We do praise you and thank you for
this opportunity just to be here and just
this place that you've provided this unique country
Where we can come together from surrounding lands
and be here together We believe this is
a significant meeting in terms of your work
here in this part of the world Really
help us now to Understand what you want
to say to us from your word in
Jesus name.
Amen Now Some of you were Listening to
me last night and you have to listen
again this morning.
This will not be the normal Practice for
the time together Generally, I'll just be sharing
once a day But we've just made a
slight change yesterday so I could Have that
one opportunity yesterday to share Some of you
have just arrived and we really want to
welcome you we will give names now as
we're also making the tape the One of
the requirements to be able to attend this
session was that you went through the nine
tapes of the last session in Putwal Or
you were you were there Some of you
have probably not been able to do that.
Probably didn't even know that but Communication down
to the grassroots level in India doesn't always
work But I have a very clear set
of notes of everything from Putwal.
Thanks to Steve Davis So that I don't
repeat things Some of the things I said
there I think are more important than what
I'm going to say here But I'm gonna
try to avoid repeating them to any great
degree And I trust that perhaps in time
I do have a set of those tapes
with me you will be able to Listen
to them It's interesting that one of the
things I emphasize most in my first message
last time was my burden to see people
Have a really proper diet of food on
the teams It's interesting because that's been one
of our major discussions here and I had
I Knew I knew of course I had
mentioned it, but I didn't know that it
was One of the main things I had
mentioned at Putwal.
I Think you're going to find this morning's
little talk quite different and Challenging one of
my greatest challenges to be able to come
up with material.
That's new Some of you have been around
a while.
You've had 100 per word messages if you
add them all up including tapes And just
the thought of having to listen to me
again.
I'm sure must ring a few Boredom bells
in the back of your head But you
take up the cross and press on And
you're here I'm gonna share with you this
morning something about this thing of testing the
spirits And I want you to turn with
me to first John chapter 4 First John
chapter 4 Forgive me, I'm still at times
preaching from the Authorized version I'm a Fanatic
believer in distributing especially to the unconverted the
most modern translations Even if they have what
evangelicals may consider a few errors Because I
think when unconverted people read some of these
translations It results in their minds hundreds of
errors, but I won't get into that this
morning Read from my authorized version beloved believe
not every spirit, but test the spirits whether
they are of God Because many false prophets
have gone out into the world By this
know ye the Spirit of God Every spirit
that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh is of God And every spirit
that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come
in the flesh not of God And this
is that spirit of Antichrist of which you
were heard Not it should come and even
now already it is in the world You're
of God little children have overcome them because
greater is he that is in you than
he That is in the world There's a
number of other scriptures that come to my
mind Especially how it explains that the enemy
sometimes comes in in sheep's clothing This Whole
area of discerning the will of God of
knowing when the Lord is speaking and when
our own ego is speaking is A huge
area of challenge no matter how long we
have been Christians we find It an enormous
challenge to know the will of God especially
when it comes to big big decisions And
I thought I would share with you this
morning in the way of the spiritual lesson
tied in with scriptures The story of Charles
Blair You probably know that two of the
most outstanding writers in the Western world are
John and Elizabeth Sherrill Anything they touch in
writing usually goes quite far and recently they
have produced a book With Charles Blair called
the man who could do no wrong This
book has made its slowly made its inroads
into OM I don't know if it's gotten
this far yet.
Has anyone read that book in this part
of the world?
Harley Rollins was reading it and just about
jumping through the telephone The Lord certainly ministered
to him about taking it a little easy
on the Georgia Warehouse project Through this particular
book and it's just been published in Great
Britain You probably don't know the name of
Charles Blair and that's not so important But
he was one of the leading evangelical pastors
in all of the United States Number of
books his articles were in all the magazines.
We had some exo emers involved in his
huge church Calvary Temple in Denver, Colorado where
hundreds and hundreds came to Christ and many
thousands gathered together and Charles Blair Built this
church through a system of borrowing money and
then had a vision from God he felt
to build a huge Giatric Center, I think
that's for older people, isn't it?
