Now, how many people have their notebooks handy?
We like to see the notebooks handy because
we're here to learn how easy it is
to waste time in Christian conferences.
You go, you hear a challenge, you don't
get any of it down, and a couple
of days later, you can't even remember what
you heard.
You might say, oh, that was a great
message.
God spoke to my heart.
I think of those words in James that
God doesn't want us to be hearers of
the word only, but doers.
Now, without apology, we believe in the printed
page.
If you look behind you, you see just
a little mini display, not much room here.
If you go on the ship Dulos, you
can see a real literature display.
But here you have a little mini display
of a few books, quite a few on
that table, actually.
If all those went, we'd probably consider it
a mini revival.
The average person does not understand how important
the word of God and Christian literature is
in Christian work.
There's not even 5% of people in
Britain who are believers, there's certainly not 5
% that have a vision for Christian literature.
Within OM, we don't even have more than
25%, because OM is many things, not just
literature.
Church planning, leadership training, you know, you name
it, we're in it, in terms of evangelism
and discipleship training.
And we're having difficulty maintaining the vision for
literature within Operation Mobilization.
Doesn't that sound strange?
Now, we just believe that the books God
has given us here are to go out
and bless people.
And also, there's a considerable display of free
material, and I've just brought some more.
Some of that I'm going to mention more
in the morning.
But I'd like to urge you to just
think about getting certain books.
You may not be able to get them
now, but you can write the title down.
That's why I wanted you to have your
notebook.
For example, I want to urge you to
get this book about Turkey.
Hardly any Christian books ever written about Turkey.
It's an easy-to-read book, about one
of the first persons that ever came to
Christ through OM's work in Turkey, who's now
with the Lord, Canaan-Eraz.
And it's called, My Big Father.
Turkey is one of the most un-evangelized
nations in the world.
There are 40 million people.
A recent survey showed there are only 100
Turks from the majority group, which are mainly
all Muslims.
Only 100 going on for God, in the
nation, 40 million.
And we believe God is going to appoint
some of you as unofficial recruiters for the
land of Turkey.
And that as a result of being here,
some of you are going to read this,
share it with others, and sign up to
pray for the land of Turkey.
90% of the people we've sent into
Turkey have not been able to stay, 90%.
One was shot at the doorstep.
Others have been imprisoned and blacklisted.
There are no missionary visas for Turkey.
But there are open doors.
And of course, there are hundreds of thousands
of Turks in Europe, mainly in Germany, that
we're working with.
And we're praying that our work among immigrants,
that's not exclusively Muslims, but especially may greatly
increase, and that will include Turks.
I'd like to strongly recommend this book, just
published in the British edition.
It may have been mentioned already.
It's only published a few weeks ago, Healing
for Damaged Emotions.
A book that is so important in a
work like OM, because people come on OM
when they are young.
They come on OM from all different backgrounds,
and they bring with them their problems.
They don't leave them home.
They bring with them their hurts.
Some even come on OM because they're running
away from something.
That's not unusual in the world in which
we live.
And we are trying to find a balance
in OM, in terms of reaching in to
people's lives in a counseling ministry, discipleship training
ministry.
I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for
that ministry.
And reaching out in evangelism.
And especially in a week like this, it's
not easy to maintain this balance, because by
the sheer number of people, we cannot do
as much in terms of counseling and in
-depth man-to-man discipling in the light
of all that we're trying to do.
Some of it will be done.
But that's a book that helps us in
that ministry.
So many have been helped by this book
on OM.
It's one of the, it's the fastest-selling
book this publisher, a very big publisher, has
ever printed.
There it is, available at half the price
of the old American edition.
How many of you have ever read Dr.
Lloyd-Jones's book, Spiritual Depression, Its Cause and
Cure?
Raise your hand.
I consider this the best book of this
century.
And I've gone through 1,000 books in
a survey before I made that decision.
The best overall book, nothing compared with the
Word of God, because the Word of God
is in a complete separate category.
That's the Word of God.
These are sermons in print, based on the
Word of God.
Just like if you're making a tape of
my message now, and you write it out,
and that's generally what Verwer books are, because
I can't write.
They just take tapes, and they edit them,
and then I try to correct them and
add some quotations from Tozer, which is usually
the best part of the book.
And then these crazy publishers go ahead and
print it.
And the amazing thing, they actually sell.
But here is, I believe, the best overall
Christian book of this century.
And if you get only one book, I
would recommend this.
If that doesn't help you in your spiritual
life, it'll take a year.
If I had to choose one year in
Bible College and that book, the decision would
take me about 45 seconds.
Guess what it would be?
It would be the book.
Fortunately, you're gonna have both.
I had both.
Why they didn't introduce me to this man's
writings when I was in Bible College is
beyond my comprehension, except that many evangelicals lack
vision and understanding when it comes to books.
So I commend this to you.
I would count it worth coming here.
I could pass through here on the way
to Ulster, where I'm going, just to tell
you about that book.
A new book by A.
W.
Tozer, published today.
Interesting, Lloyd-Jones introduced Tozer to Britain.
And then O.M. brought his books in.
And now most Christian leaders in Britain have
read A.
W.
Tozer.
Whatever Happened to Worship?
With a forward by Graham Kendrick.
A brilliant book on prayer, because tonight we're
talking about faith.
We're talking about prayer.
We're talking about the power of God.
We're talking about how to keep all that
in balance.
And here's a book on the subject of
intercession by an OMF missionary, one of my
favorite societies, should be everybody's favorite society, OMF.
What a great work they have done.
I had the joy of having lunch in
Singapore recently with James Hudson Taylor III, the
great grandson of Hudson Taylor.
I got renewed just looking at him.
Praise God, what a challenge.
Well, this is from that great mission, Born
for Battle, 31 Studies in the Spiritual Warfare.
Now, we brought a few little specials.
This, that whole table is all part of
STL.
That's the literature arm of OM, which, by
the way, really needs your prayers at this
time as they're short of personnel, especially people
who've got wisdom in the area of computers.
And if you know anybody that can operate
these little machines, I can't even stand looking
at them.
Never been into screens myself.
But if you've got a friend who knows
Jesus and can operate computers, we might have
some challenge.
And you can always talk to David Barnes
there, smiling behind the book table, and other
STL people about that.
So most of those books all belong to
STL.
