One woman persevered for my high school 14
years, prevailing, prevailing, passionate prayer.
Our whole work was born as a result
of that woman.
There's two and a half thousand of us
this summer, reaching into about a hundred nations.
Not all of them this summer.
One woman prayed.
Spiritual warfare.
We want to be in much prayer during
these days.
Wherefore, take unto you, verse 13, the whole
armor of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day, having done
all to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girded about with
truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and
your feet shod with the preparation of the
gospel of peace.
Above all, taking the shield of faith, with
which ye shall be able to quench all
the fiery darts of the wicked, and take
the helmet of salvation, and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
The importance of the Word of God.
I wonder how many here, let's be honest,
one of my themes these days is going
to be honesty, and I'm going to share
some of my own struggles, some of my
own failures.
You know, sometimes we meet a Christian leader,
especially if we hear he's supposed to be
a missionary, or missionary leader, whatever you call
it, however you pronounce it.
Canada always seems to be somewhere between England
and the States.
And sometimes we meet Christian leaders, we hear
about them, and we think, boy, they got
it all together.
Boy, evangelizing the world, thousands of people coming
to Christ.
I tell you, you're looking at a very
weak, feeble instrument, who even comes here in
fear and trembling, and in a great sense
of inadequacy.
Later I'm going to share some of that
struggle.
You know, it's always wonderful to testify, oh,
when I was a young Christian, I had
tremendous problems, I had the lust problem, I
had the fear problem, and I had this
hang-up and that hang-up, when I
was a young Christian.
But 23 years later, to testify about your
lust problem, ooh, wait a minute, how did
he get into the speaker's book?
And I believe that one of the great
ways that God works among His people is
to get them to take off the mask,
is to get them to be real.
I can't say that I'm as real as
I want to be.
That is one of my greatest goals.
Satan is very subtle.
Out of 10 or 11,000 people I've
written to, as a result of my book,
so many have said the same thing.
I go to church, I go to Jesus
festivals, I read my Bible sometimes, but it's
not real.
Prayer is not real, witnessing is not real.
And I believe, in many ways, the theme
that God wants to burn into our hearts
these days is reality.
Reality.
Whatever it costs, reality.
Real with one another, real with God, real
with our parents, real with the ones we
love, real with the ones we don't love.
Oh, may God burn it into our hearts.
If you'll be honest, I'd like to ask
you, how many have never yet read the
Word of God through once?
You've not yet finished.
I know you've started.
You haven't read the Bible through once.
Raise your hand.
About half.
I want to just give this challenge to
you, that the Lord, I believe, has asked
me to give you.
It could be the only thing maybe you'll
get from me.
Would you promise Jesus to read your Bible
through once this year?
You come at Jesus 79, if he tarries,
you'll have read God's Word.
I think God is concerned about this.
Some places, people are always going on, this
is the Word of God, and I believe
it's worth going on about that.
One of the greatest attacks of the enemy
in America today is to reduce confidence in
the Word of God.
Where will we be?
Where is David Moses III, after he reduced
confidence in the Word of God and produced
100 mole letters?
And the young people involved with this false
cult, the cogs, so-called children of God,
have moved further and further from the truth,
so that now the Moses letters are teaching
the girls to go out in the streets
and give their body and sex to the
men to win them to the truth.
That is happening all over Europe, all over
Europe.
I am not exaggerating.
God hates exaggeration.
I've been in first-hand contact for a
long time with that one false cult.
You remember last year, I was asked to
speak here in this tent, in the side
tent, on the cults.
Many people expressed to me that this was
a message that helped them so much.
I didn't give great lucid descriptions about all
the false cults, but I spoke on how
to mark a false cult, how to know
a false cult, and how to know an
extremist situation so that you can avoid it.
That tape has been reproduced and has gone
all over the world because many, even Christians,
are being deceived into these extremist groups and
into false cults.
They don't understand.
And the Bible says that Satan comes often
as an angel of light.
