This evening we want to speak on the
subject of spiritual balance.
And I can assure you we will not
go as long as we did this afternoon,
so that we may maintain the balance.
But there are a number of areas that
I would like to speak about that I
believe are very relevant as you go out
into the ministry in this day and age.
I believe balance comes as a result of
keeping truth and love in their right proportion.
We have that exhortation that we should speak
the truth in love.
We are told that we are the salt
of the world.
Salt has two chemicals.
Sodium and chloride.
You put those separately on your food and
they are not very tasty.
You put those separately on your food and
they are not very tasty.
In fact, too much and you will end
up a very very ill, very very sick
person.
But together we use it all the time.
Salt.
And so it is if our life is
to be the salt of the earth, it's
got to have that balance of the truth
and love.
Let's look at a few scriptures, starting in
Acts chapter 20.
Acts chapter 20, verse 29.
I know that after my departure, savage wolves
will come in among you, not sparing the
flock.
I know that after my departure, savage wolves
will come in among you, not sparing the
flock.
And from among your own selves men will
arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the
disciples after them.
Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night
and day for a period of three years
I did not cease to admonish each one
with tears.
Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night
and day for a period of three years
I did not cease to admonish each one
with tears.
For the last 25 years I have been
involved in sharing the message of Christ.
In about 30 or 40 different countries.
I think one of the things that has
amazed me the most is how quickly God's
people get carried away into extremism or into
something that is less than what we find
in God's word.
I think one of the things that has
amazed me the most is how quickly God's
people get carried away into extremism or into
something that is less than what we find
in God's word.
When I first began to preach about 24
years ago, I was always preaching about dedication.
The need for young people to totally commit
their lives to Christ.
And last night I shared with you some
of the incredible things that happened in answer
to prayer.
And when I first came to Europe and
I lived in Spain, I was still constantly
speaking this message.
Only by then I was speaking in Spanish.
The same message.
To know the Lordship of Christ.
To really put our lives on the altar.
And I still believe this and I still
preach it.
But I began to learn very soon that
once a man dedicates his life, Satan has
many strategies to get him off into an
extremism.
But I also learned that once a man
dedicates his life, Satan has many strategies to
get him off into an extremism.
But Tozer says that the more enthusiastic a
Christian is, the easier it is for Satan
to get him off into an extremism.
He's hungry to know God.
He wants a deeper spiritual experience.
And so because of that desire, he may
easily get caught up with some extremism that
promises him a shortcut to spiritual reality.
This can happen to you within a few
months of leaving seminary.
It can happen to you while you're at
seminary.
Maybe your seminary experience is not real.
Maybe in yourself you're not spiritually
satisfied.
That can easily happen when you have to
spend so much time studying.
I usually speak every year at Cambridge University.
And I notice especially before exam time, the
Christian students are open.
If you want to drop a kinky doctrine
on them, get them carried away, go there
before the exam time.
And over 17 years ministering at Cambridge and
Oxford, I've been amazed at the extremism that
some of even the best students get into.
So when I read that quotation of A.
W.
Tozer, some very big bells rang in my
heart because I had seen this was true.
So more and more, together with preaching about
dedication and all of that message, I began
ministering about spiritual balance and teaching people about
extremism.
I remember when the children of God first
arrived in Europe, Christians in England embraced them
as fellow believers.
I was also impressed about some of their
practices.
They ended up not only living in the
same town as OM, in the same building
as Operation Mobilization.
And almost within a few days, we knew
the marks of extremism were on this group.
And we began a ministry of warning people.
We had the joy of seeing a number
come right out of that false cult.
As a Christian leader, you are going to
have to be informed as to what is
happening in the religious world around you.
I have a tape, if you know English,
that I would be happy to send to
you called the marks of the false cult.
Because you will discover that the false cults,
whether it is Mormonism or the children of
God or the loony moonies, you will discover
they have the basic same things.
Because you will discover that the false cults,
whether it is Mormonism or the children of
God or the loony moonies, you will discover
they have the basic same things.
And though we can't possibly be informed about
every one of these cults, we should know
the basic traits, the basic marks of a
cult.
And though we can't possibly be informed about
every one of these cults, we should know
the basic traits, the basic marks of a
cult.
But this means we also need wisdom to
discern between that which is a false cult
and that which may be only extreme but
on the way to becoming a cult.
But this means we also need wisdom to
discern between that which is a false cult
and that which may be only extreme but
on the way to becoming a cult.