But I brought my, I brought my little
diesel table over here.
These books I sell to get some diesel
money.
You know, in OM, it's everybody for themselves,
trusting Jesus, you know.
I don't expect Les Wade to give me
any money to get out of here.
He probably can't get any to get out
himself.
He can set your table up over there,
Les.
He's probably getting a kickback on the, on
the STL books.
I mean a cut.
But I've set up a table with some
Verwer message chassettes, because I want to get
some more ministry to you, rather than just
these two messages.
I want to talk to you on some
interesting subjects, like relationships and communication and experiencing
God in the depth of your soul.
And so I brought these tape albums, and
they're available at a special price.
Also, I brought a new book that's almost
unheard of in Britain.
I always like to surprise people.
With books they've never heard of.
And I'm gonna give this book to Les
Wade.
Bet you've never seen it before, have you,
Les?
Look at that.
I'm gonna give this to you as a
gift.
You know, there's a lot of extremism coming
in Britain right now.
A lot of it from the states on
the subject of prosperity, health, wealth, miracles, you
know.
What do they call it?
Positive confession.
You want a jaguar?
In the name of Jesus.
There it is.
It's yours.
Name it, claim it.
Leap it, lump it, all the rest.
And a lot of beautiful people are getting
caught into these things, especially in the States.
The man who wrote this book, Charles Fara,
is a leader in the charismatic movement.
So, you know, this is not somebody throwing
stones against healing or against miracles.
No way.
He is a professor of theology at Oral
Roberts University.
So that tells us something.
And he has written this book that exposes
extremes in the area of miracles and healing.
It's called Faith or Presumption.
Stories that have never been told, dead people,
as a result of extreme teaching in this
area.
One church in America, 75 people dead.
We need this book in Britain right now.
And it's taken me a while to get
a hold of it.
Assembly of God minister in Malaysia gave me
his copy.
I didn't know it was in print.
And I've just got a hold of these
this week.
From the pinnacle of the temple.
And I will tell you, if you are
not able to discern between faith and presumption,
you're going to get in trouble.
Sooner or later, you're going to get in
trouble.
This book isn't a total answer.
But are some really serious thoughts on this
important subject.
And I have brought that along because it
just last-minute arrived and is not available
in most places.
Is there really only one way?
There's no tougher problem than this.
Do you know people just absolutely ridicule what
we are doing here this week?
To take the gospel to people of other
religions is now being ridiculed up and down
Britain.
And on television, there's so many things that
make anybody who believes that Jesus is the
only way the truth in life look like
some kind of bigot out of the 18th
century.
And I tell you, we need a lot
of wisdom in dealing with this.
Here's a book on the subject, Jesus is
the only way.
We're giving it half price.
And it will help you with probably one
of the most difficult theological issues you could
ever get into.
And I praise God for Dick Hillis, a
great missionary leader, who wrote this book about
Jesus Christ and the exclusiveness of Jesus Christ.
We want to love these people we meet.
We want to talk to them.
We want to esteem their culture.
We don't even want to belittle their religion.
But we are committed to truth.
And we are committed to preaching Jesus Christ.
We will not manipulate people.
We believe all these different religions deserve their
social rights.
They deserve, you know, equality of citizenship if
they're a British citizen or whatever.
And in fact, we are their friends.
That's why this is called friends from abroad.
There are two sides to this ministry.
You must understand.
There is the side that represents the human
factor.
We want to love these people.
We want to help these people.
We want to help them get a bed
in the hospital if that's necessary.
We want to help them if they're being
treated unjustly.
We want to help them if some policeman
is pushing them around just because of their
race or background.
We stand for justice.
We are their friends.
We will defend their right even to build
a mosque, especially when they will defend our
right to build our churches in Saudi Arabia.
We haven't got that sorted out yet.
But we are friends.
And there may be someone here who's a
Muslim or a Hindu.
We are your friends.
At our leadership conference, some kind of person
of Muslim background came to me after.
I don't know if he was a Muslim
or Christian from what he was saying, but
I listened to him.
And we realize, of course, we need dialogue.
We need to listen to one another.
We are learners.
But the other side of the coin.
We are disciples of Jesus Christ, and we
must, as Paul said, preach Christ and Christ
crucified.
We cannot be silent, even though socially it
is getting more difficult, even though there's more
and more intimidation coming against us, even though
we know we have made mistakes.
We are committed to preach and teach Jesus
Christ.
That brought Stephen to the end of his
ministry very quickly.
It brought death to many people in the
New Testament.
But we are committed to this.
And you know, when I talk to my
Muslim friends, I often apologize for the terrible
things the Church has done.
I've done some extensive study on the Crusades,
great blotch in Christendom, and I explain that
there's nothing worse than the Church of Jesus
Christ, than when it gets away from Jesus
Christ himself.
Because it will have a name that is
alive, but in fact, it's dead.
We have, you know, great shame in our
hearts when we think of the Crusades, and
we think of all that's happened in the
name of Christendom.
That's why we need these both, both aspects.
And what a joy it is to have
friends from among these people.
And I tell you, many of us involved
in this kind of evangelism, we know that
without both factors, there's something hollow in it.
If you come here to this city, and
you go out in the streets and give
out the gospel, but back in your own
hometown, you're not treating justly those who are
friends from abroad, and they're being discriminated against,
and all this kind of thing, and you're
not interested, you don't take any time to
open your home, you believe it would be
evil, evil if your daughter married one of
these people, and all this kind of thing,
you know, there's something hollow about doing this
kind of work.
And we don't have that side.
Well, that's, that's a separate message.
I throw that in, no extra charge.
That wasn't even booked in advance.
Les always writes me way in advance, wants
to know what I'm gonna speak on.
Interesting, praise the Lord.
Try to give him something vague and general,
so that I can speak on what I
want when I come.
What else do I have?
I have a lot of magazine books.
Every time you buy a book, you can
claim a magazine book free, if you can
find out where they are.
This is one, why Revival Tarry's, a lot
of people have paid a pound or two
for that book.
I believe in music.
I believe that music is one of God's
methods to reach people for Christ.
And often I find the average OM display,
they don't have music tapes.
So I bring my own, especially Keith Green.
For all that reduce price, God is using
this man to touch hearts.
I wish I could speak to you on
a contextualized approach to reaching pagan English young
people.