He comes with a religious garb.
Many are deceived.
So we have to put on the whole
armor of God.
We have to use the sword of the
Spirit, the Word of God.
Verse 18.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in
the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance
and supplication for all saints.
The emphasis of prayer.
It was when I was 17.
I was converted through the prayers of this
elderly lady, the reading of the Gospel of
John.
I was wondering, what is the true nature
of spiritual life?
What should I emphasize as I went off
to college?
In the quiet of my room, through the
Scriptures, through other literature, at 17, I said,
I want to learn how to pray.
I want to learn how to worship.
I want to get a degree in prayer.
Ever found a seminary that gives a degree
in prayer, in intercession, in worship?
Imagine somebody get a PhD in worship, praise,
prayer, intercession, thanksgiving, and yet they are the
basics of spiritual life.
This is a challenge that I believe God
wants to lay upon us in these days.
We're going to be speaking a little bit
about the crisis and the process.
In many ways, these days together here will
be a crisis.
Hours praising God, hours fellowshipping with God's people,
meeting all kinds of Christians from all over
the world.
And we'll go away from here, many of
us, just on a new level of joy
and praise and reality.
But then we go back into the deserts,
back into the front lines of spiritual warfare.
I go to Spain where we got thousands
of towns and villages with not a single
Christian witness.
We've got provinces without a single church.
Imagine if I assign you, just you, to
evangelize all of Canada.
Twenty-some million people.
I meet you after the meeting.
I say, look, I've just done a survey.
There's no other Christians in Canada.
Just you.
I want you to evangelize Canada because I
got to go somewhere else.
We distributed a little set of prayer cards.
I happen to have them in my pocket.
I carry them wherever I go.
Fifty-two of the most needy nations in
the world.
Some of these countries do not have a
single believer that's alive.
Mauritania is one of them.
Imagine, send you to Mauritania, you're the only
believer, evangelize Mauritania.
There are other nations where there are ten
believers.
Afghanistan, we've been laboring there for fifteen years
in that most impossible land.
There are now maybe fifty believers in Afghanistan
among eighteen million.
Turkey has maybe fifty believers.
There are more believers in this tent than
the entire land of Turkey among thirty-eight
million people.
You know, there are some people that do
not want this message at this kind of
gathering.
You know why?
They say it makes people upset.
People want a blessing and we don't want
to bring anything in that's unpleasant.
We don't want to tell the people of
God that others are lost and that we
need to be doing something about it.
And presently, the North American manpower force is
ninety-nine point nine point point point, if
you have a computer, is committed to North
America and less than one-tenth of one
percent is committed to the rest of the
world.
And then people wonder why my wife and
I haven't taken our first furlough after eighteen
years on the field.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of God's people
remain here and continue to go for the
blessings summer after summer and year after year.
Don't misunderstand me.
I believe in blessing and if God didn't
pour a blessing into me, every day I'd
blow away with the first wind from the
smallest demon the devil's got.
But blessing and praise and worship will lead
to commitment.
It will lead to dedication.
The Holy Ghost brings a holy goal and
if you're not going somewhere for God, you
know nothing of the Holy Spirit in your
life.
You've been deceived into an ego trip that's
greater even than the children of God because
it's more subtle.
We're so boastful in the United States especially.
Canadians are a little more sane.
But those of us down in America, we're
so boastful.
We've got the biggest churches in all the
world.
We've got the biggest Sunday schools in all
the world.
We've got more Sunday school buses than anybody
in all the world.
And we go around patting ourselves on the
back until we break a bone.
I want to tell you, I'm ashamed.
I'm ashamed of the church in North America.
There are many, many people who shuttle into
the sanctuary on Sunday morning that have never
once denied self, taken up a cross to
follow Christ in true spiritual life.
What is Ephesians 5 about?
What is 2 Corinthians 6 about?
What is 1 Corinthians 4 about?
What is Hebrews 11 about?
