We turn in our Bibles to the book
of Acts, chapter 1.
I wonder if you're aware that probably tens
of thousands, literally tens of thousands of people
are praying for this meeting tonight.
I'm a very privileged person in that I
have such a very huge army of people
always praying for me.
I meet many people all over the world
who tell me they pray for me every
day.
A very humbling experience.
Many more are just praying for O.M.
in general, and this is one of the
main events on the O.M. calendar.
And I just believe, I really believe that
God wants to do a great work in
our hearts during these days together.
I believe a lot that God wants to
do has to be over a long period
of time.
This is no shortcut program.
In fact, it may be the entrance into
the longest term program you've ever got into.
And we know the importance of teaching and
the importance of getting involved.
And God's program for growth.
I don't know if the book from now
on has been mentioned by Ralph Chalice.
Praise God for this brother.
That is a book that has been used
so mightily to teach God's program for spiritual
growth.
And our greatest burden is that you learn
more of God's program for spiritual growth because
that's the basis to being prepared for leadership.
On the other hand, that doesn't exclude dynamic
encounters with God.
That doesn't exclude crisis experiences with God when
you come to the end of yourself and
you, spiritually speaking, fall at the foot of
the cross and meet God in a fresh
way.
And we're longing, we're longing for both.
The process can only begin here, it has
to continue.
But the crisis can take place in a
few moments.
As a person takes a fresh step of
faith in his or her Christian life.
I've had a number of such crises in
my life.
Perhaps too many, perhaps I'm too emotional.
I'm glad there is some room.
Even a work so filled with phlegmatic Englishmen
as I have for a sort of semi
-unstable, over-emotional American background character like me.
But I remember when I was in Chicago
as a student at Moody Bible Institute.
I'd been in university for a year, or
college, and I just felt I wanted to
get to the mission field.
And for my temperament and for the way
I thought, when I was studying at that
time, for me, it was a waste of
time.
So I left to the dismay of my
relatives, and to some degree my parents who
were very understanding, my college studies, and went
to Moody Bible Institute of Chicago.
And a man came to Chicago named Oswald
J.
Smith.
Another man was already in Chicago named Alan
Redpath.
One of the most committed British preachers, soldiers,
disciples that I've ever had the opportunity of
knowing.
And Oswald J.
Smith was preaching at Moody Church where Redpath
was the pastor.
And he gave a message on world missions,
and he gave a message on commitment.
I thought I was already committed.
I'd been to Mexico, I'd led hundreds of
people to Christ.
I was considered a leader.
But I'll tell you, when Oswald J.
Smith gave that invitation for recommitment, I knew
God was zeroing in on me.
And out of a thousand or two thousand
in that meeting, I think I was the
only one that went forward for prayer.
Believe me, God broke me that night, and
filled me afresh with his Holy Spirit.
It wasn't the total answer.
But for my life, it was part of
the answer.
And God may have a step of faith
for you tonight or tomorrow that is not
the total answer, but it's part of the
answer for God's program and God's plan in
your life.
And I hope you'll be open to that,
because Hebrews says the word preached was of
no value because it was not mixed with
faith.
And we can pour out our hearts, we
can answer questions, we can give our literature
till our arms fall off, but if you
don't take steps of faith, this weekend can
be a disaster for you.
Because sometimes there's a danger when we go
to these weekends that we become spiritual gluttons.
I feel spiritual gluttony is already a major
problem among some people here in the UK.
We have more Bible teachers in UK per
capita than any nation I've ever been in,
and that's at least 50 countries.
And our churches, in some cases, are becoming
more introspective.
And in some little fellowships, you've got 10
people who minister the word of God.
A little fellowship of maybe 100 people.
In fact, it becomes quite a problem, because,
you know, sometimes people are hurt when they're
not given the opportunity to minister, but if
you've got 5 or 10 different people all
want to minister, what are you going to
do?
Some parts of the world, they have one
Bible teacher covering 10 churches.
And I believe the British Church should be
contributing far more to world evangelism, to teaching
the word of God around the world.
Not lording it over God's people, but, as
the word of God says, being an example
and teaching in all humility and godliness.
Praise God for men like Tony Sargent.
Pray for him.
He's just back from Asia again, and he's
not feeling well.
Who again and again leads his church, a
large church in Worthing, and goes out to
teach and to preach in Asia.
And many other pastors are corresponding with us
now about going out in this program in
which we involve men of God with a
teaching gift out in some of these countries
where they don't always have so many opportunities,
though they, of course, have some of their
overworked national people.
Let's look at Acts chapter 1 to the
final words of our Lord Jesus Christ before
he ascended into heaven, after his resurrection.
It says in Acts 1A, But ye shall
receive power after the Holy Spirit has come
upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto
me, both in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in
Samaria, and under the uttermost heart of the
earth.
Now that's clear, isn't it?
One of the reasons I believe this particular
Leaders' Conference is so strategic, and we've already
made it clear that this is a youth
leadership training conference, and in no way are
we saying that anybody who finishes this conference
is somehow now a qualified leader.
That takes years.
But you've got to start somewhere.