That's one of my subjects I haven't been
speaking on too much.
But just as we have to contextualize to
reach Muslims and Hindus, we have to contextualize
to reach our own young people.
And I tell you, many, many Christians are
very ineffective in reaching English young people.
And one of the things that's helped us
reach young people in many countries is contemporary
music.
And it's something we've been doing for years.
I wish we could do ten times more.
But Keith Green was in that ministry, his
tapes are there.
Lastly, I wanted to just mention the fact
that if you miss these maps of the
world and these prayer cards, you've missed one
of the most helpful tools in prayer you
could ever get your hands on.
Are these available at a special price?
I'm sure they are.
Don't, you know, these people at the book
table, don't accept the first price they give
you.
This is Birmingham.
You get them to reduce the price, at
least on this item.
Look at that.
The prayer cards are free with a map.
Les Wade's gonna cover that out of his
pocket money.
Praise God.
I am so excited about books.
Really, I'm almost tempted to just just leave
OM as it's got so big and complicated
and just get involved in Christian books only.
But I don't have a confirmation from the
Holy Spirit on that at this point.
After reading through all the memos and correspondence
that came in the post today, I just
thought, you know, how did I ever get
in this thing?
Just three of us went to Mexico.
We were just going to evangelize.
This summer it'll be 3,000.
Stretched out across 50 nations with two ships,
1,600 long-term people, a couple thousand
others joining us at different times of the
year.
And the amazing thing is all of our
leaders want this coordinated.
They all want, you know, absolute efficiency, everything
done right.
But we don't want any people or any
money to be given to that.
They want me to have just a little
tiny team down in Bromley and a miracle
bucket and a miracle desk.
You know, any problem OM has, we got
hundreds of problems.
We got hundreds.
That I put it on my desk, in
the name of Jesus, be thou resolved.
Don't spend any money.
We want all the money for Bibles and
gospel tracts and for the front lines.
And I tell you, we would appreciate your
prayers that our little international coordinating team trying
to hold all this together, together with Zaventem
and Peter Maiden and Carlisle and a few
people committed to the overall task of leadership,
because we are, we're under tremendous pressure.
And so many of our workers, one third
of all OM people don't get proper support.
It is a nightmare.
Then somebody comes along and says, well, God's
work done in God's way never lacks God's
supply.
Well, if that's the case, then OM ought
to quit.
Because for 25, 30 years we have always
lacked.
We've never had what we needed to do
the job we felt God had put upon
our hearts.
Now, we've never suffered in terms of lacking
food and clothing.
That's a promise from God.
Philippians, though I know some people who have,
different countries of the world.
So that's a bit of a mystery.
But you know, some of these things are
not quite as simple as maybe we thought
when we read our first book on faith.
The work of God around the world is
suffering tonight.
And I can tell you, as one who's
ministered in 50 nations in 30 years, sure,
God is blessing.
God is answering prayer.
He is faithful.
There is no question about that whatsoever.
But God has entrusted his work to his
people, and his people are not faithful.
And they are not generally concerned with world
missions.
And they certainly are not giving very much
money to world missions.
And there are many churches that haven't given
a single missionary, or sent a single missionary
out in a decade.
And so, when we think of the problems,
and the difficulties, and the lack of money,
and the lack of manpower, it's not, in
any way, saying anything against the faithfulness of
our Almighty God.
But it is something to be said about
us.
And when I say the Church, I mean
us.
And I believe unless there's greater revival and
increased vision in the local Church, the work
will continue to be hindered on every side.
I just read a letter coming up here
from the leader of WECC in America, a
very conservative mission when it comes to this
whole thing of money, and very slow to
talk much about money.
Just, you know, not quite as bad as
we were for 20 some years.
We tried to out Mueller George Mueller.
We tried to bypass Hudson Taylor.
We developed the spirit conspiracy of silence that
could have stopped even a dinosaur on an
attack.
And I'll tell you, we have changed.
And we are not going to be silent
anymore.
Even if we have to fold up OM
to do it.
Because personally, I'd rather leave OM and give
myself to the whole body of Christ.
And battle to see this job done with
the whole body of Christ.
Because our big vision is in OM.
It's the whole body.
It's the local church.
It's all these missionaries out on the field
with all the struggles and the problems and
the battles and the discouragements.
Trying to penetrate the Muslim world, the Hindu
world.
And in the midst of all the problems,
then they don't get their support.
And many of them, I'll tell you, more
than has ever been written up, many of
them get discouraged and quit.
Not only for that reason, because Satan has
a multiple attack to discourage people on the
mission field.
And I would estimate even in OM, and
we're a fairly dynamic movement, we probably have
20% of our personnel now that are
fairly discouraged.
Fairly discouraged.
Not just for one reason, though the lack
of finance and the struggles and the guilt
connected with that has probably been the major
reason for a lot of the struggles that
we have.
And so after I share from the Word
of God about faith and prayer and the
power of God, and as we get into
the prayer meeting, we are going to pray
for finance.
We are going to pray that finance will
be released for the work of God.
For WEC.
For OMF.
For unknown smaller groups and fellowships.
And for the work even here at home.
And we know Satan is really putting the
pressure on local fellowships.
Very few fellowships in Britain have not gone
through division.
A lot of people left their older fellowships
and they figured getting new churches with this
greater reality and greater liberty, greater power, and
that's going to get on.
And in OM we're committed to the older
and the younger and the newer.
We're committed to all the fellowships that love
Jesus Christ and believe in his Word to
varying degrees.
We don't agree with everybody.
But now many of these new fellowships, do
you know what's happening?
Major divisions.
It's the same thing.
History repeats itself.
And we've come to see, I believe we
have come to see in Britain in the
past years, the need for more humility.
For more humility.
The need for less judgmentalism about the other
brother, the other church.
For less generalization about what's going to resolve
our problems.
If you think that coming on OM, going
through this week, is some kind of total
answer to your spiritual struggles, you're in for
a big surprise.
Because the challenge is much bigger than that.
It's a challenge of a lifetime.
Obeying God, following his Word, finding biblical balance,
exercising spiritual discernment, growing in wisdom and stature
as the Lord Jesus did.
And if Jesus had to grow in wisdom
and stature, what about the rest of us?
Therefore exercising restraint and patience and balance as
we go forward to evangelize the world.