As I read through my New Testament and
I've been through it a few dozen times,
the hard part is that it's been through
me like a knife cutting into areas of
the self life, exposing me for the selfish
person I sometimes am.
And when that New Testament goes through you,
you've got to come out realizing that we
have nothing to boast about.
Yes, God is working.
Praise His name.
The Holy Spirit is moving.
Praise His name.
Some of the things I say, if you
don't listen carefully, I may sound a bit
pessimistic.
Actually, I am an absolute neurotic optimist.
Otherwise, I would have been wiped out.
If you live in India for six years
as I have, without being an optimist, you're
through.
As you watch millions and millions of Hindus
and Muslims, as you stand in the streets
year after year to reach men for Christ,
you've got to know what it is, as
it says in Philippians chapter 4, to think
on that which is pure and that which
is lovely and that which is of good
report.
And as we keep our eyes on the
Lord, that we can battle through the impossibilities
of the Muslim world.
We can pray through a set of cards
like this, in which we discover one out
of every seven people in the world is
a Muslim.
Now, maybe there are some here that have
never had any great intellectual difficulties.
As a foundation for our thinking in these
days, I wanted to share with you briefly
some of the intellectual reasons why I have
walked with Jesus 23 years, despite many temptations
and many doubts.
You know, a lot of people are afraid
of doubts.
Have you ever gone to somebody with a
question, you know, about the Old Testament or
about this or that, and they said, Oh,
no, no, it's the Word of God, brother.
We shouldn't be asking these questions.
Just trust the Lord.
And we wonder why quite a few thinking
people end up throwing the whole thing overboard.
I have a fear that there may be
some of us here today that our Christian
faith is just a late adolescence ego trip.
It's something nice to do now, but God's
not just concerned about now, next year, five
years from now, ten years from now, that
we may be going on from victory to
victory, resisting temptation, worshiping the Lord the rest
of our life.
That's our burden.
I'm sure that's your burden.
1 Corinthians 15, 58.
Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, always abounding in
the work of the Lord, knowing that your
labor is not in vain in the Lord.
And one of the most important things we
want to emphasize in these days is perseverance,
going on for God through trials, through difficulties,
through all kinds of things that sometimes come.
And I believe our faith must be built
on a firm intellectual foundation.
I began to doubt the faith, especially when
I met a lot of Christians.
I was converted from a non-Christian background.
We'll tell about that tonight.
I didn't know many Christians.
The few I met my first year at
a secular college, they were on fire for
Christ.
Their lives rang with reality, prayer, love.
That's how they'll know that we're Christians.
Not because we carry huge Bibles or not
because we got a Jesus saves pinned on
our forehead or hanging on our toes.
Because we love one another even though we're
all different.
We love one another.
We even love those that switch us off.
I'm sure even as I speak, I must
switch some people off.
I've learned to accept myself.
I've learned to know that when I speak,
some get switched on, some get switched off.
Because we're all different.
One of my greatest problems as a Christian
was I switched myself off.
One look in the mirror and I thought,
oh dear.
And I had this tremendous hassle accepting myself.
And I'm going to speak tomorrow, Lord willing,
on accepting yourself.
That is a very, very ABC foundation truth
to know God and to persevere.
Accept yourself.
You say, what's the biblical basis for that?
We're going to look at that.
Because it's there.
And it's very clear.
So I had many doubts when I started
to meet God's people.
Especially I went to Bible school.
I'm not against Bible schools.
I believe God uses Bible schools.
But when I went to Bible school and
found there were so many people who said
so much and did so little, I thought,
this can't be true.
When I was at this liberal college, it
was very consistent.
They believed nothing.
They did nothing.
Beautiful consistency.
I had no intellectual troubles with that.
They denied the virgin birth.
They denied the Bible.
They believed nothing and they did nothing.
Then I went to a nice good Bible
college.
And there they believed everything and did nothing.
And I found somewhat of an inconsistency with
my friends.
