pray that we may spread a spiritual revolution
through using cassette tapes.
Help us now as we deal with this
subject, and we may be edified, built up
and made ready for the great spiritual conflicts
that will lie ahead of us.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now we're speaking about survivalship.
We talked about discipleship, and I was trying
to explain to you how God, through the
years, took me through discipleship, I'm still in
that, to what I call a pattern of
survivalship, persevering.
1 Corinthians 15, 58, Be ye steadfast.
Have you memorized it yet?
Unmovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, knowing that your labor is not in
vain in the Lord.
And we looked at that verse in Galatians.
Be not weary in well-doing, for ye
shall reap if ye faint not.
You remember the story of the importunate person
knocking on the door, late at night, kept
knocking and knocking, and the Lord using this
as an example of persevering prayer.
Persevering prayer.
And as we have this week, together, what
a privilege it is.
Our burden isn't firstly to get you to
join OM for a year, or to somehow
come on a summer, or even to join
a foreign mission society for 20 years.
Our burden, our first burden, is to see
you running in God's race for a lifetime,
whether it's in Chester or Calcutta.
It's to see spiritual health, to see you
living in revival.
Revival.
That's God's privilege.
In a sense, there's two kinds of revival.
There's what I call personal revival.
Men like Roy Hesschen emphasize personal revival.
And then there's church and group and city
revivals, nationwide revivals.
Edwin Orr, in some of his books, he
emphasizes that kind of revival.
It's always been my first burden to emphasize
this kind of revival.
Because I'm convinced that as a nucleus of
people experience personal revival, and learn to pray,
that can lead us to churchwide and citywide
and even nationwide revival.
We have a southern preacher in the United
States named Vance Havner.
He's sort of a, how can you explain
Vance Havner?
Amazing old combination of Lloyd Jones, Alan Redpath,
and perhaps Billy Graham.
I don't know.
He's just a combination of a number of
people.
He's very, very old now.
I don't know.
He must be 100, at least 90.
He says, you know, we wouldn't need to
talk about revival if we knew vival.
He says it with a southern accent.
Vival.
You old folk know about vival.
Something like that.
This man preaches often to ministers.
I've never known a man to bring more
ministers to repentance than old Vance Havner.
He was preaching at the Moody Pastors Conference.
He was preaching on repentance.
He was sharing the agony he went through
when his wife died.
He was sharing about personal revival.
Before the meeting was over, 100 or more
ministers were up on the old mourner's bench.
He does it the old-fashioned way, repenting,
crying, and asking God to bring revival to
their hearts.
Vival.
That's really simply linked to those verses in
Ephesians that we are alive in Jesus Christ.
We are alive in Jesus Christ.
We have in Christ all that we need
to live in the day-by-day power
of the Holy Spirit.
Someone might say, well, what about the Holy
Spirit?
You know, when you speak about the Holy
Spirit, you also are speaking about Jesus.
When you speak about Jesus, you are also
speaking about the Holy Spirit.
To be filled with the Holy Spirit means
also to be filled with the love of
Christ, the power of Christ.
And I really think it's a mistake to
get caught up too much in arguing over
terminology and to bringing competition between the members
of the Trinity.
I heard a great message recently by David
Wilkerson, one of the leading charismatic Christians of
our day, sharing with other charismatic Christians, and
his message was the absent person in our
midst, Jesus Christ, is one of the strongest
messages I've ever heard.
And we find some people emphasize one member
of the Trinity, some emphasize another member of
the Trinity.
Don't allow competition between the members of the
Trinity.
They are totally locked together as one.
They are one.
And if you are totally yielded to Jesus
Christ, if you are totally committed to Jesus
Christ, and have made Him Lord of your
life, then you are filled with the Holy
Spirit.
Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
And if you are filled with the Holy
Spirit, then you are learning something about the
Lordship of Christ.
You may not have arrived to all that
it means.
I haven't.
I don't know anyone else that has.
When you think you've arrived, you better get
that little power packet and pull out the
little book, Humility, and re-read it.
Because if any book has the ability to
bring a person down a few notches, it's
Andrew Murray's Humility.
And he was a man who knew the
fullness and the power and the unction and
the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
So we want to talk about going on
as missionaries.
You say, well, I haven't signed up yet
as a missionary.
Oh, yes you have.