This huge older Old people's home old people
center.
I think it was a very elaborate thing.
I don't know that much about the plan
Things began to go wrong Eventually could not
pay back his loans and he was soon
in prison it was one of the largest
scandals among Christian leaders that America's had in
the past decade it was flashed across the
Denver papers and The name of Charles Blair
was mud I don't know if he was
ever able to pay back all these people.
I guess I have to read the book
and see what happened through this Came a
very honest a very unique and honest evaluation
of failure and that's what this book is
about How he failed why he failed what
he learned through that failure and I just
got this little excerpt I don't even know
where I got it But I found it
just so helpful Called lessons in listening.
I don't even know if it's exactly taken
from the book.
It looks like it is and The headings
provide an outstanding little message that I think
the Lord can use in our midst Let
me just read this first part.
I'm gonna read quite a lot of this
and then comment on it I don't believe
that God has us go through either success
or failure for ourselves alone There's something good
to remember, isn't it?
My experience happened to come through attempting to
build a giatric center geatric center but the
things I learned could apply equally well to
anyone in the act of building a young
couple building a home a career woman getting
started the officer of an organization all of
us are in the process of creating all
of us can face some variation of the
temptations which beckoned me and So I've spent
time reviewing what happened at Calvary Temple the
process of transformation is still going on I
Appreciate him saying that I have not achieved
complete permanent release from old habit patterns but
I have some hearing aids that I didn't
have before and Then he talks about some
of the hearing aids some of the things
that he feels He should use now to
really determine what God's will is what God's
plan is The first one he puts down
is linked with the scripture that we just
read Test the spirit behind your dreams The
Bible tells us to try spirits to see
if they are of God First John 4
1 which we just read to this day
I'm confused as to whether that original vision
for life centers the name of the place
Came from God or from my own ego
Seen as guidance it appeared to have lots
of confirmation But there were persistent Christian voices
challenging this It's a difficult area another major
scandal in the United States last year and
maybe the year before now Was the bankruptcy
of a Lagos publishing house?
This was probably more embarrassing than the Charles
Blair thing because the Lagos publishing house Represented
the miraculous more than any publishing house perhaps.
It's ever been launched One out of every
four books.
They published was about the miraculous God doing
anything everything Answers to prayer healings.
I think some of you know their publications
50% of them quite spectacular And the
story of the Lagos publishing house and its
bankruptcy is just it's just baffling just baffling
but again the leader of that Felt he
had a word from God and Even his
own board of trustees could not stop him
in his plan to launch a daily Christian
newspaper in the United States It's interesting that
Charles Blair brings out at the end beware
of prior Successes and it does seem that
the downfall of many Christian groups comes be
due to prior successes for example in OM
the thought that since we launched two ships
successfully a third ship would just be quite
easy I Would consider that an extremely dangerous
move as I think most of you know,
and I think you will be Happy to
know that there is an absolute Moratorium on
any third ship the bigger crisis is whether
two ships will be able to continue at
the present time So previous successes sometimes can
lead to failure That's what happened with Lagos
publishers This daily paper didn't go.
He kept borrowing money.
He was sure the Lord was in it
and People I don't know if you are
aware of how people gifted people can put
the screw and the pressure on people to
give money people mortgage their homes people give
everything they have and Then when it goes
bankrupt they get they don't get anything back
Many lost their life savings.
It lost everything they had.
I Don't know how much that was true
in the Charles Blair case, but it's certainly
true in a lot of these big bankruptcies
there's been a significant number of Major bankruptcies
among Christian organizations in the Western world that
happens, of course when you keep borrowing and
Of course, you eventually have to pay back
here.
You can't pay back you get more desperate
you borrow more This is how some of
the governments So the Mexican government has been
operating about 50% of the governments of
the world are operating in a very high
percentage of them are Bordering on bankruptcy, of
course in this gigantic world If somebody seems
to manage to come up with another loan
and the World Bank gets together and Hatches
another program if we got into that, I
think all of us would be just Just
really amazed And we don't want to get
into it.