And I thought, how can Christianity be true?
Where are Book of Acts Christians?
There are now 200 books about the Apostle
Paul.
There are hundreds of men across America expounding
the life of the Apostle Paul, writing more
books about the Apostle Paul.
And as a young Christian, admittedly I was
a little bit of a rebel and God
had to do a lot in my life
because my tongue went faster than my brain
and all the rest.
And I had a question as a young
Christian after going through these books and sitting
to lectures on the Apostle Paul and the
epistles of Paul, I had one little question.
Where are the pearls?
Where are the men who live with this
kind of passion and reality and fervency and
balance because we see Paul, not only a
dynamic person, over the wall and basket, in
jail in the middle of the night, praising
and worshiping Jesus.
You know, it's one thing to be here,
beautiful atmosphere.
I spent most of my life living in
crummy, smelly, stinking cities.
Bangkok, Bombay, Brussels, London, about 20 others.
I hate cities.
Whenever I pray, I look for the nearest
woods, climb the nearest tree.
I love to get out where things are
green.
And there were not too many people.
I get overexposed to God's people and I
begin to shrivel.
I don't know if any of you have
that unspiritual problem.
But all the blessing to be out in
the woods and to praise God.
Yet, we have to get back into the
palace, back into the city, back to do
the will of God.
And I praise today to know the kind
of balance that the Apostle Paul knew.
Over the wall and the basket, midnight, in
prison.
Yes, praising the Lord here.
That's wonderful.
And what would you do if you ended
up in one of our teams in Turkey
next summer and you were in prison for
the whole summer.
Summer in prison with a rat nibbling at
your feet.
That often happens in prison.
Oh, beloved.
The Apostle Paul has found and so I
had a lot of intellectual questions.
I wondered, is it really true?
And I thank God for that.
I thank God for this little book, Evidence
that Demands a Verdict, that answers dozens and
dozens of questions.
And there's another one called More Evidence that
Demands a Verdict.
I praise God for books that give us
tremendous truths about prophecy.
That's one of the reasons we know the
Bible is the Word of God.
Prophecy.
I praise God for the books about the
Resurrection.
That's another reason we know the Bible is
the Word of God.
The Resurrection.
A man like Morrison went to write a
book against the Resurrection, ended up getting converted
and he wrote Who Roled the Stone to
prove the Resurrection.
Another man named Lou Wallace.
He went to write a book to prove
this Jesus thing was a myth.
He just goes, so look Wallace, we've got
to expose this Jesus myth.
So he went to write a book against
Jesus.
You know how Lou Wallace came to, famous
General Lou Wallace.
He knelt by the side of his bed
after his research for Jesus Christ as his
Savior.
And he wrote Ben Harry's testimony that he
believed in the Eucharisticity of the New Testament.
The Resurrection proved that the Bible is the
Word of God.
The moral teachings of Jesus prove that the
Bible is the Word of God.
The unity of the Bible written by so
many different men over hundreds and hundreds of
years and yet one beautiful picture of the
bride of salvation of God is the proof
that the Bible is the Word of God.
Every Christian that has ever had his life
transformed by the power of the Holy Ghost
is a proof, proof that the Bible is
the Word of God.
Every answer to prayer, think of George Mueller.
His book is over there as well.
It's an incredible biography.
It's unbelievable.
The end of his life, 30,000 answers
to prayer.
Still going strong at 80 years of age.
30,000 specific statements, answers to prayer.
He never took an offering but he's praying
in what would be equivalent today to 15
million dollars.
Not bad.
That's not bad at all.
How are you doing?
Keeping any records?
Answers to prayer?
No book?
Men like George Mueller, Huck and Taylor, T
.C. Stubbs, hundreds of other men who I've
had the privilege of studying, reading their books
are a proof that God is real.
The Bible is the Word.
It is Word, prayer, Israel, God answers prayer.
Sure there are problems.
I remember I had a seasick one day
going through the Red Sea listening to Dr.