Yes you have.
The day you gave your life to Jesus,
you signed the dotted line.
There's no middle ground.
It's not a matter of signing up with
Jesus, giving your life to Jesus, and then
sitting over on the park bench reading the
newspaper.
Every Christian is a missionary.
He may be a disobedient missionary.
He may be a confused missionary.
He may be a lot of things that
he shouldn't be.
But as far as I see it, he's
a witness.
Perhaps the word witness is better than the
word missionary for some people.
Acts 1E, ye shall be my witness.
It's a message to all believers.
It's not a message for a missionary conference.
Probably some people are going to boycott this
conference.
Let's break the Chester boycott against the missionary
conference.
Let's have a march through the streets.
That would be good, wouldn't it?
We could have a march around the wall
like Jericho.
They're going to do something really, really crazy.
They won't know O.M.'s been here.
If you just sort of totter back and
forth between here and the city mission, you
look like a bunch of wallflowers.
But people do.
They go on picket when a mission conference
comes because they don't think it's their thing.
I have them write me, missions is not
my thing.
I want to tell you, you're looking at
someone, missions isn't my thing either.
But it's Jesus' thing.
And he came into my life and now
he's made it my thing.
I was talking to a pastor of a
very large church and they just had a
missions conference and a lot of the people
didn't come.
They're there Sunday morning.
They have a marriage seminar.
They're there.
They want to get their marriage.
That's the big thing in America.
All the marriages are coming apart.
So they have a marriage seminar.
People come.
They pay $50 to go to a marriage
seminar.
Or any other self-help seminar.
How to get on with your mother-in
-law.
How to make your bed in a Christian
way.
People pile in.
They want to improve their Christian life.
All the various self-help seminars.
America's a nation of seminars.
People fly from Los Angeles to New York
to go to a seminar.
And this pastor put his finger on the
nerve of why they didn't come to the
missions conference.
And he said, they don't see what's in
it for themselves.
They don't see what's in it for themselves.
And we're the gimme gimme generation.
We want to know what's in it for
me.
And one of the fastest growing doctrines in
America is the prosperity doctrine.
You know what that doctrine teaches?
That teaches that if you're spiritual and you
love Jesus, you're going to get rich.
One man got into this theology.
And of course, in his case, doesn't always
happen, but there's a lot of money floating
around America.
Some churches have up to a dozen millionaires
in one church.
And there's a lot of money floating around,
especially in Texas, where this doctrine is very
strong.
And he built himself a mansion as big
almost as this tent.
All in the name of Jesus.
And he did it because he believes this
prosperity doctrine, that God will prosper financially all
spiritual people.
And that is now one of the most
popular, you can imagine, doctrines in the United
States.
People come and share how they were once
a Volkswagen Christian.
And they heard this message and they yielded
their life to this very difficult message.
And learned to really trust God.
And now they're driving a Rolls Royce.
And if you're just a Volkswagen Christian or
a Ford Christian, we're praying that you just
become more spiritual.
And those of you on bicycles, well, you're
just backslidden.
It's a very subtle thing.
It's a very subtle thing because God does
prosper some people financially.
Of course, he works in different people in
different ways.
He may prosper your business, but you can't
turn that into a blanket theological rule.
And this is where we make a lot
of mistakes in the church.
Is we see what God is doing in
one person's life and we turn that into
a theological sort of blanket rule and we
try to copy that.
We long, oh how we long for the
Lord's people to understand that they are his
witness.
We're all missionaries.
And that missions because of Jesus should be
our thing.
And though we may not see what's in
it for us personally, if we study the
New Testament, we will discover it is more
blessed to give than receive.
It's more blessed sometimes to do something when
you don't think I can personally get anything
out of it.
I'm just going to do it to help
others.
I'm just going to do it because I
love God.
I love Jesus and I want to obey
him.
And you give and you give and you
go.
Without necessarily expecting anything in return.
Often you do get much in return.
Not necessarily prosperity financially, but you probably will
get a great blessing spiritually.
And I am convinced that if you will
commit your heart and your life in a
specific way to the task of world missions
and get into God's race.
In a definite, committed, active way to be
his witness and to be involved in the
operation world that we read about in the
New Testament.
That God will bless you.
And he will bless your church.
But it won't be without battle.