All right his second hearing aid hearing aid
number one test the spirits behind your dreams
Remember tozers little outline of things you can
use to test the spirits.
You've all had messages on that.
Let's go to number two Unity between husband
and wife The primary person to question my
dream was Betty his wife She objected with
gentleness Because this was in her nature But
I never doubted her position We were not
in accord Today, I would not dare violate
the injunction of Ephesians Ephesians 5 521 thought
it would be good to look that verse
up and read it in its context context
Ephesians 5 21 Submitting
yourselves one to another in the fear of
God wives Submit yourselves unto your own husbands
as unto the Lord The husband is the
head of the wife even as Christ is
a head of the church and he is
the Savior of the body Therefore as the
church is subject unto Christ So let the
wise be to their own husbands and everything
husbands Love your wives even as Christ also
loved the church and gave himself for it
He writes here the front I already read
the first part of it.
We were not in accord today I would
not dare let dare violate the injunction of
Ephesians 521 That we be submitted one to
another it's interesting that probably some people Would
not connect verse 21 with verse 22.
They would feel that the teaching about wives
and husbands only begins at verse 22 He
feels it's all linked together.
I Think it's important to realize of course
that our wife isn't only our wife.
She's still a person She's still part of
the body of Christ.
She still has the ability to get guidance
from God and so I would Think that
he has a good point there.
I never really prayed through this major project
with Betty Until we were of one heart
and one mind.
I never really submitted my dream Until we
reached a place where we could say it
seemed good To the Holy Spirit and to
us acts 5 or acts 15 verse 28
so he is pointing out here that He
moved ahead with this project without his wife
really being of one heart with him it's
a complex area And probably more complex in
the Eastern world than in the Western world
at least for some people Probably also more
complex in certain churches.
There's a great variety of teaching in churches
even churches We are linked with about the
place of woman But I am sure most
of us.
I hope all of us in on will
never just Manipulate our wives into doing that
which we feel is God's plan Especially if
it's against her conscience And if she is
really seeing spiritual red lights now often in
the United States And it's true here.
I'm sure as well in some cases the
wife actually even has more education And has
maybe even read more widely and might even
be more involved in the church life or
as as involved as The husband so even
more so she would have a lot of
insight Thirdly the third hearing aid Seek a
body of spiritual peers The word peers is
not so widely used some places spiritual equals
People who are of equal stature If he
was a strong man that it would mean
men of strong spiritual stature the protection a
husband and wife provide each other can be
extended or supplied For for example the unmarried
person by entering into Relationship with a small
group of men and women committed to lift
one another up regularly to the throne of
grace Such group such a group provides not
only support But crucial in any time of
building correction I Woe to any of us
who get in a place where there's no
one living close enough to us and Who's
got enough courage to correct us?
It's just something we've emphasized in OM for
a long time provide needed correction This is
what makes spiritual peerage new term perhaps for
some Not age or education or social position
But willingness to speak the truth in Christ
Willingness to speak the truth in Christ Probably
a very difficult challenge Because we all know
situations when spiritual peers Had not have in
their effort to correct not only spoken the
truth Truth is not always easy to find
But it's interesting that in Lagos publishers the
board of directors felt definitely they must not
go ahead with this project Some of them
resigned in protest to the project and this
man still felt he must Go ahead with
the project.
I Don't know, you know how much of
that we have in the in this case
with Charles Blair Are your co-workers this
is really a strong valuable point to contemplate
Yeah number four Are your co-workers a
completion of yourself?
Or simply an extension Ideally in any Christian
undertaking There will be as many facets of
Christ personality represented as possible If I am
called to leadership and find helpers who are
simply echoes of myself.
I Double my strengths, but I also double
my weaknesses Now that's probably a little bit
More meaty than we might want to grasp
in one reading.
So I'll read it again Are your co
-workers a completion of yourself or simply an
extension?
Ideally in any Christian undertaking there will be
as many facets facets of Christ personality Represented
as possible if I am called to leadership
and Find helpers who are simply echoes of
myself.