Schaefer's tape on the five problems of a
man who doesn't believe the Bible.
You see there are problems for the man
who believes the Bible, most of us.
There are some problems, let's be honest.
Some expect a finite mind, understand the infinite
mind of God is what we need.
But God is real.
And I was listening to this tape by
Dr. Schaefer, only got a few minutes more,
a little bit of a late start, and
I was so challenged by that.
I remember telling him about this unbeliever in
Scotland who wrote a book against the Book
of Romans.
And Time Magazine reported this.
And you know, unbelievers, it was a Bible
they thought.
Time Magazine said a book had been written
showing that the Book of Romans was not
written by Paul.
And how can we believe the Bible is
the Word of God?
This may not be a problem for you
now, but many of you in the future
will face struggles along this line.
That's why it's good to lay a foundation
now, intellectually, as well as emotionally, and in
every other way, because God demands a total
man.
The Bible says love God with all your
heart.
Hallelujah.
Soul, the will, the mind.
The mind.
God wants our mind.
That's why men like Dr. Schaefer have been
used to bring thousands to Jesus, even though
he's an infallible.
And he told about this man who wrote
the Book of Romans.
He did it through a computer.
He wrote a book against the Book of
Romans.
He did it through a computer and showed
it to Romans for 15 offers.
He could do anything.
And so in any event, New York, I
believe it was New York, took this man's
book against the Book of Romans and used
the same computer program method, which was a
problem, it was a false method, and he
showed that this man's book was not written
by this fellow at half, it was written
by several people.
And I believe, I believe there are hundreds
of thousands of agnostics and unbelievers in our
nation, in our universe, who would come to
faith if they were presented the basic facts
about the Resurrection, the Book of Acts, without
infallible proof, infallible proof.
Men and women, brothers and sisters, we are
building on a firm foundation.
This is not a religious shift.
This is not an emotional joyride.
No hallelujah, there's emotion.
So many people are afraid of a little
emotion.
Joseph said, this is like sending a squadron
out to the cemetery to guard against a
midnight demonstration by the residents.
I don't think that's really our great problem
in most cases.
When I fell in love, there was emotion.
When you fall in love with Jesus, I
know most of you are, there will be
emotion.
And now, after 18 years of marriage, my
three-something teenagers have discovered that emotion didn't
provide me with all the answers.
It takes a mind.
It takes a will.
It's the crisis, the wedding, how do I
leave myself on the other side of that
white dress at the beginning of the week
and start pinching myself to keep from crying
at my own wedding?
But you know, I don't have to pinch
myself anymore.
Marriage is a reality.
I believe that Christian life is the parent's
life, the intellectual, the emotional, the discipline, the
blessing, the joy, the struggle, the suffering, the
victory.
And God, I believe in these things, wants
to put some of this paradox, apparent contradiction,
text into their minds.
God wants to put it together.
God, when we go from here, it will
be a success.
It will be following in the steps of
men like Paul who had the bachelor's degree
and the prisoner's degree but who also was
as a nursing mother of many families and
was 10, 13, 13 years.
Perfect father.
Two sisters going on for God and at
the other side in this nation.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we thank you for
your word.
We thank you for the balance of your
word.
We thank you for the way you can
put these things together.
We thank you for the many intellectual reasons
why we know your word is true.
Why we know that Jesus Christ died and
rose again.
And that if there's someone here even this
morning that has never surrendered to your will,
that has never really been born again of
your spirit, may they come to you in
humility and repentance this morning.
We thank you, our God, for the reality
of walking with you, for the power of
your Holy Spirit.
We thank you for all the different beautiful
people you have brought here from all over
the world.
And as we learn to relate with each
other and love one another and share one
another and lay down our lives for one
another, may we in turn go away from
here for six of years and every month
and every year a lifetime, a lifetime for
our blessed Lord Jesus Christ in whose name
we pray.
Amen.
God bless you.