Let's now turn in our Bibles to that
great passage that I think you all know
about in Hebrews chapter 12.
Hebrews chapter 12.
You know, we had a tremendous leaders conference
two weeks ago in Manchester.
I've been reading, coming up here, a number
of letters.
I will tell you God just worked in
that conference.
How many of you were there?
A number of you, praise the Lord.
Many, many were filled with the Spirit and
got a new vision, refilled with the Spirit,
began to experience something of God's deeper working
in their life.
And the letters I've had have been very,
very encouraging.
And we believe also this week is going
to be a turning point for some of
you.
And we believe God is going to teach
you something about faith and something about the
power of God in a balanced way.
And as you probably have heard many times
from OM, we believe in total commitment with
balance.
If you prefer a different word, total commitment
with love.
If you don't want to talk about balance,
no problem.
Just memorize and put into practice 1 Corinthians
13 and you'll never have to even mention
the word balance.
And in OM when we speak about balance,
we're not talking about compromise.
We're not talking about one foot in the
world, one foot in the church.
We're not talking about surrendering your major doctrines.
We're talking about sharpening the sword, not making
it more dull.
We're talking about letting one strong biblical truth
bring another biblical truth into the right perspective.
Did you get that?
Letting one strong biblical truth bring another strong,
even extreme biblical truth into perspective, into balance.
Hebrews chapter 12, Wherefore, seeing we also are
surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight and the
sin which does so easily beset us and
let us run with patience the race that
is set before us, looking on to Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame, and is
sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God."
Now this passage of Scripture comes after Hebrews
11.
Hebrews 11 is about faith.
Verse 1 of Hebrews 11, Now faith is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen.
For by it the elders received witness.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the Word of God.
What an insight into physics.
So that things which are seen are not
made of things which do appear.
And then it talks about the faith of
Abel and the faith of Enoch.
Look at verse 6, For without faith it's
impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe
that he is, and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
I get letters, not many, but every once
in a while I get letters.
People are worried that OM is changing.
Praise God that OM is changing.
Anything that's alive and that's growing and that's
under the direction of the Holy Spirit will
change.
Not departing from the basic biblical principles of
God's Word, but sometimes in organization, sometimes in
focus.
We're not having radical changes of policy in
OM, but we are fine-tuning certain things
that we can demonstrate more reality, more love,
more balance.
In those early days when OM exploded in
Britain and 900 British young people came in
one summer, hardly even knowing what they were
getting into, we often hear the good reports
of those days.
But there were many bad reports.
We made many mistakes.
We were young.
I myself was immature.
I was on fire, but I was immature.
I was extreme.
That doesn't mean God wasn't using me.
And often when something is being born, God
uses extreme things.
But it seems that after that thing is
born, unless the person and unless the movement
comes into balance, it goes into burnout.
And I've seen whole organizations go into burnout.
I've seen many Christian leaders go into burnout,
faith burnout, leadership burnout, extremism burnout.
It's everywhere from Los Angeles to Honolulu to
Alaska and the uttermost parts of India.
Our burden isn't discipleship for a week, young
people.
Our burden isn't to get you excited for
a couple of weeks and get your adrenaline
pumping.
Our burden is that you get into God's
race, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, and that
you run that race the rest of your
life.
That's why I allowed this title, I didn't
choose this title, No Turning Back, on my
latest book.
I wanted to call it The Human Factor
because this book, a follow-up on my
other book, Hunger for Reality, that brought me
14,000 letters, is a lot more down
-to-earth.
There's a lot more of Verwer's failures in
this book, and there's such spicy little things
in here about marriage and sex and failure
and what to do when this goes wrong
and that goes wrong.
And I've just been so encouraged now at
the feedback I'm getting from this, but I
couldn't call it The Human Factor because Graham
Greene pinched my title.
And I saw that in Smith's and had
to change the title.
But don't be turned off by the title.
This is our burden.
Our burden is to give you some of
the truths that God has given us for
20, 25, or 30 years, that you may
run the race so that you can come
back as an old middle-aged character like
me and give your testimony.
It's so great to be in these mid
-years.
I'm in the mid-life crisis.
Praise God.
I love crisis.
All life's a crisis to me.
Just preaching in the average church at all
the long faces is a crisis for me,
but it challenges me right out of my
shoes.
You know, when I was young, of course,
people expected me to explode any minute.
People used to even write me.
I'm worried about you.
You're gonna explode.
You're gonna have a nervous breakdown.
Slow down.
I've had more exhortations to take a vacation
or a holiday than almost any other single
exhortation.
But you know, all these years, I haven't
had this nervous breakdown that people are prophesying.
I haven't even gotten near it.
I'm not the type.
I don't think it's because of some great
spirituality.
I'm just probably not the type, though I
have learned some of the secrets of the
rest of faith.
And spiritual survival.
May touch on that a little in the
morning.
My problem is causing other people to have
nervous breakdowns.
This, this is my difficulty.
This is why many years ago, after seeing
a few people have verbal related nervous breakdowns,
including almost my wife, I decided it was,
it was balance or bust.
I don't think I've ever said that before.
Balance or bust.
OM is changing to some degree in our
understanding of faith and prayer and the power
of God.
And rather than give you one of my
old verb word tapes on, messages on faith,
you can go get one of those tapes.
I want to share a few of the
newer thoughts God has been giving us about
faith, about prayer, about the power of God.
And, and I hope that somehow you'll be
able to incorporate this into some other things
God has been teaching you.
First of all, faith is exercised in different
ways by different people.
Whatever you do, don't try to copy other
great men of faith.
You can learn something from it, but don't
try to copy.
I was reading something even this week by
a great healer evangelist in America who launched
out in faith in a particular area and
God greatly blessed.
He was teaching this to other ministers.
Many of them launched out in the same
way and most of them failed.
This is where OM has done some harm
in the past.
Now I've already taught on this years ago,
but, but I didn't emphasize it enough because
I didn't understand it enough.
I've been speaking on balance and love almost
from the beginning of OM.
And I've used this illustration before when I
was a student and our big thing was
praying, praying in things.
We, we prayed in money.
We prayed in soap.
We prayed in wives.
We prayed in vehicles.
We, we were, prayer was, you know, people
thought of OM as mainly a movement of
prayer.
And people would even exaggerate our lives of
prayer and the miracles.