And some of you have already been thrown
in the positions of responsibility and leadership in
your churches and your CUs without having been
even to a very mini-beginner's course that
we're going through this weekend.
I might just throw in here that if
some of you are praying about going on
OM and you've had some leadership responsibilities, there
is a chance that you may be thrown
into leadership in OM this very summer.
And if you think that possibly might ever
happen to you, I would love you to
visit my little special table and ask the
man at the table, Bob Rose or Bob
McLeod, for a copy of the leadership manual,
which is available upon request for people in
that category.
This particular manual is going out of date,
being revised, and to be honest, we would
like to make use of the 1,000
or 2,000 copies that we are not
stuck with, but wanting to distribute.
If you actually end up in leadership on
OM this summer, you will be given a
short summer leadership manual.
So if you miss this one, don't worry.
We'll get you sooner or later, short form,
long form.
And what a need there is for people
who will be prepared and ready for leadership,
not only in OM but other movements and
fellowships this summer, because it's a way of
serving the body.
It's not a prize.
It's not an honor.
It's a way of serving the body.
If I thought of leadership in OM as
an honor or a prize, I would resign
now.
I'm not interested in those kind of prizes
or honors.
I know, of course, the deceptive nature of
the human heart.
But as far as I can see, continuing
in the leadership God has given me is
a way of serving the body with the
gifts and the ministries he has given me.
It's as simple as that.
Now, when I start on Acts 1-8,
I sometimes never get out of it, because
there's so much there.
And I was about to share with you
that one of the reasons I'm so convinced
about this kind of conference is that we
amalgamate our burden to train people for spiritual
leadership right where they are, right where they
are in your CU, in Birmingham or in
Newcastle or in London or some little village.
And yet to combine that with a presentation
of world vision, because we don't like to
put great truths of the Word of God
in separate compartments.
I believe, by God's grace, OM has become
known as a movement that is wanting to
amalgamate the great truths of the Word of
God.
OM does not have one hobby horse.
We believe we should be preaching the whole
counsel of God.
And different speakers this weekend are speaking different
messages that God has put on their hearts
from His Word.
But what a powerhouse the Church would be
if we could find an amalgamation, a combination
of the kind of biblical teaching that creates
dynamic spiritual leaders in the home country with
the kind of vision that we read about
in Acts 1-8 which will lead the
Church into a greater forward thrust into world
missions.
May God give it to us.
We cannot read the Book of Acts without
talking about the Holy Spirit.
And our theme for this evening is the
spirit-controlled leader and spiritual control or spirit
-controlled leadership.
There are several other important verses that we
need to read in connection with this and
we may come back to Acts 1-8.
Turn with me to the Book of Galatians.
I love Galatians 5.
Some of you have read the OM discipleship
manual which you receive when you make application
to come on OM.
And I personally feel that even if people
are thinking about it and not yet sure
whether they should go on OM or not,
that they should get that application in and
get through some of those materials.
I've had people write to me and say,
I've never gone on a campaign, but going
through the preparation materials totally changed my life.
And then they joined some other fellowship.
Hallelujah.
And in that discipleship manual, you will find
an exhortation to memorize the Word of God.
And Galatians 5 is one of those chapters
we want you to memorize.
And I believe whenever we talk about the
Holy Spirit, we need to talk about Galatians
5-22.
How many have read the book Calvary Road?
Raise your hand.
That is very, very encouraging.
That has been required reading, one of the
very first required books, before I ever even
wrote a book, written by Roy Hesschen on
the crucified life, on the subject of brokenness,
and how I praise God for that plea
that our brother Peter gave last night, which
I think, together with what was shared this
morning, lays such a foundation for what the
Lord wants to say to us this evening.
I feel that a lot of our problems
in our churches, and I know it's true
in our own fellowship of OM, and we
are not a church.
All of us go to different local churches.
We belong to different churches.
In most of our cases, one-third of
all the people on OM are longer-term
missionaries.
We are sent out by our churches.
And I believe one of the reasons we
have some of our problems, even in our
OM teams, is a lack of emphasis on
crucified living.
It's not spoken about that much.
Paul, Galatians 2-20, what does it say?
I am crucified with Christ.
Look it up.
We can come back to chapter 5.
It's not far away.
I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth within me.
This was the message that again and again,
there at the Great Keswick Convention, going on
now way more than a hundred years, would
revolutionize thousands of lives, thousands of lives, and
send missionaries out across the entire world.
And I don't think it's possible for me
to speak about the Spirit-controlled Christian life
without speaking about the cross.
We have people today that want Pentecost without
Calvary.
You can't have Pentecost without Calvary.
And guess which came first?
I know you may not feel you're a
great student of history, and some of you
may be young believers, but Jesus died for
our sin upon Calvary's cross and shed that
precious blood, and then ascended and rose again
before Pentecost ever took place.
And sometimes, some seeming experiences of the Holy
Spirit seem to be abortive because the person
does not understand Calvary, does not understand justification
by faith, does not understand what has happened
at the cross.
And yet he wants to go on and
have power and blessing and gifts and even
things that aren't even mentioned in the New
Testament on top, including a Rolls Royce and
a new house.