As it says in that little book we've
been mentioning, born for battle.
Now let me get into some of these
specific ways that I have learned over these
past 27 years since my conversion to somehow
survive in the midst of this.
Because you see we want you to start
in the race and to keep on running.
Keep on running.
We want to see some of you 30
years from now, 40 years from now with
a big smile on your face to tell
us what the Holy Spirit has done over
the past 40 years.
I get so many wonderful letters.
And often they're from people I haven't seen
for 10, 15 years.
I just answered the letter while you were
singing.
I was actually just doing a letter to
this young man.
Wrote me from Togo.
I haven't heard from him in years.
Now he's married and he's a missionary in
Togo.
How many of you know where Togo is?
Let's be honest.
Raise your hand.
I'm glad you've come to Operation World.
And if you haven't yet got your map
of the world, that should be the priority.
And if you don't have the money to
buy a map of the world, we explained
the system last night.
You get it on credit and then you
later on pay me.
But really we need to know where these
countries are.
And it was exciting to read that young
man's prayer letter.
And let me take another survey.
You know I'm a bit of a nut
on the survey thing.
I love to take surveys.
How many of you receive at least one
missionary prayer letter?
Raise your hand.
That is really encouraging.
Almost 90%.
You get one missionary prayer letter.
How many get two missionary prayers?
At least two.
We lost 50% of the heads.
Probably all have one relative on the mission
field.
How many get more than three missionary prayer
letters?
Raise your hand.
As I go on the numbers, you drop
your hand down.
More than four.
Keep it up.
More than five.
More than six.
More than seven.
More than ten.
Not too many left.
Now I know I'm an extremist.
I just love to get these missionary letters.
I've been collecting them for 27 years.
I still read most of them.
I just think it's so great to be
involved with people praying.
My main job has to be connected with
OM.
I get my leader's letters and I get
the leader's prayer letters and I get a
lot of OMers' prayer letters.
A few hundred.
But it's so thrilling to get missionary prayer
letters from other agencies.
I get only about 200, 250.
From different missionaries and agencies all over the
world.
Some of them are in Mexico.
And I just find that so inspirational.
You know, I was always told when I
was a young Christian, get a hobby.
Everybody's got to have a hobby.
People were always saying I was going to
have a nervous breakdown.
I had people always prophesying, false prophets, all
of them, you're going to have a nervous
breakdown.
Some people have been waiting for years, you
know, 25 years is a long time to
wait for some bloke to have a nervous
breakdown.
Some have already broken down waiting.
So I took up this hobby.
Missionary prayer letters.
Filing them, reading them, praying through them, writing
back, sending out books to all these people.
And it's really exciting.
Why don't you develop that hobby?
Some of you, instead of getting one prayer
letter, you can take a huge step of
faith.
You know, just, I know it's going to
be hard, but somehow just take hold of
yourself and just launch out one more missionary
prayer letter.
You know what some people tell me?
You know, if there's ever a nation in
the world where they learn how to squeeze
the penny, it's right here.
And really it's, you know, don't take that
as criticism because my ancestors came from here.
But I've had people literally write and say,
well, we couldn't think of taking your prayer
letter.
It's going to cost 15 pence or 12
pence to send it.
What a poor use of the Lord's money.
Listen, my friends.
I doubt if there's many of you that
live on less than my family lives on.
And so I agree with you.
I'm also a tightwad.
I was extreme.
I wouldn't give my wife any money for
anything.
I thought all money was committed to World
Evangelism.
I haven't bought any clothing hardly in 25
years.
We get it out of Charlie.
You heard of Charlie in O.M.? I
tried to, you know, update it a bit.
Call it Charles of London.
Charlie is the used clothing department of O
.M. People, you know, the missionary barrel.
You know, that's where we get stuff like
this.
That's why I've got shoes on that don't
fit.
Because we were a little extreme.
We wanted our money to go for Bibles
and for Gospels and for World Evangelism.
Why?
Because we really believed what this book said.
And I became extreme.
And I hurt my wife through this.
Probably hurt my children too.
And I had to come into balance some
years ago.
And I gave my wife a pound.
I said, look, feel free, whatever you want.
You keep praying.
I'm working toward even greater freedom.
If we are going to evangelize the world,
the money we put into the prayer letters,
getting that communication out to interceding people is
the greatest investment we can ever make for
God.