I've previewed two films about the Johnstown, the
Johnstown crisis, where all those people committed
suicide.
Something we prefer to forget.
But the same thing is going to happen
again.
Because the devil has not gone to sleep.
And because we are seeing a literal cult
explosion all around us.
I've just seen another film called The Cult
Explosion.
Consisting of the testimonies of about ten people,
some of them Christians, who have got into
these cults but now, praise God, have come
out of them.
Consisting of the testimonies of about ten people,
some of them Christians, who have got into
these cults but now, praise God, have come
out of them.
When we come across, of course, an extremist
group, they will always tell us how people
are being so wonderfully helped.
They may themselves give their testimony.
How they were in the dead church.
And they had no reality.
And then they found this little, such a
loving group.
And how their whole life has been different
ever since.
It's like an old record going over and
over again.
My concern tonight, because of the time, is
not firstly the false cults, but it's the
danger of extremism in any kind.
Extremism of any kind coming into our lives.
My concern tonight, because of the time, is
not firstly the false cults, but it's the
danger of extremism in any kind.
And the first letter of John tells us
that we should not examine in the spirit
to see if they are of God.
Tausser said that in our day, it's good
to develop a little bit of reverent skepticism.
Now, maybe this is not needed among theological
students.
Maybe you already have enough reverent skepticism, and
some of it may not be reverent.
By skepticism I mean doubting things.
Not believing everything you hear and everything you
read.
Realizing that you can prove anything by case
histories.
What do I mean by that?
I mean by taking isolated examples, you can
prove almost anything.
Let's use a good, very relevant example here
in the German speaking world.
There, the controversy between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals
is more than almost any other part of
the world.
People who are very anti-Pentecostal are circulating
tapes of people who they believe were demon
possessed.
They're circulating tapes.
And the evidence of their demon possession was
they spoke in tongues.
So then the testimony shows that after they
were prayed for, and hands laid on, and
delivered from tongues, then they lived a normal,
happy life ever after.
That experience in some person's life may have
been true.
But to build a theology on one experience,
even on ten experiences, is a false conclusion.
But of course the people on the other
side of the fence, they also have their
cassettes.
In fact our charismatic friends are the biggest
cassette distributors in the world, also the biggest
Christian television networks in the entire world.
And some who would be more extreme, and
praise God there are many who are not,
they have their cassette tapes.
And their cassette tapes are the man whose
whole life was miserable, but when he spoke
in tongues, he was happy, and lived happily
ever afterward.
I counseled a woman recently in German, because
she had fellowshiped with someone who was a
Pentecostal, and had prayed with this person.
Others in Germany wanted to lay hands on
her, so that the demons could be cast
out, and this influence could be broken in
her life.
And it became very, very complex, because the
demons kept coming back, in the form of
depression.
And someone was influencing her husband, so that
he was supposed to pray her free each
month.
And of course it was interesting to discover
just some of the other things that were
connected with all this.
And sometimes we find people, who are constantly
wanting to pray us free from everything.
And my prayer is that the Lord will
keep me free from such people.
This of course is only one of many,
many extremes that we are going to have
to battle through in our ministries.
I am not here to say that you
have to believe the same as me, praise
God.
I am only here to plead with you
to be open minded, and to be balanced,
and to examine more of the facts, before
you make your little conclusions about some of
these issues.
Even some of the great theological issues are
not as black and white as sometimes we
would like them to be.
And don't do as some do when they
finish Bible school.
I feel after two years of Bible study,
they must have all their theological questions answered,
and in a nice little package.
Because you are going to be in for
some big surprises.
Especially if you fellowship with some people outside
of your own little group.
Let's get into some other very specific areas.
First of all, we've got to find the
balance between the crisis and spiritual growth.
God gives special experiences.
Conversion.
For some it's an emotional crisis.
For me it was a Billy Graham meeting.
I got hit right between the eyes.
I got hit very strong.
I repented.
I wept.
I was born again.
But I know many people.
They've never had any great, you know, crisis
meeting like that.
Some were converted when they were very young.
And, you know, it's funny how people sometimes
exaggerate their testimonies.
There was this fellow trying to make his
testimony sound really good.
He was a wicked fellow.
He had done many evil things.
People were all listening, you know.
And he mentioned finally, at the age of
nine he was converted.
Sometimes it's wonderful just to hear a simple
testimony.
It's still a great event in heaven, even
if it happened in your second Sunday school
class.
But whether you're converted in a great crisis
or in a slow situation, it must be
followed by the process, spiritual growth.