I'm concerned.
And I feel there's a need today with
our emphasis on the Holy Spirit, which I'm
going to be talking about tonight, to go
back to the cross, the simplicity of the
cross.
It's a place of death.
It's as if Jesus Christ was saying, take
up your electric chair and follow me.
Don't have that much anymore.
It's a quotation from Billy Graham from about
25 years ago when he was preaching to
a great student meeting like this.
And here in Galatians 5, we have that
beautiful picture of the fruit of the Spirit.
We have that beautiful picture of the Spirit
-controlled life, verse 25, or 24 and 25.
And they that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh.
People don't like to hear that.
It sounds like some kind of asceticism, doesn't
it?
Crucified the flesh.
We have so many books on psychology today
telling us all how to be the happy
optimist, the total fulfilled person.
I appreciated what Nigel said from that panel,
that life for most people involves some suffering.
And it isn't always God's plan to instantly
deliver us from everything and to instantly heal
everything.
We are human beings.
And the Bible says the rain falls on
the just and the unjust.
There was one book I desperately tried to
get here this weekend and it failed.
It's in Bromley.
It is the very best book I know
written on the subject of healing and the
whole area of prosperity.
It's not written by someone who doesn't believe
in healing.
To the contrary, it's written by a theologian
from Oral Roberts University who happened to also
study at Wheaton College.
Quite a balance.
You know anything about those two places?
The name of the book is called The
Pinnacle from the Pinnacle of the Temple.
And the book deals with the problem of
being able to discern between faith and presumption.
And with a great emphasis on faith that
has blown through Britain lately, and you can
be sure that I believe in faith, probably
one of the greatest emphases of our whole
work, and I believe God heals, and I
believe in miracles.
But with a great emphasis on faith without
the balance of other biblical principles, we have
gotten into presumption.
We have gotten into presumption.
And if you want a copy of that
book, I can't give it away free, but
I'll be happy to get it into your
hands.
Because I feel with what's happening in Britain
right now, this is a crucial book.
I was preaching in a large Assembly of
God church in Malaysia, staying in the home
of a pastor, a church that has many
people on OM, and supports them.
And let me just tell you, some of
the Asian churches in Malaysia and Singapore are
far more faithful in supporting their young people
than our British churches.
That's just the truth.
There are beautiful exceptions here, but they often
are the exception.
And let's face it, young people, if we
don't get several adults with a vision for
world missions, for every young person that has
a vision for world missions, we can do
a lot of praying, and we can do
a lot of talking, and we can do
a lot of running about, but we're not
going to get the men and women out
to the field, not long term, not long
term.
And for every man that has a vision
to go, we need a lot of people
who have a vision to send.
You look at Romans chapter 10.
We don't have time now.
How shall they preach, except they be sent,
except they be sent, from the pinnacle of
the temple.
Is it presumption, or is it faith?
And for a while, OM was doing in
the area of money.
What extreme healing people were doing in the
area of physical illness.
And I will tell you, when the lights
went on, at least in my heart and
hundreds of other hearts in OM, it was
a glorious day.
It was a glorious day.
I believe God uses medical doctors.
That's one of God's programs for healing.
I believe God also uses often the bed
of affliction in ways that we do not
fully understand.
I believe there is a divine purpose in
God not totally healing Jonathan McCroskey, our European
director, but allowing him to function in an
amazing way on his wheelchair as a paraplegic.
And the story of Johnny, the book is
down on the table, and the story of
thousands of other men and women of God,
like Fannie Crosby, and there's now a film
about her life that you ought to see,
is something that we should not forget.
We need a great renewal of emphasis on
what it is to be crucified with Christ,
what it is to be able to plod
on when things are rough and when things
are tough, and when things are not going
our way.
Notice it says in verse 25, if we
live in the Spirit, let us also walk
in the Spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vain glory,
provoking one another, or envying one another.
Probably the most influential author in O.M.
is A.W. Tozer.
Sometimes we have pushed this book so much
for 25 years that we just take it
for granted everybody is reading Tozer.
Surely God raised up this man and gave
him biblical understanding to minister to the Church
in our generation.
This is one of his more recent books,
as his material is still being taken from
tape and being put into print.
STL, together with Kingsway Publishers, has produced Leaning
into the Wind.
Leaning into the Wind.
I guess my favorite part of the British
Isles is southern Wales, west Wales, Pembrokeshire.
My goal is in these 10 years to
walk or jog the whole Pembrokeshire coast.
I'm a little behind schedule.
That is some of the most beautiful coastline
I've seen anywhere in the world.
And when I was down there, some friends
said, why don't you go windsurfing?
Oh, sure.
You know what we always say as Americans,
oh, a piece of cake, windsurfing.
So I, for the first time in my
life, two summers ago, got in a wetsuit.
Have you ever been in a wetsuit?
A character like me gets in one, you
can't find him.
It looked easy.
You know, you just stand on this surfboard,
you got this huge sail, and somehow you
lean into the wind or you place the
sail in a way that the wind just
drives you forward.
Easy.
You try.
I didn't stay up even once more than
a few minutes.
Leaning into the wind.
Not as easy as it may look or
may sound.