And I'd be happy to pay it out
of the money I've been able to save
through not buying clothing or not buying this
or that thing that I'm supposed to have
bought.
Give us the privilege.
Give us the privilege of paying the postage.
But you have the great responsibility of interceding
and praying and standing against the forces of
darkness as they try to wipe these missionaries
right off the front lines of spiritual combat.
We need to double, triple the number of
intercessors in Britain if this job is ever
going to be done.
And it seems to me that we should
sign up for every single prayer letter that
any missionary offers here.
Let's get around to these booths.
Let's get involved.
Let's hug these people, spiritually if not physically,
and sign up for prayer letters.
Take missionary prayer cards and start really becoming
serious about missions and intercession.
And as you do that, and as the
battle gets hard, these are some of the
other things you need to remember.
Number one, in the midst of the battle,
out in the field or home in your
intercessory prayer closet, you need to constantly remember
that you are forgiven and that you are
accepted by God.
Now, young person, the devil is going to
counterattack your week here.
This is an emotional high for some of
you.
Fellowship, prayer, praise, songs.
And when you go, some of you go
back to lonely, difficult situations.
And the enemy is going to come in.
And at that time, especially in a moment
of failure or disappointment, you're going to need
to just get right down to the basics.
Right down to the basics.
You're forgiven.
And really, if you're forgiven and on your
way to heaven, the other things, it really
doesn't matter that much.
Just stop listening to the enemy.
The Bible says Satan is the accuser of
the brethren.
And a lot of people are not involved
in missions because the devil has been accusing
them for years that they're no good.
So many young people that write to me
or that I'm able to talk with, they
get in this put-themself-down syndrome.
Have you ever been in that?
Where you put yourself down and you feel
you're no good and you've failed the Lord
so many times and you've done so many
dumb things and you can't really communicate and
you keep offending your mother and you keep
getting in difficulty with your dog or whoever
else is hassling you.
And so you're putting yourself down.
A lot of people put themselves down.
And they're not able to evaluate themselves properly
and understand God's forgiveness and God's love.
You know that verse, Ephesians 1, 6?
We are accepted in the beloved.
Really, in my Christian life, it's the basics
that keep me going.
You know, I'm forgiven.
Jesus loves me.
I love that little chorus.
We sing it in Sunday school.
You know, Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
And we go out and live as if
we never even heard it.
The basics.
Number two, if you want to press on
long term in the spiritual army of God,
learn how to cast every care upon him.
1 Peter 5, 7.
Memorize that.
How many know that verse?
1 Peter 5, 7.
That's good.
Say it together with me.
Casting every care upon him because he careth
for you.
You know the verse that, what does it
come just before it?
The devil is a roaring lion, seeketh whom
he may devour.
Ever have difficulty getting out of bed in
the morning?
Betty Elliot, that great missionary writer, she was
preaching to 10,000 students at Urbana and
she was emphasizing the need in the morning
to get out of bed as quickly as
possible when you wake up and get your
feet on the ground.
Alan Redpath said, he was preaching here last
year, one of the closest friends of O
.M. I don't know if those of you
who were here last year know how close
Alan Redpath is with Operation Mobilization.
He's going to give us a whole month
this year.
We met in Chicago 23 years ago.
But he says one of the greatest problems
is, you remember it?
Blanket victory.
You know what that is?
Get the blanket off in the morning and
get up and get that time with God.
And I believe that's just so important.
Satan is a roaring lion.
If you woke up tomorrow morning and you
looked over the side of the bed and
there was a gigantic lion.
There was a film on television some time
ago about a young lad who got a
bit upset by the local zoo and so
he went around the zoo and let all
the animals out.
I don't know if it's a true story.
It's a good program.
We recorded it to send it to the
doulas for the children.
We usually announce the film.
You know, children's film.
Children can't even get in the door.
All the adults are in there.
You've got to hold the seats.
That's how it could happen, you know?
The local zoo, something goes wrong, you wake
up.
What are you going to do if you
wake up tomorrow morning and there's a huge
lion on the side of your bed?
One thing for sure, you're not going to
just roll over and say, excuse me, I'm
going back to sleep.
You can laugh.
But according to the word of God, there
is a spiritual lion.
There is an evil one who seeketh whom
he may devour.