I Double my strengths my strengths But I
also double my weaknesses And of course one
of the great problems In Christian work is
that when the Lord is really using us
we tend to meditate on our on our
strengths Why do evangelists so often get in
trouble probably 50% across the board evangelists?
They just seem to be the most vulnerable
We've seen them knocked out, you know from
Charles Templeton It was considered greater than Billy
Graham and became the reprobate of the day
right up to how Lindsay who was wiped
out through immorality communicated from this church and
Fortunately praise the Lord is is back walking
with Jesus today Even though it may be
with a new wife in an incredibly compromising
confusing situation but evangelists are vulnerable and one
of the reasons is because God is working
through them and They see tremendous things happen
You can't believe the things that some people
say, you know, even just skinny weak little
evangelists like myself You know the letters the
the the compliments the things they say after
the meeting the the introductions the man of
God bit I mean it really If you
aren't tied very much to the soil and
have had your tail kicked in so many
times You'll never forget it by others of
a more sane nature Some of that can
really it couldn't really get to you, especially
if you're isolated Then when that man who's
seeing a lot of successes is criticized.
It's very difficult to handle.
He's unable to To handle it and keep
it in balance the greatest strength in Billy
Graham and my study of him for 28
years More actually the only Christian I studied
much before I was converted It seems to
me that one of his greatest gifts and
graces.
It's a grace more than gift It's ability
to handle criticism If you're unable to handle
criticism, you're gonna have a long life of
suffering.
You're gonna get suffering anyway, but you'll get
Even more so that's that's a beautiful point
and I praise God that many many years
ago In OM we turned away from just
producing people who would be echoes of ourself
It went even extreme at times To be
anything that appeared like George Verwer would be
considered almost the cardinal sin of the movement
Beards popped up everywhere because I was against
beards all kinds of things took place as
the brothers made sure that they weren't just
little carbon copies of George Verwer and of
course people like Dale wrote on in the
work from the very beginning many others in
no way were they Sort of little echoes.
That doesn't mean we've never had that problem.
I Don't we could debate the subject any
subject we talked about we could debate as
to you know When that actually takes place
and I would be very slow to accuse
some poor new brother, you know Just being
a total phony.
I Had someone hit me once after preaching
at Moody as a young Christian, you know
It just came really having how you're trying
to be like Billy Graham.
You sounded just like Billy Graham Yeah, I
mean it certainly was never in my mind
that I was trying to be a little
Billy Graham if anything I probably got in
trouble Making sure I went a different direction
from the man.
I was converted through Who knows maybe I
missed a major aspect of what God would
have me do in evangelism Because the last
thing I wanted was to be some kind
of evangelist with a lot of publicity and
great meetings and all that kind of Thing
not that I was against Other people doing
that but I didn't feel that was my
way of course when I was first converted
I was immediately thrust in the big evangelistic
meetings and I gave Invitations and I gave
people copies of peace with God when they
accepted Christ Back in the high school, you
know the story so naturally people who are
New I mean they put all this together.
Anybody who has a meeting gives an invitation.
He's trying to be Billy Graham And it
is incredibly difficult at times To know how
to react to criticism not all criticism is
from God any more than all your ideas
are from God You have to be able
to sort it out.
That's why you need more than one counselor
and More than one peer that you can
consult with and pray with and even then
you probably have a total Answer.
Well, that's something to really give thought to
isn't it?
Fifth point I spent too much time reasoning
and not enough in storming heaven Too much
time reasoning and not enough in storming heaven
When time is short, the most important way
we can use it is in prayer praise
the Lord In any crisis there comes a
time when human logic is worthless And we
need the tools which are available to us
as the children of God more than usual
doing must be balanced by more than usual
praying I Repeat more than usual doing must
be balanced by more than usual praying It's
an amazing confession, I think One of the
things about his book that has really impressed
people is very very honest appraisal not a
hyper-defensive Type of book at all what
people have told me but a very very
Honest appraisal and that's what that seems to
communicate And how true it is and even
as we come here together Though we don't
have some new massive dream to launch Um,
we still desperately need that time in prayer
And I hope that there can be a
lot of spontaneous prayer in some of our
rooms Our rooms are better for prayer almost
than this room where we're going to practice
this Juan Carlos Ortiz I open type of
praying.