The spirit-filled life, spirit-filled leadership.
Not as easy as some people make it
sound in our many special meetings.
Billy Graham said it's rough and it's tough
to follow Jesus Christ.
And if you're not willing to learn a
disciplined life, then you might as well forget
it.
I tried something else after I was operated
on in the summer of 84.
I again had an operation on my vocal
cords.
And the doctor told me to rest.
And especially not to speak.
Might as well tell a seagull to just
go to sleep.
Anyway, I decided to rest and the next
day I went to Lake George.
I was operated on in Canada where I
used to go as a teenager for my
holiday.
And I tried something else that looked easy.
Jet skiing.
I was watching these people.
I like to do things that I've never
done before because the last thing you want
in life is to be bored.
I don't remember one boring day since Jesus
Christ saved me 31 years ago, 2 weeks
ago.
Anyway, I decided to go jet skiing.
This thing is like a large pair of
motor, of what do you call them, water
skis.
I used to go water skiing.
I only needed one ski and I could
lie down on it.
But I used to go water skiing.
And this is like two water skis with
a jet engine built on the front of
them.
And well, I got on that thing.
And the trouble is until you're going 20
miles an hour and outside of the shore
area, you're not allowed to get up on
the ski.
You have to drag behind it.
And that is the most uncomfortable position.
I've been in, in a long time.
Here I am, dragging behind this jet, big
skis.
Finally I got out past the mile per
hour zone.
And then you have to jam it up
to about 25 miles an hour.
So I jammed it up to about 25
miles an hour.
The next thing I knew I was headed
straight for a yacht on a collision course.
Now fortunately this jet ski is a little
bit like a lot of Christians.
If you fall off it, it goes around
in a circle.
And so I fell off and it went
around in a circle and came back to
me.
And I got up again.
And I fell off again.
And I got up again.
And I headed in toward another yacht and
I jumped off again.
And I tell you, I haven't been jet
skiing ever since.
Then I tried one more new thing.
That looked a lot easier.
I saw in the distance a man coming
down in a parachute.
I've always wanted to go in a parachute,
but I never felt a desire to jump
from a plane.
I'm the kind of kid that almost jumped
out of a window once with an umbrella.
But something held me back.
So that day there on Lake George, not
named after me by the way.
You know, here in England people have a
lot of false ideas about America, really.
And it's amazing the way British people can
take the mickey out of Americans.
It must be one of the most supreme
gifts of the race.
I think there was a British person going
over this fantastic George Washington Bridge from New
Jersey to New York City.
Huge bridge.
Much more times the size of any bridges
over the Thames.
And now there's two layers.
So cars are going up and back and
forth on both layers.
That was just added some years ago.
This American was boasting, look at this bridge.
It's one of the largest bridges in the
entire world.
And this person from London said, yes, but
does it go up and down?
Anyway, I went out in the middle of
Lake George and they attached this parachute.
This is how you do it, just in
case you want to get into this.
And they put you behind a speedboat.
You're on a little barge, you're moving slowly.
Then the speedboat picks up speed and in
that parachute you go straight up.
How many have been parasailing?
Look at this boy.
I tell you, this is the age of
adventure.
And when you get way, way up, about
five times higher than this building, yeah, they
let you go.
And you come down, just like in a
parachute.
And just as my feet hit the water,
the speedboat speeded up, back up again.
Great experience.
But that's not leaning into the wind.
That's just going with the wind, with the
help of a high-speed powerboat.
You know, I find the Christian life such
a challenge.
And I find that God doesn't want to
just teach me every day from his word,
but he wants to teach me through other
things that I do.
How many of you are into rugby?
This is one of my favorite sports, rugby.
Raise your hand.
What about the sisters?
I thought the feminist movement was going to
get thousands of women into rugby, but obviously
it's losing steam.
Rugby reminds me a lot of Operation Mobilization.
Really, you got a whole bunch of people
running out around the field, and they keep
passing the ball.
But it also reminds me a lot of
the church, with about, what is it, 30
people altogether out on the field in desperate
need of rest, surrounded by thousands in desperate
need of exercise.
Let us clearly understand, brothers and sisters, that
no matter what experience you have with the
Holy Spirit this weekend, no matter what recommitment
you make to the Lord Jesus Christ, as
you go out from here, it's going to
be rough, it's going to be tough.
It's going to be downright frightening at times.
And it's going to be a lot more
difficult than parasailing, jet skiing, windsurfing, or anything
else you may be into, including squash.
And that really does scare me.
When I heard of a guy not so
long ago who had his eye flipped out
on a squash court, I decided to stick
to tennis.
At least the enemy is on the other
side of the net.
I want you to turn to another passage
of Scripture in the book of Ephesians.
And perhaps it's one that some have neglected.
Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18.
And be not drunk with wine in which
is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
That's a command.
Billy Graham gave the most powerful message.
I guess I'm biased, having been converted to
Christ through his ministry.
I think most of you know my testimony.
It's touched on briefly in my book, No
Turning Back.
I don't feel I should share it tonight.
But Billy Graham often speaks, be ye filled
with the Holy Spirit.