We have those words very clearly in Peter.
2 Peter 3.18 Growing grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to
Him be the glory both now and to
the day of eternity.
There's got to be the growth.
That's God's process.
Now the same is true as we go
on for God.
I personally, perhaps because I'm a bit emotional,
have had a number of crises experiences.
But if those crises had not been followed
by the process, daily in the Word of
God, daily meditating, it would have just become
an abscess.
It would have turned to poison.
If this crisis had not been followed by
growth, spiritual study and reading in the Bible,
then these crises would have turned to poison.
And for those of you who know English,
it's like this, if the crisis is not
followed by the process, then there is an
abscess.
In Apostle Geschichte 4, verse 31, they were
filled with the Spirit, the place was shaken,
they went forth and spoke the Word of
God with boldness.
But in Acts 20.32, it says, I
commend you to God and to the Word
of His grace, which is able to build
you up and give you an inheritance among
those who are sanctified.
Read Acts 20.32. And now I command
you to God and to the Word of
His grace, which is able to build you
up and give you an inheritance among those
who are sanctified.
I never despise an experience a person has
had with God.
But I try to show them the way
of growth.
We get different people who come to OM.
Some of them have had some pretty unusual
experiences.
And we say to that person, Brother, we
don't want to hear too much about your
experiences yet.
We want to see the reality of the
Holy Spirit in your life.
And if we don't see any fruit on
your tree, we're going to doubt what is
coming up inside of the trunk of the
tree.
This brings me to the second area.
The balance between the intellectual and the emotional.
Now, this time it would be good to
have a study of our temperaments.
Mr. Hellesby's book, that famous Norwegian again coming
in on us, would be a good book
for you to study.
Now we can understand a little more about
people.
And the wide range of people that exist.
And when it comes to this area, of
course there are some real problems.
Some people by temperament naturally gravitate toward being
intellectual.
It's also linked up with other influences in
their life, their parents, many factors.
Other people more naturally gravitate toward the existential
and toward the emotional.
In England we are having a great resurgence
of Calvinism and Reformed theology.
Some of it is very
good.
We are one of the major distributors of
books of Martyn Lloyd-Jones and books by
Banner of Truth Trust.
But if that's the only diet a man
gets, then it's not a good diet.
99 out of 100 he'll become an extremist.
And it's interesting, when Lloyd-Jones was speaking
on our ship recently, he spoke about the
need for spiritual balance.
He has the reality.
He's got the theology and the power.
And we ought to see that many of
these great preachers and many great books, they
are not necessarily contradictory, but they are God
working through different men in different ways.
And God is always making originals.
And you're going to be an original.
Not a Lloyd-Jones, not a Dr. Schaefer.
Or some favorite Swiss hero of years gone
by.
I doubt around here if there's too many
Karl Barths.
By the way, he said Dr. Martyn Lloyd
-Jones was the greatest preacher he knew in
Europe.
That's rather interesting considering their different theology.
Years ago there was a great meeting in
London.
One speaker, John Stott.
The other speaker, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
And John Stott, of course, is an Anglican.
He believes a good Christian should stay within
the Mother Church.
Around that time, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was
urging people to come out of the dead
churches and to start new living churches.
That was the message he had on his
heart at that time.
And when Lloyd-Jones finished giving his address,
John Stott jumped up and openly declared that
he disagreed and gave forth his word.
Oh, England is an interesting place.
John Stott has now written a book on
balance.
It's a book well worth reading.
And he has a chapter on the balance
between the intellectual and the emotional.
Then there was another big explosion.
Because John Stott's number one curate became the
leading charismatic almost in the country.
Because John Stott's number one curate, his assistant
pastor, became the leading charismatic Christian in the
country.
And, of course, the explosions never end.
They just take place each year.
And though in one way it may seem
rather funny, in another way a lot of
young Christians are really confused by all of
this.
They hear so many voices.
Go this way.
Go that way.
Sometimes the voices are condemning other voices.
And the controversy goes on.
And my plea in the midst of all
this controversy is that somehow there may be
more love, more balance, more thoughtfulness, which to
me is the essence of the Gospel message.
What's your plea?
That there may be more love, more balance.
More thoughtfulness.
Being thoughtful of other people.
Someone may be very intellectual.
We need such men in the body of
Christ.
As evangelicals in Europe, we are not exactly
overboard with this group of people at present.
We don't have too many of this type
of person.
You could be happy to know that I
often speak to great crowds of somewhat anti
-theological people and tell them to love the
theologians.