It's been going quite well But we can
have prayer cells often in our rooms.
We can have prayer two by two Because
we're trying to emphasize personal fellowship and It's
it's just a beautiful testimony Especially from the
nation where prayer has been so tremendously neglected
Because of the enormous power of money because
of many many very gifted people Because I
Guess of many many factors prayer is so
often Neglected and then his sixth point Impatience
was my biggest problem Impatience I Simply couldn't
wait Today, I have committed myself to a
new route When my timing is sorted, I
will divert my restlessness to prayer and do
nothing Until I have a clear directive from
God confirmed by the body Then we will
put our feet where he has trod Now
in OM today, of course for some people
the movement will seem a lot slower We
have a new vision every month of fairly
major proportion coming within OM new nations new
plans new ideas Recently a group in Mexico
and brother Dick was not there sat down
and drafted up I think 25 major points
of change they wanted in Mexico all they
need is perhaps a million dollars and a
couple of really super dedicated committed longer-term
Mexicans Maybe a hundred other answers to prayer
and they'd be off and running The Problem
is OM is not just Mexico OM is
35 nations If we count sending countries and
receiving countries, I don't know if you know
that terminology It's not the best terminology because
receiving countries are also sending Some are in
transition.
We've been trying to convert Mexico from a
receiving country that is receiving workers receiving Finance
receiving the thrust of our evangelism.
That's where we're going to their receiving country
receiving people We've been trying to shift that
from a receiving country to a sending country
and when the peso went From 20 pesos
to $1 to 120 pesos to $1 It
seemed that everything we had attempted for four
years was just sat back completely and that's
we can totally altered Our financial policy is
subject of great debate within OM India is
definitely a receiving country.
You have received more overseas personnel than any
nation in all of OM but you also
are To some degree a sending country first
of all within India.
You're sending people are being sent from Kerala
to Rajasthan.
So that's Sending and some have gone out
on Lagos to witness other countries others Of
course outside of OM have gone to places
like England and different parts of the world
in small numbers To carry the message usually
to your own people.
There are a couple of a couple of
beautiful exceptions cross-cultural activities, I think of
Brother I think is Pamar working in Kenya
in Mombasa Who's working among Muslims?
Is he just working on the Indians?
Oh mainly probably mainly among the Indians, but
still it's a Tremendous ministry that the Lord
has put him in in there.
We try to keep in contact with it
And I Would just really ask you to
pray that especially in some of our international
meetings and That will include the one we're
going to have in the next two days
as the Coordinators from the subcontinent meet together
here that we really would have wisdom We
we can't emphasize everything just we just can't
I Think if you'll study this Charles Blair
situation, you'll study the largest publishing situation.
You'll study a lot of other situations You'll
see that people who got in trouble they
overextended himself They overextended themselves and Christian work.
One of the main Things you must have
is communicate.
We hope to eventually produce a list Of
ministries that had their catalysts or their birth
In a sense through this same stream of
what God was doing trace back to the
prayers of that Elderly lady and it will
be quite an amazing list But I think
it's so important to see that This is
this is a part of the way that
God works God led Greg Livingston out of
the work not through any great division Not
because he was purged from the leadership, you
know, this isn't the Communist Party purge people
from the leadership It's just nonsense if people
think that Is clearly the Lord's guidance Greg
was sure he should leave actually ever before
he ever came along us You remember when
he was alive, he was convinced.
He should leave and I said look go
one more year overwearing Manipulation, maybe I don't
know but I met him in Colorado and
I really put the screw on him To
you know, try Lagos I thought I got
just just that'll fit you fine.
Yeah, it fit him like you know woman's
bathing costume on a giraffe and He he
just never never worked out.
