I would like to share a number of
things this morning that I really believe will
be a challenge to you and provide some
thought for discussion.
I especially would like to share something with
you about what to do when you have
a spiritual emergency.
I shared this with the main area leaders,
or perhaps it was the Asian leaders, very,
very early, but I don't think any of
you were here at that time.
And I really believe, just as they very
much appreciated it, Thomas Mattai said he was
going to print it up immediately in his
Molly Allum Spiritual Evolution.
I thought that it would be good to
share this with you and I trust it
will prove to be a real challenge and
a blessing.
We all run into spiritual emergencies.
On our teams, suddenly a terrific crisis flares
up and we get hurt, somebody gets hurt.
And so when I found this little article,
Ten Steps, First Aid for Spiritual Emergencies, I
typed it up and put it in my
quotation book.
In event of injury inflicted by a brother
or sister in Christ, follow these procedures.
Number one, some of you are nurses of
course, probably already aware of all these things.
Number one, keep calm.
Still your soul before God at the moment
of impact.
Be still and know that I am God.
Rushing about, trying to correct the injury, usually
causes greater damage.
Number two, apply direct pressure of understanding to
the wound.
What caused the incident?
Could you have prevented it?
Negligent?
How does the offending party feel?
What if things were reversed?
Then what?
Three, wash the wound thoroughly with kindness to
remove all harshness and vindictiveness.
I'll repeat, wash the wound thoroughly with kindness
to remove all harshness and vindictiveness.
Four, cope liberally with the ointment of love.
This will protect from the infections of resentment
and bitterness.
Cope the wound liberally with the ointment of
love.
This will protect from the infections of resentment
and bitterness.
Five, bandage the injury with forgiveness.
This will keep it out of sight until
the wound is healed.
Bandage the injury with forgiveness.
After the meeting, at any time, you can
borrow my little book if you want to
copy these things direct.
Six, don't pick the scab off.
By bringing up the subject and opening your
wound, serious danger from the infections in number
four still exists.
This could be fatal spiritually.
Seven, beware of self-pity, which is painful
and touchy.
This is often referred to as withdrawal pains,
evidenced by the injured one withdrawing from others,
especially the one inflicting the injury.
Remedy, accept apologies.
That's beware of self-pity, which is painful
and touchy.
Eight, prescription.
Prescription, take a generous dose of antibiotics from
the word of God several times daily, using
prayer each time.
This has a soothing effect and is definitely
a good pain killer.
Nine, stay in close contact with the great
physician at all times.
Depend upon his strength, joy, and peace to
help you in your convalescence.
Stay in close contact with the great physician.
Ten, evidence of full recovery is noticed when
the patient is in full fellowship and harmony,
especially with the offending party.
Taken from an article called Midway Manor of
Cathedral Press.
Midway Manor of Cathedral Press.
Yes, I think we could perhaps do that.
So many things we'd like to get duplicated.
Someone would like to follow through.
The next thing is a story.
I thought you'd all like a story.
And some of you have heard this story,
sorry about that.
Some of you people seem to pop up
in the strangest places.
This is the story of the Duke of
Norfolk.
How many have heard this story of the
Duke of Norfolk?
Oh, you've probably all forgotten.
Anyway, the Duke of Norfolk was a very
famous man.
And one day, he used to go out
in disguise, sort of dressed like any ordinary
bloke.
And he was in a railway station near
the castle where he lived.
And a little Irish girl got off the
train.
And she only had a shilling.
But she had a very, very big bundle,
a huge bundle that she had to carry.
Apparently, she was coming to work as a
servant in the castle.
And the porter wasn't too interested in helping
her for a measly shilling.
So she didn't know quite what to do.
And the Duke of Norfolk, in disguise, offered
to carry her bundle, this large bundle, up
to the castle.
Of course, he didn't tell her who he
was.
And when he arrived at the castle, she
was so thankful, she offered him the shilling.