Also, we were known for not spending any
money except for Gospels and, and for the
work of God.
If there was ever a group of evangelical
Scrooges launched in the 20th century, it was
Operation Mobilization.
And I was Chief Scrooge.
Some of the stories that people think are
myth are actually truth.
It's a problem.
But I never would buy any soap.
I didn't believe in buying soap.
I didn't believe much in washing either, but
I was changing on that.
And so I would go into the shower
and I would, you know, name and claim
it.
Soap!
And usually I found some.
Sometimes I had to scrape it off the
floor, but I usually found some.
And one of the young disciples, one of
the young little Verwer disciples at Moody Bible
Institute, you know, if our leader can trust
God for soap, you know, I'm gonna get
into the soap releasing ministry.
I'll never forget when that brother came to
me, having prayed with absolute sincerity, having gone
to the shower, absolutely believing and unable to
find even a square millimeter of soap anywhere
in the entire shower.
Now we can laugh, but you can you
imagine how this kind of presumption and how
this kind of foolishness can penetrate a work?
All in the name of faith, all in
the name of trusting God.
Can you imagine when we took this kind
of teaching out to India?
We thought we had found heaven when we
got to India.
These Indian brothers were more willing to trust
God for the ridiculous, the impossible than any
of the people we'd ever met in Europe.
And I used to say some pretty interesting
things.
Now we have 30 years of experience in
India 23.
Brothers and sisters, God leads different people in
different ways.
Faith is not some little narrow thing that
you can just get a carbon copy of
from somebody else.
And you can read the biographies and you
can go to the Christian films and you
can develop your Christian heroes, but you are
still you.
And we need, together with faith, wisdom, discernment,
humility, ability to bounce back when we fail,
and a lot of other basic biblical principles.
I'm here to testify with every inch in
me that God has answered prayer again and
again over these 30 years.
We have seen him supply finance.
We saw him supply these two ships.
We saw saw him supply people when people
leaders said no one is going to join
this work.
We have seen him do miracles.
We have seen people heal.
We have seen tens of thousands of people
come to Christ.
We have seen probably a hundred or two
hundred different missions born in answer to prayer
out of OM that are now separate operations.
I could keep you here all evening.
Many, many people have asked, many publishers have
asked OM to write a book about all
these great answers to prayer.
But I said, you know, we already have
so many books on answers to prayer.
Maybe I'll write a different book because brothers
and sisters, I'm here to testify just to
bring this into balance.
I believe that I must be committed to
honesty and honesty causes me to say to
you that many of my prayers have not
been answered.
Now, maybe you can't handle that.
Maybe you have to go look for a
simple answer to that.
Maybe you want to change the vocabulary.
I'm not saying God is not listening.
I'm not saying God is not faithful.
But I am saying simply that many of
my prayers have not been answered.
Now, some of them, I'm glad they weren't.
But my prayers concerning Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq, Sudan,
I could give you a list of a
thousand different prayers, many of which I have
now prayed for regularly for 28 years, have
not yet been answered.
I've seen indications of answers.
I've seen answers.
Suppose I pray ten prayers connected with Turkey.
I see one.
My hope is built up to keep pressing
on with the other nine.
And as we start thinking about evangelizing Muslims
and Hindus, as we start thinking about penetrating
the Uyghur people of China, the Turkmen people
of the Soviet Union, if we just engage
in flippant praying without counting the cost, Luke
14, if we don't understand the nature of
the spiritual warfare as outlined in tremendous books
like this one, Born for Battle, by Arthur
Matthews, eventually we're just going to be discouraged.
I'm finding more people discouraged among the Lord's
people than I can ever imagine.
In my talking to people and thousands of
people write to me, I find many because
God has not answered prayer.
Praying for relatives for years, none of them
converted.
Praying for their own parents for years, none
of them converted.
Quite a few people, now that they know
I'm honest, they become honest with me, and
I could write a book on honesty that
would be very, very staggering.
I believe unless we're careful as Christians, because
of our desire for the glory of God
and faith and victory and to exalt Jesus,
we can be self-deceived.
We can be self-deceived.
And I don't want that.
I don't believe you want that.
And we talk about people that get healed,
even people that have had cancer, but we
don't like to talk much about thousands and
thousands of people have been prayed for and
they were not healed.
We don't like to face this.
We throw out some little cop-out, some
little cliche.
It's always lack of faith.
This is brought out in this brilliant book,
how the person who is sick is eventually
always blamed for his lack of faith.
You cannot believe the manipulation that takes place
sometimes in what some people call a faith
movement, and I'm not referring to any one
particular movement when I say that.
God answers prayer.
God is going to answer our prayers tonight,
but we must learn persevering prayer.
It may be many years before we see
some of these breakthroughs.
I've been weeping and praying for the city
of London, where I live and where I've
evangelized many times, gone door-to-door and
sold books for many, many years, yet today
the city of London, the great greater London,
is still one of the greatest, most needy
mission fields in the world.
Many of our prayers have not been answered.
This causes me not to get discouraged.
I've never, hardly ever let the sun go
down on my discouragement.
It enables me to face reality.
It enables me to recommit my life to
the long haul.
Do you use that expression?
I've been over here 23 years and still
haven't learned the language, forgive me, but I'm
committed to the long haul.
We're not called to some sprint, like sometimes
you see in the Olympics.
We are called to a marathon.
That's why I have slowed down a little
bit in the last 10 years, as the
pressure mounted, and I had less time for
evangelism, less time for the offensive, and I
had to spend more and more time resolving
O.M. complex problems, and administration, and finance,
and things that I never even dreamed of
when I was in my twenties.
I have slowed down, and I learned to
rest a little better, and I learned to
develop certain mechanisms to relax more and to
refuel.
We're in the warfare, but we're not pulling
the trigger on the gun every minute of
the day, 24 hours a day.
And one of the things I praise God
for in the O.M. emphasis in the
last few years is we have been teaching
and preaching, get to realistically know your limitations.
Even here, some of you didn't sleep last
night.
Some of you are finding it hard where
you're staying.
It's cold.
This thing, that thing, you're not used to
staying with a group.
Do not be ashamed of your limitations.
And if you are feeling afraid, and that
somehow, you know, you may be starting to
come apart, you come and talk to the
leaders of this thing.
And if you don't get help from these
leaders, then you write a letter to me,
because we are committed to ministering to people's
personal needs.