And we need to get up in the
morning.
We need to put on the whole armor
of the Lord.
We need to make sure we're filled with
the spirit.
We need to make sure somehow the screws
are tightened on the armor so we don't
drop it when we walk out the door
and realize we are in a battle.
And therefore we will daily deny self.
We will daily fall into the ground and
die so that we won't abide alone.
Life comes through death.
We go up by going down.
Victory is through identification with the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it means daily casting every care upon
Jesus.
I'm a specialist in carrying around cares that
should be on Jesus' shoulders.
And I think it's one of the greatest
messages in the New Testament.
Some of you may be sitting here today
and you're not hassled by the problem of
stealing or the problem of adultery.
You're not bothered by the problem of lying
or the problem of hatred.
But worry has been eating away at your
spiritual life for years and you still somehow
haven't brought it under the crucifying power of
the Lord Jesus.
Would you do that tonight?
Thirdly, if you want to continue to press
on, make God your goal.
Make God your goal.
It's one of the reasons I like these
books by A.W. Tozer.
He so emphasizes God.
And Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
Attributes of God.
Knowledge of God.
He has a tremendous chapter in this book
on dealing with feelings.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
Make God your goal.
Not God plus.
God himself.
We become success neurotics because of all the
various influence from the media and the pressure
to be successful.
We can become extreme in the desire to
be successful.
And our joy comes each day depending on
how successful we feel we've been on that
day doing what we're supposed to be doing
instead of knowing the joy of just being
in the presence of God.
That's why sometimes the Lord allows us to
be laid aside for a while.
The Lord put me aside in a hospital
a few years ago.
The doctor said, You may never speak again.
He said, You may have cancer of the
throat.
Lovely little noose.
He had me within 36 hours on his
little, you know, little table.
Operating table.
Went down my throat with some microscopic type
of operation and cut something off one of
my vocal cords.
And later on he gave me this advice,
You need to learn how to just keep
your mouth shut a little more.
You didn't need much wisdom to tell me
that.
My mother always told me that when I
was a kid.
And I've had to learn how to speak
less and to listen more.
Andrew Murray has a book, Waiting on God.
Do you know what it is to wait
upon God?
When's the last time you had a half
day alone with God?
You know, when we fall in love, I
remember when I fell in love, I won't
tell you the story, it's just to get
into the ridiculous, but I fell in love
and man, I wanted to spend time with
her.
Half days, whole days.
Because it was a love, you know, it
was a big thing.
We ended up getting married.
We've been together now 22 years.
And I believe that as we have a
deeper love relationship with God, we're going to
want to spend time with Him.
We're going to want to get out into
some beautiful woods.
Think of all the beautiful woods around Chester.
What a lovely city this is.
Surrounded by woods.
Go out there for a half a day.
Be alone with God.
Just take your Bible.
Be alone with God.
Make God your goal.
Matthew 6, 33.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness.
All these things shall be added unto you.
And then number four.
We're going to get into some very practical
things.
I think it's all practical.
Learn how to be hurt.
Now this may be the most important thing
I say tonight for some of you.
Learn how to be hurt.
You say, what are you talking about?
The last thing we want is to be
hurt.
Do you want your preacher, your pastor in
your church, your vicar, next Sunday to meet
you at the door and to say something
to you that's going to hurt you?
I don't think so.
In fact, I know situations where when the
pastor has hurt someone, they just quit the
church.
You know, there are more carnal Christians in
our churches than we'll ever know.
And when they get offended, or something doesn't
go their way, or somebody steps on one
of their spiritual corns, you never hear the
end of it.
Some people all they have for Sunday dinner
is roast preacher.
And gossip is doing more to destroy the
work of God than we'll ever know.
We'll never know.
Far more than fornication or some of the
other so-called heavyweight sins.
And I don't think we can live on
planet Earth without getting hurt.
And I enrolled some years ago.
I'm still a failure.
I enrolled in God's university of learning how
to be hurt.
People hurt.
They hurt us with their words.
They hurt us sometimes with their actions.
And sometimes we hurt others.
That hurts me even more.
I became extreme in this.
And I was almost neurotic about never wanting
to ever hurt anybody again.
And I shed more tears because I hurt
people than I can tell you about.
And I had to learn that in this
life, as we walk together with Jesus, at
times we will hurt other people.