And the Duke of Norfolk took the shilling
and went away.
What did we learn from this little story?
I've written down these things, all received from
someone else.
One, it is never safe to judge a
man by externals.
Never safe to judge a man by externals.
How easily we do that in O.M.
India and everywhere else.
Someday we may discover it was Jesus Christ
himself in disguise.
I've often wondered if Jesus doesn't revisit the
earth from time to time in disguise.
Certainly, as the King of Kings and Lord
of Lords, he would have that privilege.
Two, a great man is always a thoughtful
man.
A great man is always a thoughtful man.
One of the accusations against some people on
O.M., men more than women, is a
lack of thoughtfulness.
And sometimes we're looking for some great supersonic
special experience or revelation, and some of the
things we need in our life are much
more basic.
In fact, some unsaved people have them, without
any of the Holy Spirit.
And when people who claim to know God
and worship God and be filled with the
Spirit, or even half-filled, and can't demonstrate
just some basic courtesy, thoughtfulness, common sense, certainly
the work of God is in great danger.
Three, there is grace in taking as well
as giving.
There is grace in taking as well as
giving.
Different people wrestle with this problem in different
ways.
Some don't have any trouble at all taking
and have difficulty giving.
And other people, because of pride, are able
to give, but find it difficult to take,
to receive.
Four, the truly great man does not think
of his place or his prestige.
Wow.
Some of the troubles we have had in
India is because people felt their leadership wasn't
being respected, or their seniority, which we've said
again and again in O.M., we don't
even believe it.
How many years you were in O.M.
or how old you are, that wasn't respected.
Under this fourth section, there's a few interesting
thoughts that I gleaned from this particular book.
One, it is only little people who think
how great they are.
It is only little people who think how
great they are.
And I just want to give you a
little discussion.
It is only unimportant people who think how
important they are.
It is only unimportant people who think how
important they are.
I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to
that.
There is nothing in this world which is
a sure sign of a small mind than
the complaint that one did not get one's
place.
There is nothing in this world which is
a sure sign of a small mind than
the complaint that one did not get one's
place, and there is no motive in this
world that is more wrong than the desire
for prestige.
In the last analysis, to the truly great
man, no act of service can possibly be
humiliating.
To the truly great man, no act of
service can possibly be humiliating.
Quite a challenge.
All right, now I'd like to share something
for you to think about concerning world evangelism.
This is by Tozer.
Again, a few of you may have thought
about this.
Don't try to copy this down.
The task of the Church is twofold.
To spread Christianity throughout the world, and to
make sure that the Christianity she spreads is
the pure New Testament kind.
Christianity will always produce itself after its kind.
A worldly-minded, unspiritual Church is sure to
bring forth on other shores a Christianity much
like her own.
Not the naked word only, but the character
of the witness determines the quality of the
convert.
The popular notion that the first obligation of
the Church is to spread the gospel to
the uttermost parts of the earth is false.
That may create some discussion.
Her first obligation is to be spiritually worthy
to spread it.
To spread an effy or false, degenerate brand
of Christianity to pagan lands is not to
fulfill the commandment of Christ.
Many, many times my heart has been forced
to think about that.
Now I'd like to share something about the
self-life that has a terrific depth to
it, mainly all taken from studies of the
Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martin Lloyd
-Jones.
Interesting that he refers to George Mueller in
this particular section of his study.
You can't possibly write this down.
Just ponder on these words as they come,
because it's very, very, very strong.
The whole trouble in life, as we have
seen, is ultimately this concern about self and
what our Lord is inculcating here, or referring
to here, is that it is something of
which we must rid ourselves entirely.
We must rid ourselves of this constant tendency
to be watching the interests of self.
To be always on the lookout for insults
or attacks or injuries.
Always in this defensive attitude.
That is the kind of thing he has
in mind.
All that must disappear.
And that, of course, means we must cease
to be sensitive about self.