I believe that is the privilege of every
believer.
And if you're being prepared for leadership in
the work of God, it is absolutely essential
that you're filled with the Holy Spirit and
that you know it.
Tozer is stronger on that latter point than
I am.
Because I have known people who I'm convinced
were filled with the Spirit, but they didn't
seem to know it.
I guess maybe eventually they discovered it.
There's such a great danger today that we
think being filled with the Spirit, and especially
when we combine it with the controversy in
connection with the baptism of the Holy Spirit,
which Christians have not been able to agree
on for many, many, many years, that we
end up in a jungle of controversy instead
of on the highway of holiness and Spirit
-filled living.
In OM now, for a couple of decades,
we have had a large number of people
who believe in a very strong way in
what some people call a second work of
grace, and they call it the baptism of
the Holy Spirit.
The old Methodists, the old Salvation Army people,
were teaching that long before more modern charismatic
people came in, speaking technically and gave a
greater emphasis to the gifts of the Spirit.
Salvation Army, Methodists, many others in different camps,
emphasized the baptism of the Holy Spirit for
holiness.
Have you ever been to the great Holiness
Convention in Southport?
I probably preached there seven times.
Baptism of the Holy Spirit for holiness.
That was the message of men like Brother
James and others who were involved in that
convention for so many years.
Some of you, many of you come from
that kind of church, and we respect your
church, and we will not, as a fellowship,
as a missionary agency, attack the doctrine and
teaching of your church.
That's what makes Operation Mobilization a little more
complex than some groups.
Another great segment of people in Operation Mobilization,
including, to a large degree, the earlier roots
of the work, prefer to emphasize the fullness
of the Holy Spirit, prefer to emphasize ongoing
sanctification.
The historical position we have in Christ through
what He has done on the cross and
the ongoing work of sanctification.
And one of the most beautiful things I
have seen in our fellowship is people in
these different camps respecting one another.
And guess what even happens?
Can you imagine?
People even change camps.
Woo!
And OM gets blamed.
We get phone calls from churches.
I sent my daughter on Operation Mobilization, and
she was a lovely little Pentecostal tongue-speaking
girl, so absolutely convinced about all of our
doctrines, and she's come back from OM, and
now she's not so sure about exactly this
or that or some other thing.
Then somebody else phones me up, and they
said, I sent my son on Operation Mobilization,
and he's come back home, and I found
him speaking tongues in the closet.
And of course, OM is always to blame.
We're always to blame.
As if we can control young people in
our generation with all they hear on television,
with all they read, with all the different
people they meet at university before they ever
come on OM, where this is a much
more controversial issue actually than on Operation Mobilization.
Yes, we do change.
And some people who are strong in one
persuasion perhaps become a little more balanced and
lean a little bit the other way, and
some who are strong this way, they lean
maybe the other way.
You think this is too much for God
to handle?
I'm sure God is really worried about this.
I will tell you, if I didn't believe
that God could overrule some of our folly
and some of our struggles and some of
our doctrinal peculiarities, I really get depressed.
And I think sometimes our problem is, as
J.B. Phillips once said, our God is
too small.
We have put him in a denominational box.
We have put a label on him.
We have told God exactly what he must
do and how he must do it and
when he must do it.
And I will tell you, when you try
to put God in a box, you're going
to get in trouble.
You're at least going to lose your box.
And I think it's a beautiful thing that
whatever our background, at least as this is
what I'm hoping for tonight, we can agree
that every Christian, and certainly every Christian leader,
should be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Billy Graham, in speaking about the Spirit-controlled
life, said, I don't care how you get
it, just get it.
I say, Amen.
Hallelujah.
By the way, that book, I misquoted a
title on a book this morning.
It's not the praise factor.
It's the hallelujah factor.
I want to ask you, are you filled
with the Holy Spirit?
If you're not, you're not going to have
a Spirit-controlled life.
If you're not born again, and we've had
people even born again in conferences like this,
if you're not born again, you don't even
have the Holy Spirit.
All who are born again have the Holy
Spirit, the third person of the Trinity dwelling
in Him.
The Word of God says, if you have
not the Spirit of Christ, you have not
Christ.
But now we need to be filled with
the Holy Spirit.
Another place the Bible says, yield your members
unto righteousness.
I personally believe that you can be a
Spirit-filled person without necessarily knowing the vocabulary.
Many godly people I met in India were
illiterate.
They could not read all these victorious life
books.
They could not read a different book about
the Holy Spirit every week.
But they yielded to the Word of God.
They yielded to the Lord Jesus.
And I want to tell you, when you
yield to the Lord Jesus and to the
degree that you yield to the Lord Jesus
and follow the Lord Jesus in obedience and
praise God for those messages on old-fashioned
obedience, we need that today.
Trust and obey, there's no other way.
That's not bondage.
That's glorious liberty in Jesus Christ.
And I'm sure that many of you have
probably been filled with the Holy Spirit at
times and perhaps haven't even thought of it
as that.
But it is good to be sure.
You know, many people are missing a Spirit
-controlled life because they are overreacting against extremism.
We have this in O.M. Because I'll
tell you, we are archenemies against extremism.