This is not some kind of machine where
we're trying to put you through some kind
of evangelical biscuit cutter and turn out some
finished product looking like Les Wade or George
Verwood, or even somebody good-looking.
And it's a great mistake when, as Christians,
in the name of commitment, we're afraid to
be honest about our needs, about our struggles.
We have people that even are afraid to
admit they're sick.
And now there's some that teach that to
go to a doctor is a denial of
faith.
That's why this church had 70 people die.
Because, of course, to go to a doctor
was a denial of faith.
And now you have people that are claiming
that they're healed, even when there's no evidence
whatsoever that they're healed.
They live in the light of their so
-called healing, and I tell you, things are
happening that are bizarre.
I mean, they're bizarre, and the world is
mocking this.
It's getting in the newspapers.
It's getting on television.
And soon, if we're not careful as Christians,
we will be embarrassed to tell people that
we are followers of Jesus Christ, lest they
think we're another loony.
Then we wonder why people like some of
us are giving a plea for balance, are
giving a plea for understanding the human factor,
the limitation factor.
We are not little mini-supermen.
You need to sleep.
You need to eat.
You need a certain amount of rest.
You need release at times for certain emotional
pressures.
And I thank God for men, brilliant men
like David Seamans, who's got the courage to
write a book after 40 years of counseling.
He's not a psychiatrist.
I'm not against psychiatry.
But he's a pastor who spent 40 years,
30 or 40, counseling young people.
You know that young people from strong, strict
Christian backgrounds, in my experience, often have more
emotional problems than even unconverted people?
That's right.
Because if you get the law, if you
get the law and you don't get the
grace, you are going to develop guilt.
You are going to develop emotional problems.
You are going to feel you're a second
-class citizen.
We have thousands in our churches now that
feel they're second-class citizens because they've never
spoken in tongues.
I'm not against speaking in tongues.
I have intimate friends who speak in tongues.
Great men of God speak in tongues.
Many great men of God don't speak in
tongues.
What a ridiculous thing to allow the whole
body of Christ to divide on this one
gift.
But I have counseled many people who, in
their particular church, because they haven't got tongues,
are classified as second-class citizens.
I had one recently come to me, all
bent up.
How could she ever be a missionary?
Because she's prayed and prayed and sought and
wept and cried.
She's been to the altar so many times
her knees are starting to feel it and
she's not received that gift.
Therefore, she feels she doesn't have the fullness
of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, she's a second-class citizen.
All she can do is sit and wait.
Do you know that surveys among American Pentecostal
Christians, we have many, many wonderful Pentecostal people
in O.M., some of the greatest churches
I ever preached in are Pentecostal.
But you know, surveys have shown that among
Pentecostal Christians in America, 25 to 30 percent
have never spoken in tongues.
Now, if that's true in a Pentecostal church
where they're emphasizing that, you know, what are
you going to say about churches where they
don't have, you know, that as a strong
emphasis?
And the devil likes to take little things
like this.
And even on O.M. campaigns, we get
young people who sometimes come from different backgrounds
and they try to push their little doctrine
on somebody who maybe has never heard of
some of these things.
And so instead of being an evangelistic thrust
where we're developing love and fellowship and reality,
we get into tangents, we get into extremism,
people get hurt, and then we wonder why
some people who come on our campaigns never
once contact us again after the campaign.
That's it.
Because someone during that campaign or in the
midst of it has gotten extreme or has
pushed this or has pushed that, and some
young people, and often it's the more sensitive
and even thinking young people, they say, hey,
you know, this is not for me.
This is not for me.
O.M. is not what it appears when
you take a snapshot at one little Easter
campaign.
This is just part of O.M. Les
would be 100% in agreement with me
on that.
O.M. is many things.
Our strategy changes from country to country because
we're sensitive to culture, because we're generally under
national leadership, and because we're dealing with all
kinds of different people and we're working with
all kinds of different people, and because faith
is manifest in different ways in different people.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that you
can only really live a life of faith
if you become a full-time Christian worker.
Now, sometimes when you come on an O
.M. campaign, you get a bit of a
challenge to become a full-time Christian worker,
and that's acceptable.
But we must never think that people working
in the offices and the factories are second
-class citizens.
Many of you, probably God is going to
lead you to work in the schools and
the factories and the offices and the farms
right here in your own country.
And that message is clearly found in the
Word of God.
Others are going to be called into ministry.
There are more people being called into ministry,
it seems, in Britain right now than the
Church and individuals are willing to finance.
So that's a bit of a problem, isn't
it?
I'm almost as scared to challenge people sometimes.
Don't worry, I won't stop.
I know how to battle fear.
But when I give a challenge for people
to go into Christian work, and I've given
some very strong challenges and seen a few
tens of thousands respond over the years, I
try to point out that doesn't necessarily mean
full-time paid Christian work.
Because sometimes, and it's more true in other
countries than Britain, there's not money to get
such a large number of people living full
-time in Christian work.
That's why some are becoming tent makers.
That's why Romans chapter 10 talks about senders.
How shall they go except they be sent?
Have you read that?
Where are the senders?
And this is one of our problems in
OM.
We have tremendous meetings, like the leadership meeting
in Birmingham two weeks ago, this conference, we
have tremendous meetings, most of the time young
people.
And most of them want to go.
And we don't have the senders.
We can't get the adults that will stand
with this work and that will help these
young people, not just financially but the counseling,
the stability, the heart-linking.
And you know, before I ever went to
Mexico, I was only 19, God gave me
a group of older men.
God gave me a group of older men
who prayed for me.
They later became the board of trustees and
my sort of spiritual umbrella.
That's from the very first time I went
to Mexico at 19 years of age.
And they also gave of their finance to
this work and supported it and encouraged me.
And I tell you, if you want to
start thinking about long-time Christian work, then
you might want to think about raising up
a prayer group of people who really will
stand with you.
In your church, around your church, wherever.
Because I tell you, without prayer, without people
praying for you, especially if you're heading into
something difficult, you know, you're not going to
make it.
World Missions is not a lone ranger operation.
World Missions is teamwork.
And we've got to learn to work together
on a team and we've got to see
God raise up teams of people who will
support us and pray for us and mobilize
prayer on our behalf.
God works in different people in different ways.