If we know about it, we commit it
to Jesus, we apologize to them, but we
don't allow ourselves to be depressed and to
somehow then throw in the towel.
Maybe you've hurt your own mother, your own
father.
Maybe you've hurt your little sister.
It's easy to hurt your little sister.
How many of you are big sisters?
You've got a little sister.
You're a big sister.
Raise your hand.
Come on.
All right.
Have you ever hurt your little sister?
Ever hurt her?
Anything you ever said?
Keep your hand up if you've ever hurt
your little sister.
Oh, good.
You're a great, honest crowd.
Sometimes we hurt people, and they never recover
totally.
And yet even that we can put in
the hands of God.
Shortly after I was a Christian, I hurt
a young girl who wanted to marry me.
I was just sort of dating and fooling
around a little bit, late adolescent, you know,
I don't know.
And this girl, you know, she was only
16.
She wanted to get married.
Finally, one day, I said, you know, you
know, I'm not going to get married.
I'm going to college.
Now Jesus is in my heart, you know.
And I think we're going to break this
off.
I thought she was going to commit suicide.
She immediately turned around and married within the
year her half-brother.
And often I think of that girl.
I hurt her.
I can't forget that memory.
But I have been able to commit that
to God.
You cannot carry the failures of your life,
the hurts you have received or given.
You cannot carry those around with you the
rest of your life.
You must cast them upon the Lord.
You must understand that is part of living
on this planet and somehow learn to be
heard and to forgive those that hurt you.
I wonder, does someone here tonight, if you're
honest, there's a root of bitterness in your
heart against someone, maybe against some group.
I meet people who are bitter against police.
You know, I have such a respect for
the police and the British are the top
of all my, the list of all my
national police.
I think they had one of the toughest
jobs any person can have.
They're human.
They make mistakes just like anyone else.
But I believe the police in our nations
need our respect and encouragement.
Have you ever thanked a policeman?
Just try it.
The guy's liable to pass out.
Someone comes up and says, I really want
to just thank you for the job, the
work you're doing here in our town.
You know, we often are ungrateful people.
Britain is only my adopted country.
But I have come to love this country
in a way that I cannot explain.
To appreciate the freedom we have.
I almost wanted to enroll in the army
and go down to the Falklands, but you
know, I couldn't quite put that one together.
I got a lot of friends down in
Argentina.
But I really, really, so, so come to
love this country and what God has done
here and what God is still doing here.
And sometimes I get angry.
I'm often on British Rail.
You get a lot of mumblers on British
Rail.
They're always mumbling, oh, the train's late.
You know, and I often say, I say,
you know, you're complaining about the train.
You know, I like to take people straight
on.
And I say, you're always complaining.
You know, people often complain, and I said,
how many other train systems in different parts
of the world have you traveled on?
Have you ever been on the trains in
India?
I said, have you ever tried the Egyptian
train between Cairo and Alexandria?
What about Pakistan?
And you often find people complaining about the
trains that have never been on any other
train outside of Britain.
And I say, well, look, are you thinking
about some perfect system in heaven?
Well, by the way, are you going to
heaven?
You can open up for a word of
witness.
But, uh, I really believe that, you know,
I have to watch you.
I'll get on, I'll get on my British
message and, you know, we'll get into politics.
But, uh, I really believe Britain is one
of the most organized, sane, down-to-earth,
peaceful countries in the world.
And you can't even answer that until you
go around and visit some of the countries
that I've been in.
Now, I love a lot of other countries
as well, but we have so much to
be thankful for.
Imagine pitching a tent in the middle of
the racecourse.
Go try this in, uh, in the Sudan.
Go try this in some other country.
You can't even get permission to speak in
the open air to ten people in many
countries in the world.
Let's thank God for the freedom we have
here.
Let's thank God that the churches are open.
Let's thank God we sell Bibles in every
bookshop in the nation almost.
And that we can even protest and take
our cause right to the, right to the
Prime Minister.
It's amazing what you can do in this
country.
I have a letter.
I don't know if it's here in my
Bible anymore.
I was waving it around America.
It was a letter from Princess Diana.
I was in my office the other week
and I knew she was going to have
a baby.
And I had this book on natural childbirth.
It was a Christian book.