We've written books on it.
We've got tapes on it.
And it's true.
I wear this little carpenter's level as a
challenge to anybody who sees it to become
more balanced.
To get the bubble in the middle is
very difficult.
I think it's broken, actually.
Spiritual balance.
We need it.
Some years ago, my daughter came to me
and said, Now you're getting extreme in the
whole area of balance.
You cannot win.
Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit.
What a danger.
When we overreact to some of the extreme
things that are done supposedly in the name
of the Spirit and we overreact and we
end up in the deep freeze of dead
orthodoxy.
That's worse.
Brother Andrew said it's easier to cool down
a fanatic than warm up a corpse.
My dear brother or sister, don't be afraid
to express a little emotion in your love
for Jesus Christ.
Don't be afraid once in a while to
weep over your sins and the coldness of
your heart.
Let's not be afraid to weep over some
of the lack of vision and the lack
of love and the lack of generosity that
so often is expressed in this materialistic age
in which we find ourselves.
When's the last time you shed a tear
for a lost soul?
When we're filled with the Holy Spirit, we
will know what Acts 1.8 talks about.
And we will also know the kind of
reality spoken about in Acts 13.
Because when we think of being Spirit-controlled,
we are not just thinking in terms of
God directing us emotionally and God guiding us
in terms of our practical Christian walk with
God, but we are also thinking in terms
of the Holy Spirit directing our missionary endeavors.
Tozer felt that the Holy Spirit was the
missing persons in some of the committee meetings,
some of the church board meetings.
And I feel that's often true.
We need to not just acknowledge and experience
the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
We need to know the Holy Spirit as
sovereign director over our lives and our affairs.
And, of course, that is inseparable from the
Lordship of Jesus Christ.
And, praise God, there's no competition in the
Godhead.
The Holy Spirit and Jesus are not fighting
in heaven over who's getting more attention in
the church.
And we know, according to the Word of
God, that one of the main ministries of
the Holy Spirit is to exalt and lift
up the Lord Jesus Christ.
Can you say, absolutely, this evening, that Christ
is Lord of your life?
Is the Holy Spirit guiding you as to
how you spend your money?
Who you date?
Where you go when you date?
What you watch on television?
What you do about the future?
Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to
guide us in these practical areas under the
headship of Jesus Christ?
I will tell you, if I didn't believe
that were possible, I wouldn't be here.
In Acts 13, we find the birth, in
some ways, of missionary work as it was
known in those days.
Look at Acts 13.
What does it say?
It speaks about the Holy Spirit speaking.
Verse 2.
They ministered to the Lord and fasted, and
the Holy Spirit said, Separate me, Barnabas and
Saul, for the work unto which I have
called them.
Verse 4.
So they being sent forth by...
Underline it.
You know, it revolutionized my Bible study when
I learned to underline and mark my Bible.
Believe me.
That's so helpful.
At least for characters like me.
So they being sent forth by the Holy
Spirit departed on to Cilicia, and from there
they sailed to Cyprus.
The Holy Spirit.
We don't have time to go through the
book of Acts and see the leadership of
the Holy Spirit through the body of Christ.
This is practical.
This is not just something you experience in
a great worship meeting with a band and
where there's a great clap and a great
praise and a great blessing.
Hallelujah for the increased emphasis on praise.
But let me tell you.
If this increased emphasis on praise doesn't lead
to more reality, more passion for souls, hard
work, world evangelism, then it's a cul-de
-sac.
It's a cul-de-sac.
It's short of what God would have it
be.
We need the whole counsel of God.
We can't just take the blessings and not
the responsibility.
We can't just study our Bibles like going
to some kind of cafeteria.
Pick and choose.
Have you ever been to that kind of
restaurant?
You know, a little salad, a little potato,
a little meat.
No olives for me, thank you.
Oh yeah, a little lettuce.
Oh, none of this salad dressing.
Pick and choose.
Any fussy eaters here?
When you go to the Word of God,
there cannot be cafeteria Bible study.
You've got to take it all.
And I will tell you, as one man
of God said, in our Christian lives, listen,
there will be no gain without pain.
And I'll tell you, some of us, if
we're honest, our biggest problem is laziness.
I am so burdened about what I'm going
to share with you right now that I'm
going to try to just tie this together.
So many people feel they are not functioning
in their spiritual life because somehow they need
a fresh touch from God and they haven't
had it.
And so we go to one conference after
a conference.
Probably you're already signing up for some other
special conference in the summer.
And we hear messages and we make a
decision or we at least pray a prayer.
And we often hear this prayer, Oh, Lord,
touch me.
Have you ever prayed that?
Lord, touch me.
Lord, deliver me.
Lord, help me.
Lord, do this.
Lord, do that.
I feel that some of us are asking
God to do things that he is expecting
us to do ourselves.
And I thank God for men like Dr.
Lloyd-Jones who makes this very clear in
his writings.
If you play tennis, it's a very simple
game.
When the guy on the other side of
the net hits the ball over the net
into your court, you simply hit it back.
And you continue to do that throughout the
course of the game.
Simple.
Brothers and sisters, I pray that you will
not forget this.