I just talked to two ex-OMers when
I was in the Netherlands some weeks ago.
They really appreciate OM now more than they
did when they were on it.
Because one of them is working in a
gigantic chemical factory.
Every day he walks in that door, he
risks his health every day.
You know what happened in Bhopal.
He works in the same kind of factory
in the Netherlands, hopefully a little safer.
I will tell you, have you seen what
some of these people are exposed to in
nuclear factories, where they make great, you know,
nuclear fuel and all that kind of thing?
Maybe you didn't see some of the films
about that.
So my friend, he's a Muslim convert.
He was an officer on the ship.
He's now working in a chemical factory.
And you know what he told me?
And I tell you, he ministered to me.
He believes God has led him and called
him to work in that factory.
Now linked to that, that supplies the money
to feed his children and his wife.
And I want to tell you, today, listen,
it takes faith just to get a job
and hold a job and do it right.
Plenty of faith, just as much as any
of these OM people who have been evangelizing
the world for the last 20 years.
And I have to take my shoes off
sometimes when I see the people working in
secular jobs who have supported me all these
years.
And I will not go around anymore and
say it's just faith or it's just prayer
because that gave too much credit to George
Verwer.
It's commitment on the part of people who
give money.
It's commitment on the part of people who
work in those factories and those offices and
then send their check to me and maybe
they discover later on that I may be
enjoying something in life like a cassette recorder
that they didn't even buy because they gave
the money to missions.
Faith has many, many ways of manifesting itself.
And this division that comes between full-time
workers and the layman, that even comes between
pastors and congregations because of wrong interpretations of
faith, I believe is very grievous to the
Holy Spirit.
One man may have faith to trust God
to do something in the area of healing.
Somebody else may have faith to minister to
someone terminally ill down in a hospital.
Words of comfort, words of love.
God gives his gifts as he will.
And no matter what we do and no
matter how much we know, there's also the
element of mystery.
If you don't develop the mystery factor in
your theology, the looking through the glass darkly,
here in this world factor, you're probably going
to be running the rest of your life
looking for total answers.
And you eventually will probably get very, very
exhausted.
Faith, the life of faith, it's big.
Within God's narrow road, it's big.
Now we know the road to heaven that
is spoken about in Matthew is a narrow
road.
But let's not, with our little ideas and
our extremes, let's not make that road narrower
than it is.
This is what some denominations do.
This is what some extremist groups do.
Only our church, only our group, we are
the final, last revelation of what God is
doing in the world.
Of course, the Mormons claim that, I guess.
Beware of that mentality.
God is working in different ways in different
people.
You know, as you go home after Easter
evangelism, I hope you're excited.
I hope you're willing to talk to people
about what God has done.
But I hope you'll be a good listener.
Do you think the people who are not
here are not doing anything?
Do you think when you meet people, when
you get back home, they only want to
listen to you, tell what you've been doing?
Do you know anything about psychology?
Do you know anything about people?
Then when you get back home, you will
take an interest in what they have been
doing.
They may have, even your own parents, gone
through the most horrible Easter in years, and
you come prancing in the door with your
big bag of books and a big O
.M. smile, and they'll think you've gone right
out of your head.
And in our evangelism, if we don't combine
it with sensitivity and reality and a little
bit more down-to-earthness, it actually just
drives people away.
It drives people away.
And so when I think of the way
of faith, when I think of the power
of God, I do think of God saving
people, God healing people, God bringing in money,
God thrusting out workers to the ends of
the earth.
I haven't departed from any of the things
I've been preaching for 30 years, but I
also believe it includes discernment.
I believe it includes sensitivity to other people.
I believe it includes understanding the wide range
of ways that God is working.
I believe it includes knowing how to understand
your own limitations, knowing how to handle the
situation when that prayer isn't answered.
I know many cases where ten people have
come up for prayer, for deliverance, for help.
One came through and nine didn't.
We only talk about the one who came
through.
The nine, and nothing happened.
They're quietly, you know, shunted out the back
door, or they're told, you know, come back
again.
And if you talk about them, you're accused
of being negative.
We have a false extremism or a dangerous
extremism that's coming out today that tells us
we must never say anything negative.
We must never have any kind of a
negative confession.
Characters like me must never get up and
share that they have struggles or failures, or
they don't always see answers to prayer.
Well, I'll tell you, I've been doing it
for a long time, and I've had as
many people encouraged and writing and recommitting their
lives when they've heard about my struggles and
my failures and the things that haven't gone
well than when I've gone up and given
all my positive stories.
Personally, I just believe in both because I
believe in telling the truth.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the
life.
Jesus Christ is calling us to follow the
road of truth.
And it's so liberating.
One of the greatest books, and I'm rereading
it right now, is Eugenia Price's book, The
Wider Place, where God chooses freedom.
I was reading that book this week.
I just wanted to jump.
That woman and her writings came into my
life about 24 years ago when I was
somewhat legalistic.
I was too intensive.
I didn't have balance.
God was using me.
He's merciful.
He's gracious.
God used donkeys in the Old Testament, so
don't get overcharged if God uses you this
weekend.
But I had so much to learn.
And into my life came this woman, Eugenia
Price, with her writings.
I've never met her.
She's ancient now.
And her emphasis on freedom, her emphasis on
balance, her emphasis on self-acceptance, her emphasis
on the danger of becoming opinionated.
I was an opinionated person.
I had an opinionated opinion on almost anything.
Some of you heard my early tapes.
You heard me commenting on nuclear energy and
commenting on Einstein.
I didn't hardly know anything about Einstein.
And I became opinionated.
OM became an opinionated movement.
And we had opinions on everything.
Thank God He humbled us.
Thank God He brought us to repentance.
Thank God He brought us into this message
of balance and love and taught us how
to close our mouths.
What does it say in James 1?
Be slow to speak and quick to listen.
And what I was reading from Eugenia Price
again this week on the danger of just
becoming opinionated, I tell you, it was hilarious.
God has been showing the need for reflection.
You're looking at Mr. Reaction.
I can react to things quicker than you
can get it out of your mouth.
I was known for interrupting people mid-sentence,
especially my wife.
She's trying to say something to me.
She got not even to the end of
the sentence.
You know, preachers.
This is a preacher's ailment.
Debaters.
And God hit me with this word, reflection.
Don't react.
Even as you're witnessing, they say something nasty
about Jesus.