Uh-huh, and it was so clear the
Lord was leading him out Sorry about that
You got to come up with something original
Some of you have two vivid imaginations And
It's so thrilling to see God's hand upon
Greg.
I won't repeat what I said two days
ago just about the way the Lord has
led Greg Greg is only one of a
hundred.
He's more known Greg's the kind that Easily,
you can see where he is, but there's
another hundred who?
More than a hundred, but I'm thinking of
a hundred who you know are really insignificant
ministries There's the other sense where everybody's ministry
significant, right the person who's unknown and they're
praying behind the scenes So I don't put
one above the other but I think you
know what?
I mean, and I believe as we saw
last time we were here that OM is
already in India stretched to breaking point.
We cannot add more numbers We cannot add
more major thrusts in more states So we
must therefore if we're going to grow if
we're going to continue to see Explosive and
great things happen then to some degree we
must be ready to hive off How if
church is grown?
One of the main ways churches grow is
When there's quite a big church and a
group are willing to hive off, you know,
you know that word hive off They're willing
to move off into another part of the
town and start another church Now sometimes they
maintain a very close link with the you
know, the mother church Other times they they
go they go their own way Many of
the assembly started or that were once in
relationship with with buck sing They've hived off
especially when they they drew up their Constitution
and took over the property There were some
more stubborn types that decided they weren't going
to sign their property over to the Hebron
Fellowship It was their wife bought the property
anyway, and they decided to keep it in
their own name Property and the property crisis
that those assemblies hit was the greatest disunity
and cause of disunity their movement I almost
ever experienced property often is but through it
New things happen and the church kept growing
a lot of the church growth in Britain
today is through division and Some of the
division isn't very pleasant Now you have two
sides of the argument and I don't want
to go too far down this road Number
one all carnality anything that sin it's wrong
Cannot justify but that doesn't mean God can't
use it and many even ugly divisions We
haven't had too many of those in a
way But even ugly divisions God is overruled
brought into being two living churches instead of
one and he was able to add more
to those two churches Then he was able
to add to the one And one of
the reasons people are people You know one
of the men who's influenced me lately.
I can't say a lot because I'm so
I'm influenced already by so many people.
I don't think anybody can come along anymore
and have a lion's share They're all just
gonna have a little bit But one of
the men who's influenced me in the past
years is Ralph winner I'll have to tell
you more about him in another session But
this man is unique and he has influence
Missions almost more than any single man probably
it would be difficult to know how much
of it we can trace back to others
because he's a he's an amalgamation of a
lot of different thoughts different people people like
McGovern and so many others, but I was
in this IFMA missions conference and some of
the older missions were saying what a problem
it is with so many new groups coming
on the scene and there's confusion and and
They were sort of emphasizing it's better to
have the bigger movements, and it's more efficient
There's less need for duplication of office staff,
and you know it's the argument Scripture Union
used to give in in England when we
arrived And of course some of those arguments
are valid bigger organizations They they can they
can have tremendous advantages Ralph winner got up
to speak and completely Completely attacked this theory
He this was this was at the IFMA
That's a big mission Association in America most
of those missions for a while the first
ten years are fairly skeptical about OM So
Ralph winner said oh, it's interesting now that
it's taken you people 25 years to accept
operation mobilization You know some of them slumped
down into their seat, and then he said
he personally still believed in the Sandlot mission
Now whenever you hear me speak you get
a course in American slang Or other slang
Berberian slang, but the Sandlot you know what
we mean by Sandlot You know we're little
kids in the States, and if your family
didn't have a lot of money There wasn't
a big park nearby and you wanted to
play baseball Britain it would be cricket You
just found any any empty piece of ground
Used to be an empty piece of ground
Near Alfie's house in Bombay actually I think
that was that was a proper field so
that one That would be too luxurious just
any piece of ground And you just have
your your baseball game your cricket game whenever
you're playing right there It's a very small
operation the press wasn't there there were no
you know those spectators except Johnny's dog might
be running around and So this was a
I never heard this term used the Sandlot
mission The small operation That's what OM was
OM was a Sandlot operation three people got
in a beat-up van and drove Several
thousand miles to get out a few tracks
and a few Gospels over a long period
of four weeks That was it they returned
to college and God somehow Took it from
there, and I I pray that OM may
may spawn a whole host of Sandlot missions
They don't have to be big things They
don't have to have a lot of publicity
We may not even know about them in
fact many of the individual Exoemers who have
graduated from OM term you like to use
here in India.