When God saved you and he put the
Holy Spirit in your heart and your life,
then the ball was from then on in
your court.
And the next step is yours.
And the spiritual lukewarmness that so often we
find, the discouraged Christians we so often find,
the people who got mightily blessed in a
summer conference, but six months later they're lukewarm
or they run out of steam or they
don't feel the presence of God is one
of the biggest tricks of Satan that exists.
Especially if they live that way week after
week and month after month.
And they ask people to pray for them
and they go to special meetings and they
read more books and they pray the same
prayer, Lord change me, Lord touch me.
Oh Lord, if it only were like when
I was first saved.
Nehemiah taught his people to rise and build.
The Holy Spirit is in us and as
we confess our sin at the foot of
the cross, in brokenness, the Holy Spirit will
fill us.
And I like the emphasis of D.L.
Moody who went on and said, be filled
again and again and again.
Isn't that the problem with many?
We were filled, maybe the way you think
of it, it was a baptism of the
Holy Spirit, but it's one year ago, it's
two years ago, and yet today, there's not
the fruit, there's not the reality, the joy,
and we're wondering what's wrong.
Be filled again.
And it's just a matter of taking a
step of faith.
It's a matter of obedience.
It often involves confession.
If some sin is in the way, if
some wrong attitude, bitterness, pride, anxiety is blocking,
that I refer to as grieving the Holy
Spirit, then there has to be repentance and
confession.
1 John 2, verse 1.
H.A. Hodges in his book, Unseen Warfare,
said this.
This is brilliant.
This is the quote of the night.
Don't try to find this book though.
This fervor, he's speaking here not of our
first love, but of the initial fervor we
had when we first became a Christian, and
I would often say perhaps when we first
had some experience with the Holy Spirit.
This initial fervor is especially characteristic of beginners,
and its drying up should be welcomed.
Its drying up should be welcomed as a
sign that we are getting beyond first stage.
To try to retain it, or to long
for its return in the midst of dryness,
is to refuse to grow up.
And if you're going to be a leader,
it's time to grow up.
He goes on to say, it is to
refuse the cross.
On the other hand, by our steady adherence
to God, when the affections are dried up
and nothing is left, but the naked will
clinging blindly to Him, the soul is purged
of self-regard and trained in pure love.
Brothers and sisters, if you and I could
get into that kind of training program, and
that kind of biblical understanding, there would be
no turning back.
The privilege of every believer is personal revival.
The privilege of every believer is the fullness
of the Holy Spirit.
The privilege of every believer is Christ reigning
and ruling in the heart, or as Roy
Hession calls it in Calvary Road, cup running
over.
And when it's not, then you repent, and
you come back to the cross, and in
simple faith you believe and appropriate, appropriate the
promises of God.
Once a little lady said to D.L.
Moody, by the way, a secular encyclopedia said
he depopulated, it was an American evangelist who
depopulated hell by one million souls.
Not bad for an overweight character who had
a lot of struggles and couldn't speak proper
English.
If you want to read about something wild,
read how the Holy Spirit used D.L.
Moody at Cambridge University, and in Glasgow.
And a lady once said to Mr. Moody,
Mr. Moody, why do you keep going on
about being filled again and again and again
with the Holy Spirit?
And Moody just looked her in the eye
and he said, Lady, because I leak.
I don't know about the rest of you.
Maybe a few of you who are older
have heard that before.
But every time I repeat it, it's a
challenge to my own heart, because I am
one very weak, leaky Christian leader, and every
day I need a free refill.
And so I don't only pray God touch
me, I pray God break me, God kick
me, God, you know, send me up in
a parachute, but somehow, don't let me somehow
rust away or fossilize into one more frozen
evangelical monument.
I want to ask you, because our time
is gone, are you filled with the Holy
Spirit?
Are you experiencing and seeing the fruit of
the Spirit in your life?
Not perfection, because the filling of the Spirit,
please don't miss this, does not destroy your
humanity.
We dealt with that in my seminar.
I don't know if that's on tape, but
I touch upon it in my book, No
Turning Back.
It doesn't destroy the human factor.
If you're filled with the Spirit, you're still
going to have struggles.
You're still going to fail at times.
What a danger there is, once a person
is knowing the fullness of the Spirit, once
a person is knowing the Lordship of Christ,
of Satan and counterattacking and trying to get
this person into extremes.
He almost changes his strategy.
I've seen it happen on OM again and
again.
It scares me.
Somebody gets right with the Lord.
They begin to know discipleship and commitment.
They experience the filling of the Holy Spirit.
They start to win people to Christ.
They start to move in the things of
God.
And then Satan changes his strategy and tries
to get them into extremism or into false
doctrine or into super-spirituality, and there's plenty
of that going around, or into extremism or
into exclusivism.
You know, our church is the only true
real church.
Oh, it's too bad you're fellowshipping down there
on the other end of the road.
Please, you know, really pray.
You need to get with what God's doing
today.
What is God doing today?
Only what they're doing on one end of
the street?
God is doing a lot of things today.
And it doesn't all begin in the British
Isles.
My plea is for what dear brother Bilheimer
speaks about in this book.