And I'm, my wife and I have closed
down production so I was wondering what to
do with this book.
And, uh, so I said, I'm telling you
the truth.
I said to my secretary, I said, look,
send this book to Princess Diana and give
her my compliments.
And this particular secretary, she's from Malaysia.
She's a bit of a, a bit of
a sinner.
So, uh, she gave it to another one.
He was American.
He's a bit naive.
She gave it to the American and he
wrote a nice letter.
Dear Princess, sent the book.
And I got this tremendous letter back from
Princess Diana from her secretary.
And the Princess received my book.
Thank you.
Appreciate the work of Operation Mobilization.
Thank you.
Of course, she never heard of it, I'm
sure.
And, uh, and she thanked me and I
got this letter.
I've been carrying it around in my Bible
but it seems to have, have disappeared.
And I often mention that because it shows
what we can do with a printed page.
You know, you can take a book from
that table and send it to, send it
to the Queen.
She might get it.
She might read it.
Who knows what can happen as Christians start
to put books in libraries, as Christians start
to lose literature.
I think the losing ministry is great.
You know, in places like Turkey, it's very,
very hard to distribute literature openly.
So we find little crews of absent-minded
people.
You know, there's hope for some of you.
We send them down to Turkey.
Some of them cut holes in their trouser
pockets.
Some of you, some of you are already
ready.
And they put Gospels of John in their
pockets and they sort of...
We've lost five million pieces of literature in
Turkey.
Now, I know, I shouldn't, I shouldn't tell
that because people think, oh, well, that's the
strategy of Operation Mobilization.
You know, it's amazing.
You do one little thing, which is a
little sideline.
It's not your main work.
It's some tiny little thing you do in
passing.
People think that's your main work.
There was one Christian leader who actually thought
the main ministry of the ships was to
come into a port and sort of shoot,
you know, tracks.
You know, most ships, British ones have, you
know, cannons.
And that was the main ministry of the
ships.
And he was really down on this method.
I'd love to talk to you about that
ship ministry because I'm convinced after seeing that
ministry in Operation East 11 or 12 years
that it is one of the most down
-to-earth practical ways of helping the church.
That's the main ministry of those ships.
Helping the church do her job.
Training, evangelism, a catalyst, motivating, Operation World Conferences,
15 ministries all going on at once, but
all so easily misunderstood.
Well, through misunderstanding we learn to be heard.
And I pray that in these days if
there's a root of bitterness in your life,
you'll just by faith just yank it out.
Some people say, well, you don't know what
that person did to me.
And then they say, you know, if they
come to me and apologize, I'll forgive them.
That's ridiculous.
That's the method of the world.
The world says, you come and apologize.
You know, you were down in the pub
the unsaved character and somebody got fooling around
and instead of throwing the dart at the
dart board he threw it at your neck
and, you know, it just went in there.
So he threw another one.
But somehow if he really comes and he
apologizes and, you know, then you forgive him.
But that's not the way it is with
us as believers.
We forgive the moment it's being done.
We don't have to wait for apologies.
We don't have to wait for people to
put it right or say I'm sorry.
Yes, if they do they'll get the blessing
and we pray they will.
But we just forgive and forgive.
We're loaded with forgiveness because we're filled with
the Holy Ghost and when you throw a
spiritual dart in us just love and forgiveness
and a fruit of the spirit comes out.
And when that kind of forgiveness spreads through
the body of Jesus Christ and spreads even
through operation mobilization because we need that touch
every year then I believe the work of
world evangelism is going to go on.
You want to know something that's very sad?
There's a lot of unforgiving on the mission
field.
In every nation I have gone to minus
very few I've found missionaries who've held things
against other missionaries and I believe it is
one of the great hindrances.
We get caught up with our work and
our strategy our way of doing things.
Somebody else disagrees they do it a different
way.
Pretty soon there's a little gossip.
Pretty soon there's a fight.
Then somebody's hurt.
Let's pray for revival on the mission field.
Let's pray we may root out every root
of bitterness as we're told to do in
the book of Hebrews.
And then number five learning the reality of
praise and worship.
Oh, that's so wonderful.
To praise the Lord.
I was listening to Keith Green today.
I'm caught up on this Keith Green.
I was listening to his latest tape.
I wanted to play it.
I don't know if you can play a
cassette tape over this sound system.