We can't get away with that in the
West We're still just exoemers but the graduates
Many of these people they're they're operating Sandlot
missions.
They're planting little church.
They got a little literature operation some of
them are even publishing tracks Things are happening
And it's exciting and the only way ahead
for OM Is is just to hive off
let people hive off Now the Lord has
many ways of doing this he allows differences
in ideas There's so many different ways to
think and still be a Christian isn't wonderful
All of you learned over the years you
don't agree with me on everything.
That's great But there comes a time when
your your your thoughts may be so different
from from the way OM is driving that
you'll just feel more comfortable if you can
get with a group.
That's more like minded I suppose you want
to pray go into a big church planting
ministry in Nagaland And there's a lot of
response up there some of you could go
up there and just blink your eye and
start a Sandlot Mission it's a lot happening
in Nagaland, and I know some exoemers have
gone up there but You know I'm praying
about it thinking about it as an international
body and because of our commitment in so
many parts of India We really don't feel
God wants us to plant churches in Nagaland
But we'd be thrilled if somebody goes and
launches an effort in Nagaland So catching the
vision is one thing, but then getting the
battle plan is something else You may have
a vision the battle plan may not be
to carry out that vision with you know
M It may be to carry that battle
plan somewhere else John for word.
I had an unbelievable I mean if there
was ever a dreamer and a guy with
visions and ideas in the Middle East was
John for word and We just felt after
a lot of prayer and discussion That it
was better for this to take place outside
of OM one of the reasons For this
was that when it gets out of a
lamp it can get new unique stronger financial
roots You know the the OM roots are
already being tapped To breaking point we need
new roots.
This is why it's so beautiful now the
quiet corner has got under caponry Rather than
having been quiet corner directly relating back to
OM as its grandfather It's relating to caponry
and Thomas went to caponry almost before he
joined on well.
He's with us summer, then he went to
caponry and And this means that when Thomas
Henry takes a trip to the States he
gets in churches that we don't get in
he presents the Indian vision in a place
where they maybe never heard it before and
So this gives new roots, and if the
work on the field trying to get this
if the work on the field is going
to go on there needs to be new
roots and And and when something is born
within OM Though we try often to help
it we also try to challenge it to
get new roots Ron George has just launched
a whole new ministry the Girdner trust every
magazine that has anything to say about Missions
that I pick up It's lately.
It's had a little article about the Girdner
trust I just got my copy of axe
little article about the Girdner trust and Ron
Though he's related to some people of course
XO embers and friends.
He's found new roots, and so he's not
just in any way some kind of Thing
that's just sort of you know living on
OM's energy or excessive OM energy.
It's finding new energy new roots new people
new prayer partners new churches It has a
distinct vision Most people who leave OM and
launch into something new if they're human beings
They're gonna be critical of OM let's not
be hyper defensive about OM I'm gonna be
loyal and We want to follow God's Word.
We don't want to be unloving, but it's
only normal that when God is allowing Bringing
into being a different movement That the person
is gonna be critical most of these different
groups that were born Through and in one
way or the other not all went through
a period in which they were fairly critical
of OM the Lord use That yeah, do
you think everything that's born is with only
pure motivation?
I will not use anything if there's any
false motivation God does not destroy the human
factor There's been much accomplished at times in
the kingdom of God Through mixed motivation because
God is God of mercy and If he
chops everything off where there's any mixed motivation
any ego any you know maybe a little
double talk maybe a little bit of conniving
God just lops it off.
You know a lot is gonna disappear some
of you may immediately go back on the
road to hell Because the person who led
you to Christ was with mixed motives time
and time again And time again, I've heard
of cases where some guy got his eye
on a pretty chick.