We need the theologians.
I'm representing you unofficially all over the world.
And I also speak to many people from
time to time and tell them, not theologians,
and those who are critical of theologians, that
they should love the theologians because we need
them.
But we should also understand the person who
is a little more emotional in his relationship
to God.
And not condemn him as some kind of
religious fanatic.
It's difficult to find a balance.
And then another area is the balance between
faith, dynamic faith, and common sense.
Using our common sense.
Some people, when they see our ship, they
hear how God answers prayer.
They think this is a miracle.
So they're filled with faith.
They think it's faith.
It's actually presumption.
So they go back and they're going to
believe God for a miracle like we did.
And I tell you, it scares me what
some people do after they come to our
miracle ship.
One American wrote to me recently.
He said, I'm so inspired by your project.
Two or three of us now are claiming
a jumbo jet for Jesus.
He had no organization.
Nothing had been done yet.
They were just going to believe for a
jumbo jet for Jesus.
He didn't realize that for 15 years before
we had any ship, there were 15 years
of toil and tears and discipling men all
over the world, hundreds of them, before God
ever added any image to the Bible.
Not even the first small ship.
God's work is men.
The day of going to some new town
and praying for a new cathedral is over.
God is wanting to work through men.
And if God hadn't given us engineers, some
of them from Switzerland, who know how to
pray, but they also know how to think,
there would be no ship ministry.
Apart from perhaps me playing with my sailboat
in the bathtub.
So yes, God answers prayer.
And both ships came to be as a
result of prayer and faith.
But as we were praying, God did not
tell us to leave our brains there on
the ground.
Within almost the week that God gave me
this burden and vision, I started to study
ships and research ships and all the practical
applications of the problems of this kind of
project.
And I think these ships are a testimony
of the combination of faith and prayer.
And total commitment to God with common sense
and patience combined together.
God is not just a God of the
extraordinary.
He's also the God of the ordinary.
We need to see and learn how to
find God in the ordinary.
We can become preoccupied with the extraordinary.
Some of you are going to be preachers.
You're going to stand in front of great
congregations.
Some of us stand in front of very
small congregations.
Some of you may have the privilege of
some Sunday morning preaching to all empty chairs.
I've had that privilege.
But no doubt people will pray that you
have the anointing of God for your preaching.
We all know that.
You must have the power of God as
you preach.
So God can do great things.
But what about your wife?
Oh, she's back home in the kitchen.
Oh, she's changing the nappies or the diapers
or whatever you call them over here back
there at home.
Changing the baby's pants.
And she's cleaning the floor.
By the way, we've learned that the Swiss
are the best for keeping things clean.
Every field in OM tries to get someone
from Switzerland into the cleaning section.
I'm sometimes worried that this may even be
almost a neurosis.
But they're competing with you over in the
Netherlands.
They're competing with you in the Netherlands in
Holland.
They're competing.
They're trying to do better in cleaning.
And it's one of the few countries where
you find the people scrubbing the streets out
in front of their house.
Oh, all of the different kinds of people
that God has.
Not easy to find the balance.
God is in the ordinary.
We need to pray for spirit-filled housewives.
How many of you, your wives are not
here?
They're back home, you know, in the apartment.
Raise your hand, let's see.
I want to pray for your wife that
God will bless her even more than you
get blessed right here.
And I'll give you a few little pointers.
When you go home, don't just talk about
the great retreat.
Oh, how the Lord has blessed me.
You should have been there.
Oh, it's too bad you weren't there.
We had such a great time skiing.
But when you go home, listen to her.
What has she been doing?
What's happening there?
And show her that extra attention.
Maybe bring her some flowers.
That would be nice.
Some of you, your wives, if you brought
them flowers, they would think you'd gone completely
out of your mind.
And often it's more difficult for the woman
at home to press on in the spiritual
life than it is for the man with
his greater variety of activities.
I have a whole message, it would take
me two more hours just on finding balance
in the whole.
Because I have often been such a miserable
failure in this area of my life.
But that leads naturally into another point.
Balance between the church and the work and
the family, the wife and the children.
Let me tell you the story of one
of my close friends.
I was taking a series at the seminary
where he was studying.
I was taking a series of lectures at
the seminary.
I was taking a series of lectures at
the seminary where he was studying.
And while living at that seminary, I discovered
many of the marriages were coming apart.
Because the men were spending so much time
studying that they were neglecting their wives.
And this particular friend, his marriage is now
finished.
Oh, he graduated.