Love covers.
That areas where we don't agree and where
we think differently and there's plenty of difference
of thought among us, even among us as
OM leaders who are here, somehow let's learn
how to compassionately disagree.
I'm looking forward to a copy of Nigel's
letter to the Archbishop.
I think it's going to be a challenging
letter.
I wrote to Margaret Thatcher some time ago.
Felt that she should have a copy of
Charles Colson's book, Love Covers.
And I included no turning back as a
bonus.
Don't let that sidetrack from what the Holy
Spirit is trying to say to us right
now as we come to a close of
this message.
Is Christ Lord of your life?
You know why we're not seeing more candidates
headed to the mission field?
It's very simple.
Because from the word of God we know
the Holy Spirit is interested in world missions.
Acts 1E, ye shall be my witnesses.
In England, Scotland, and Wales?
No, ye shall be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,
that includes England, Scotland, and Wales, and Ulster,
and all the rest.
But in Samaria, the Belgians, the French, the
Spains, the Italys, and what?
The uttermost part of the earth.
Be honest, how many of you, before you
came here this weekend, you feel that you
can say you had a fairly significant interest
in the uttermost parts of the earth?
Raise your hand.
Maybe you were at Expo.
I took a survey there.
And that was the beginning of vision for
the uttermost parts of the earth for many
people.
Brothers and sisters, it is clear that the
Holy Spirit is interested in those uttermost parts.
Jesus is interested.
He said, pray that the Lord of the
harvest will send forth laborers.
Do you pray for that?
Christ is Lord.
And if the Holy Spirit is in control,
then you are going to be involved in
world missions.
And that's why our first burden isn't world
missions.
It's to see the Holy Spirit reigning, ruling
in your life, in the factory, in the
college, behind the wheel of the automobile, in
your home.
Not in perfection, but in reality.
And I believe God has brought many of
you here because He wants to fill you
afresh.
Some, it may be the first time.
There may even be some ignorant of these
things.
But God wants to fill you with the
Holy Spirit and make Christ, not forcing you,
absolute Lord in your life, your time, your
relationships, your money, your future, what you think.
This is total commitment.
This is the message that has burned on
our hearts for over a quarter of a
century.
That has put men and women out on
the mission field in almost every single nation
in the world, with still a majority of
them back in their own home churches, trying
to light the fire at home that the
church may know ongoing commitment to revival and
renewal.
Ephesians 5.
Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit.
Let us bow in prayer.
I mentioned in the beginning that the Word
preached might be of no avail if not
mixed with faith.
And I know God has prepared many of
you before you ever came here.
And I know many of you are hungering
and thirsting after a deeper walk with God.
But perhaps you haven't realized the ball was
in your court, that you must act.
You must take steps of faith, not just
tonight but every day.
Denying self, taking up the cross and following
Christ as He taught.
Obeying God's Word when you don't feel like
it.
Standing on the promises of the Lord when
the winds are blowing contrary against you.
And I believe that we're not just calling
people to make a decision tonight, but we're
calling people to take a step of faith
in which every day from now on it's
going to be different.
Because every day from now on, by God's
grace, you're going to purpose to be a
disciple and follow Christ with all your heart,
though it may be rough and though it
may be tough.
Wherever it leads, whatever the cost.
And if God has spoken to you and
you want to take that step of faith
and ask God to fill you afresh with
His Holy Spirit, that Christ may be absolute
Lord over your life in every practical area,
then I'm going to ask you to pray
your own prayer of faith right where you
are.
Commitment.
Confession.
And as you pray that prayer of faith,
I want you to take an outward step
to express that inward transaction.
I want you to just quietly stand up
where you are that I can pray an
instant prayer for you and then a prayer
of dedication for everyone.
God, I believe, has led me to give
you this opportunity to stand as I did
those many years ago when O.J. Smith
gave the challenge and when God filled me
afresh with His Holy Spirit and took me
further on in what it was to be
a crucified disciple of Jesus Christ.
If you're serious, you mean business about total
commitment and being filled daily with the Holy
Spirit and going on as a disciple into
the battle front, then I'd like you to
take that step of faith and quietly right
where you are to stand up as you
pray right now.
And I'm taking it that as you stand,
you're saying, Lord, I believe.
Help Thou my unbelief.
I'm a doubter.
I'm a struggler.
I'm like this character Verwer.
I'm just a needy, weak, leaky Christian.
But I want to be refilled.
And I want to walk seven days a
week as a disciple and soldier of Jesus
Christ with Him as Lord of my life.
God bless each one of you.
God burn it into your heart by His
Holy Spirit.
Anyone else before I pray?
Hallelujah.
Let's pray.
Oh God, you see each one standing before
you now.
Tens of thousands are praying for this meeting.
And we know, oh God, that you have
answered prayer and you have convicted us of
our lukewarmness and our laziness.
You have convicted us of some of our
extremism, some of our pendulum thinking and generalizations.
And, oh God, we come back to the
cross tonight in simple faith.
And we ask you, Lord, to fill us
even now.
And each day we're going to come back
in the same way.
In your word, in prayer.
Oh Lord Jesus, fill us now.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.