I mean a woman You gotta watch her
terminology And of course he was a Christian
so In moving in on the target he
had to share Christ and in the process
of trying to Get her in the bag.
She she accepted the Lord as her as
her Savior, but his motives were very mixed
His motives were very mixed God is a
God of mercy and Most people when they're
launching out and something new they go through
times also in which they may be negative
they go through times in which they may
feel that Their friends don't appreciate what they're
doing or their friends are not helping them
enough or all kinds of struggles The human
factor doesn't disappear.
I remember Gilbert Kirby was a one of
the main leaders of the evangelicals in Britain
I think we're supposed to finish at 50
that gives me two minutes He told me
at a meeting there's some people very much
criticizing.
Oh, em, this is 1963 in Britain They
called a Jerusalem meeting in London had mission
leaders.
You know here I was It's a little
character and all these mission leaders were in
around a table like this And some of
them were very critical and Gilbert Kirby defended
OM at that time to some degree.
This is pretty low profile And he said
anything new being born in that generation Would
have an extremely difficult time surfacing and being
accepted by the Christians And I don't think
we can realize how difficult it is at
times for anything new to be born People
are so critical so skeptical And OM is
a movement that battled its way up from
nothing with much criticism We must never lose
our compassion for the new Sandlot mission The
new thing being born.
They're not in this generation gonna be the
same as we were in our generation And
with all the differences of theology and emphasis,
I mean last day's ministry Keith Green, you
know God just so united our heart but
the differences between last day's ministry and operation
mobilization would be many I can assure you
and The same is true of our brothers
and sisters in why we're The same is
true of many groups I got a force
that I'm very very linked with the differences
even though they've tried to copy many things
from OM some degree The differences would be
huge If you could see them raising money
in their last convention where I spoke at
some of you probably have a heart attack
They actually brought in someone from the outside
to do it.
They weren't really totally even an agreement with
how it how it happened God works in
different ways through different people God allows people
to believe different things.
God allows a certain amount of error in
all of his children The more truth we
get of course the better God's calling us
on the truth truth is important, but God
allows us to have kinky ideas errors extremes
a lot of things and he continues to
work the last thing that Charles Blair's said
in this article.
There's nothing under it.
Just says beware of prior successes Just as
Failure can be the back door to success
Success can be should we say the front
door to failure?
And we need to beware of our successes
this man Had what was considered one of
the most successful ministries and churches in all
of the United States and Then this happened
OM has been considered by many mission leaders
much more so than by us IFMA has
asked us to join.
I just had another letter.
Yes, and they would like us to join
a A lot of other things a lot
of openings indicate success We must not be
overly afraid of Success and go to the
opposite direction But I at times have great
Concern that our initial successes May lead to
failure, of course with so many new people
coming in OM every year I don't think
we live in a movement.
That's too overly concerned about successes If anything,
I find that you know em, we at
times get too self-analytical too critical And
get depressed in the process.
Well, there's some lessons lessons in listening Some
of God's hearing aids test the spirit behind
your dreams Unity between husband and wife Seek
a body of spiritual peers Are you are
your co-workers a completion of you?
of yourself Don't spend too much time reasoning
and not enough time storming heaven problem of
impatience Catching God's vision is only half the
battle and beware of successes Let's pray Lord
we really thank you what we can learn
from other people This man has been in
the battle he's been scarred and wounded He's
been through things we haven't been through yet
court Indictment Prison Front page The
works We Lord pray for him in his
ongoing ministry We've distributed his books And we
asked Lord to use in Bible use this
book And we asked Lord that we may
learn We know wise is the man who
can learn from counsel because Any fool can
learn from his mistakes Unfortunately, sometimes we don't
even learn from them Lord we do.
Thank you for These lessons and we want
to incorporate them into our own lives, maybe
in a much smaller scale a Much smaller
scale and Lord maybe for some of us
The main thrust of this message isn't a
major thing, but some of the points are
incredibly relevant in our situation Give us great
wisdom Jesus named Amen