You could play it tomorrow night.
This fellow who's usually known for some of
his pretty pretty heavy Christian music has come
out with a new more tame album for
some of God's more tame people.
And this album ends with holy, holy, holy
I tell you my heart just lifted in
praise of God.
I was thinking of having a concert playing
the whole tape.
Late night concert.
How many of you get ministered to by
Christian music?
Raise your hand.
Maybe I'm the odd one out.
Oh, look at that.
When's the last time you gave someone a
gift of a lovely little Christian music cassette?
Somebody in the hospital.
Someone in prison.
What a blessing we can be when we
get a vision to give.
To give.
And to give.
I have a great burden for the elderly
folk.
If you know anybody in this town that
can't get to the meetings because they're too
old you let us know.
We'll pick them up.
I'll pick them up if I have to.
Or if they can't come let's get a
cassette tape.
You tell me their address and I'll send
them a cassette tape.
If they like music tell me their address
I'll send them some music.
God's put a burden on my heart for
the elderly.
I often go and just visit the elderly.
I'm so sensitive.
Sometimes I walk in and all I do
is start crying.
They look at me and say, hey man,
what's happened?
And I say, no, it's just, you know,
I just love you.
How the older people have been neglected.
And the average young person often is so
insensitive to the elderly.
Yet I'm sorry to say sometimes elderly ones
are a little insensitive to the problems of
youth.
We need each other.
I thank God for this meeting tonight.
Half of you young, half of you middle
age, half of you not sure where you
are, praise the Lord.
What a wonderful meeting.
Learn the reality of praise and thanksgiving.
And then lastly, and we'll continue tomorrow night
because I've got ten more points.
Realizing that God is easy to live with.
You know who said that?
A.W. Tozer.
Do you know where he got that from?
I don't know.
Somebody else.
Some old mystic.
That really helped me when I read that
in the writings of A.W. Tozer.
God is easy to live with.
I find a lot of dedicated Christians, you
know the so-called dedicated ones, the committed
ones, I find them religiously jumpy.
So sensitive.
You know God has seen their every movement.
They've had some little lust trip or some
little jealousy trip or some little mixed emotion
towards somebody and now they're condemning themselves and
I noticed this on the phone when I
was talking to Brother Jonathan today, that he's
been going through struggles and he's been getting
down and feeling he's a terrible Christian but
Jonathan of course he knows how to get
back up.
We all of course at times see how
terrible we are and we see the ugliness
of our own hearts saying God the Holy
Spirit didn't reveal all of the self-life
to us at one blast when we were
saved.
We wouldn't have stood the sight.
He reveals it to us bit by bit.
Bit by bit.
And oh the mercy of God that He
is quick to mark the simplest thing that
we do.
Don't go away from this conference condemning yourself.
Don't go away just feeling you're a world's
most miserable Christian.
But go away realizing that our great God
is a God of love and mercy and
forgiveness and He's easy to live with and
He's ready to mark and to note the
simplest thing that you do in His name.
If a cup of cold water has a
reward with it what shall we say?
Of giving out tracts of witnessing of helping
others of praying over prayer letters of sending
in gifts for God's work.
I mean it's exciting.
God knows all about us but He loves
us still.
Even at that moment of utter failure.
Have you utterly failed the Lord at any
time in the past weeks?
I have.
But I know that even at that moment
of utter failure He loves me and He's
still there commuting and wanting to pick me
up and throw me back into the race
again.
That's why I'm still running 27 years from
my start at conversion because God is God
and whatever your problem your burden your failure
your sin God is greater.
Let's live in the light of that.
We'll never be the same if we do.
Let us pray.
The old bus has come and some of
that special literature like love covers and a
few other items will be brought out of
the bus and some more magazine books and
let's thank the Lord that old 10 year
old bus made it.
That old bus can make it all the
way across the Middle East and all over
Britain and bounce back again from its last
ordeal and every one of us can make
it also in the Christian life.
Father we thank you and praise you for
these simple basic principles of your word.
Help us not to forget some of the
things we've heard tonight but to apply them
in our practical life that we may be
the kind of missionaries the kind of witnesses
the kind of intercessors you want us to
be.
Never giving up constantly pressing on knowing the
reality of personal revival.
Grant it Lord we pray in Jesus name.
Amen.