They say something, you know, about the Bible.
You don't have to immediately, you know, turn
your blood pressure up to 90 decimals.
We used to get this group, the children
of God, which became a cult, a family
of love.
And they were all loving, hugging people, love,
love.
But when you rejected their message, some of
them used to flip out.
The hostility used to ooze out their eyeballs.
And they sometimes walked down the street actually
calling the wrath of God down on you.
I want to tell you, if you feel
the need to start calling the wrath of
God down on Birmingham or any of the
individuals, I'd like you to fellowship with Edward
Norton here, director of the Birmingham City Mission.
And, you know, if he agrees, then you
can go together and do that.
But, you know, we go out with love.
We go out with brokenness.
We are learners.
Don't try to answer questions that are too
difficult.
You may meet some clever intellectual from another
religion in the street.
You don't have to fake it.
Just say, look, it's obvious you are 25
times more clever than me.
I'm amazed at your knowledge.
And I know that if you read this
book with your intellect, you'll come to Christ
far quicker than I ever did.
But believe me, we don't have to become
hyper-defensive.
And certainly we shouldn't become ugly.
But I tell you, that's not easy for
my kind temperament.
And God has been emphasizing reflect, meditate, faith.
In one way, it's narrow because it's a
narrow road.
We're all on that if we're believers.
But it's as broad as the combination of
all the hearts and minds gathered here tonight.
I pray you'll not go away from this
campaign discouraged because somehow it didn't click the
way you wanted it to click.
Or somehow you didn't lead anybody to Christ.
Not everybody has the gift to bring that
person right to decision.
That's why God gives us harvesters like Billy
Graham and men that have a terrific gift
to bring people, you know, to the final
point of decision.
But for every person that makes a final
decision when it's actually a conversion, there are
usually a dozen people involved.
There are usually a dozen people involved, encouraging,
praying, a piece of literature, a smile in
the name of Jesus.
May we go out into the highways and
hedges not with just faith and the power
of God and prayer, but may we go
out with wisdom and discernment and love, realizing
our own weaknesses.
And yet understanding God's grace can do it.
God will answer prayer.
We will reap if we faint not.
When we get that kind of balance, nothing
is going to stop us.
Whatever your problems may be and your struggles,
if you're a struggler like me, you'll be
able to come back in your midlife crisis
and share your testimony that though you're a
struggler and you found it hard and you
failed Jesus many times as I have, you're
still in the race.
That's what counts.
You're still in the race.
You've still got your eyes on Jesus.
You're still exercising faith because it takes tremendous
faith just to keep going, much less perform
all these miracles, plant churches and turn the
Muslim world around.
For characters like me, it takes faith sometimes
just to get through one day.
I've had an awesome day today and I
haven't been doing great miracles along the road.
I've just been claiming God's grace to keep
calm and to reflect and to love the
people that I'm dealing with and that are
writing to me and that I'm relating to
in whatever problem that may be.
Faith.
Any dimensions.
Any of those books are about faith.
But if you don't get some of what
I've talked about tonight, in the long run,
it won't work.
You'll end up in a cul-de-sac.
You'll end up discouraged.
You'll end up in a cult or extremism
or even in unbelief because I know people
that try to press God to do something
they believe must be done.
And when God didn't do it, they said
God doesn't exist.
I have counseled people who have actually done
that.
You cannot break the arm of God.
We can never be God's counselor.
He is sovereign over the universe and he
has allowed many things that we don't always
understand.
But as we come in prayer, we are
not here to try to break God's arm
or to press him into doing something that
we're convinced must be done because we are
finite and we are weak and we make
lots of mistakes.
And if we just had a little more
of that love and patience with one another
and with other members of the body and
with other churches, I believe revival would come.
Let us pray.
Oh God, we want to continue now in
prayer and we believe that you are creating
an atmosphere of reality in which we can
pray in a realistic way and exercise great
faith, whether it's to release finance or to
release spiritual energy, whether it's to penetrate Turkey
or whether it's to reach into the back
streets of Birmingham or whether it's to resolve
somebody's personal difficult crisis that they're facing in
their own life right here in this church
tonight.
And so we come to you running the
race of Hebrews 12, exercising the faith of
Hebrews 11, yet with wisdom, balance, discernment, acknowledging
our human factor, our own limitations, our fears,
our unbelief, knowing that great faith is not
created in the absence of doubt or unbelief,
but it's created as we battle through standing
on your promises, praying, persevering, refusing discouragement, refusing
defeat.
So we ask you to meet us now
as we worship and pray together in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
Let us stand and sing.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Forgive me, it's one of my old favorites
for 30 years.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Any musical help would be appreciated.
Maybe some that have to go, a visitor,
may not have even known.
The Alpha and Omega, the Almighty, the Blessed
and Only Potentate, the Lord, Christ, the Power
of God and the Wisdom of God, Emmanuel,
God with us, God of the whole Earth,
Governor, Head of all Principality and Power, the
Great I Am, the Judge of the Quick
and the Dead, the King of Glory, the
King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the
Lord from Heaven, the Lord of Hosts, the
Lord God Almighty, the Most Holy, the Son
of God, Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Beasts, the Bishop
of Souls, the Desire of all Nations, the
Friend of Sinners, the Faithful Witness, the King
over all the Earth, the Lord of All,
the Prince of the Kings of the Earth,
Ransom for All, Righteous Judge, Savior of the
World, Son of Man, Stone Rejected, Author of
Eternal Salvation, Gift of God, the Lord of
Glory, the Messiah, the Messiah and Prince, the
Offering and Sacrifice, the Redeemer, the Resurrection and
the Life, the Son of Righteousness, the Author
and Finisher of Faith, the Altogether Lovely, the
Advocate, the Bread from Heaven, the Bread of
Life, the Branch of Righteousness, the Bridegroom, the
Chief Cornerstone, the Chief Shepherd, the Christ of
God, the Door of the Sheep, the Eternal
Life, the High Priest, the Hope of Glory,
the King of Saints, the Light of the
World, the Lord of our Righteousness, the Mediator,
the Messenger of the Covenant, the Prince and
Savior, the Prince of Peace, the Prophet, the
Quickening Spirit, the Redeemer, the Rose of Sharon,
the True Light.
Let's continue to worship this glorious Christ.
Focus upon Him as we pray together.