And they gave him his diploma.
But his marriage is finished.
It's not the best way to start your
ministry.
And I would warn you with all my
heart not to neglect your wife and your
marriage during this intensive time of study and
preparation.
You say, well, that's impossible.
I don't believe that.
And some of you later on in life,
you're going to have even more preparation.
You're going to have even more pressures.
Now is the time to find the balance.
And it's not just the amount of time.
The amount of time you have with your
wife or with your children.
That's one factor.
But then the quality of that time.
And I've seen again and again that quality
is more important than quantity though actually you
need some of both.
I counseled a woman some years ago.
She was just the opposite.
She was so involved in the church Monday
night, Tuesday night, choir singing on Tuesday night,
prayer meeting on Wednesday night, women's fellowship on
Thursday night.
And she had to prepare to teach Sunday
school.
Her husband was sort of the quiet type.
Her husband, he was the quiet type.
Swiss, Swiss.
And she didn't realize how much she was
hurting her husband.
And finally one night he wrote a list.
Ten reasons why I'm leaving you.
He put it on the bed and he
never went back again.
I talked to her three years later.
He never went back.
They're now divorced.
The devil has studied for thousands of years
how to destroy homes.
And we must never allow the work we
are in to be put ahead of our
family, our wife and our children.
God, yes.
He is ahead of everything.
God is first.
God has given you the family.
So the family is second.
And the work is third.
And if you keep it in that order
you'll probably still be going 20, 30 years
from now.
And if you keep it in that order
you'll probably still be going 20, 30 years
from now.
There are so many areas where we have
to work for balance.
And I hope the next time you go
through the New Testament as I have done,
you'll go through it looking for balance.
For example, in the life of Jesus Christ.
We see it in the way Jesus handled
people.
Jesus was a man of steel, of strength,
and of velvet, of kindness, of tenderness.
It's a perfect blending in his character.
We see the same thing in the Apostle
Paul.
The man who went over the wall in
the basket is the man who wrote 1
Corinthians 13.
We especially see this in 1 Thessalonians.
Where this dynamic revolutionary for Christ, of
whom it was said in Acts 17 he
turned the world upside down.
Look what it says in 1 Corinthians 2,
verse 7.
We were gentle among you even as a
nurse cherished her children.
Will that be a mark of your ministry?
Will that be a mark of the way
you treat your wife?
Or your children?
Or your youngest disciple that you've just led
to Christ?
As you study Paul you will see as
in the steps of Jesus this man of
steel and velvet.
And then the balance between work and recreation.
We know the danger of alcoholics but who
has warned us about the danger of workaholics?
People that never stop working.
And they don't know how to relax.
I hope they have a course at your
seminary on how to relax.
That's absolutely basic.
And we'll be covering that in my message
on survivalship.
Sometimes we have the idea that we're in
a spiritual warfare and we are but you
see our finger isn't on the trigger of
the gun all the time.
You burn your finger and the gun.
Even in warfare the relaxation the recuperation the
strengthening of the soldiers is basic to the
movement of the army.
And we need to learn how to relax.
We're all different.
Some people will need a definite holiday two
or three weeks separate from everything so they
can unwind and recuperate.
In twenty some years I have never found
this necessary.
I get a day here and I just
go right out of my mind.
A whole day!
I learn how to relax on the trains
and I learn that change is often as
good as a holiday.
Change what you're doing change how you do
it.
Also for many years I either go running
or walking every day.
Singing the songs or whistling or doing something.
I used to climb trees.
Bigger trees than this.
And there I would just praise the Lord.
Reading for some people is very relaxing.
But if you're reading already eight hours as
a seminary student you may want to try
something a little more active.
And I commend to you a physical, some
kind of physical regular exercise program.
Something apart from boxing with your wife.
Something else.
Because we are physical beings and we need
an outlet for that physical energy that we
have.
And sometimes if we're all pent up we're
not working hard.
Because we become very irritable.
We're very irritable very touchy.
There were two theological students they met in
the bathroom.
This is a true story.
And one was a Calvinist.
And the other was a holiness Arminian.
And one of them flicked some water.
Arminian.
Arminius.
Don't I tell you who he is already?
OK.
You need another more year at school here.
Holiness and Arminian.
And so one of them flicked some water
in the other's face.
And said something about his theology.
And he said something about his theology.
And they started to argue.
And soon I don't know which one it
was.
Actual fight.
That is not the way to express your
deep theological feelings.
But maybe it was because they were all
pent up and not having some physical...