This morbid sensitiveness, this whole condition in which
self is, quote, on edge, and so delicately
and sensitively poised and balanced that the slightest
disturbance can upset its equilibrium, must be got
rid of.
It's good to have a little pause just
to let that sink in.
The condition here which our Lord is describing
is one in which a man simply cannot
be hurt.
Perhaps that is the most radical form in
which one can put this statement.
He goes on to say, whenever I notice
in myself a reaction or self-defense or
a sense of annoyance or a grievance or
a feeling that I have been hurt and
wronged and am suffering injustice, the moment I
feel this defensive mechanism coming into play, I
must just quietly face myself and ask the
following questions.
Why does this exactly upset me?
Why am I grieved by it?
What is my real concern at this point?
Am I really concerned for some general principle
of justice and righteousness?
Am I really moved and disturbed because I
have some true cause at heart or let
me face it honestly, and is it just
myself?
Is it just this horrible, foul self-centeredness
and self-concern, this morbid condition into which
I have got?
Is it nothing unhealthy and unpleasant pride?
Self-examination is essential if we are to
conquer in this matter.
We all know this by experience.
How easy it is to explain it in
some other way.
We must learn or listen to the voice
that speaks within us.
And it says, now you know perfectly well
it is just yourself and that horrid pride,
that concern about yourself and your reputation and
your greatness.
If it is that, we must admit it
and confess it.
It will be extremely painful, of course.
And yet, if we want to rise to
our Lord's teaching, we have to pass through
such a process.
It is the denial of self.
Going on, a statement which the great George
Muller once made about himself seems to illustrate
this very clearly.
He writes like this.
There was a day when I died, utterly
died to George Muller and his opinions, preferences,
tastes, and will.
Died to the world, its approval or its
censure.
Died to the approval or blame of even
my brethren and friends.
Since then, I have studied only to show
myself approved unto God.
That is a statement to be pondered deeply.
I cannot imagine a more perfect and adequate
summary of our Lord's teaching in this paragraph
than that.
Muller was enabled to die to the world
and its approval and its censure.
To die even to the approval or censure
of his friends and most intimate companions.
We should notice the order in which he
puts it.
First, it was the approval and censure of
the world, then the approval and censure of
his intimate friends.
All taken from Martin Lloyd-Jones' studies in
the Sermon on the Mount.
Now, way, way back in the earliest days
of OM, through messages by Roy Hesher, through
Keswick's sermons, through Alan Redpath, through various books
and directly from his work, a small nucleus
of us became absolutely convinced that this was
the most important thing in the Christian life.
To die to self and to live a
crucified life.
And to really begin to experience reality in
this area.
This was our highest goal, far beyond our
burden for evangelism.
People often talk about the early principles of
the work.
Most of the people talking about it weren't
even there to know what the early principles
were.
This was one of the early principles.
And we were convinced that team unity was
built out of people having an experience with
the cross and really knowing this kind of
very, very, very heavy truth that we've just
been reading about.
Now, we realize that to make this kind
of life our goal is the highest possible
aim we can ever get.
It's easier to gather decisions for Christ anywhere
than it is to put this kind of
thing into practice in your own life.
Activism can be easily the substitute for really
growing into a Christ-like person and Christ
-like individual.
And yet, without being active, which is not
activism, without being active and without being in
the warfare, often it's impossible for the Lord
to give us the full range of tests
that he wants to give us to expose
all these hidden rudiments and areas of the
self-life.
And this is why many people have learned
something of this way of life through getting
involved in this training program.
And as we leave this place in just,
say, ten days' time, certainly one of our
highest goals should be the continual destruction of
the self-life in all of its many
aspects.
Everything I read you this morning can be
summed up in one term, becoming more like
Jesus Christ.
And yet, if we are honest, we have
to acknowledge that some of Owen's teams are
nigh unto spiritually bankrupt when it comes to
really demonstrating this kind of life.
Isn't it interesting that the group who can
distribute Calvary Road in twenty languages all over
the world has such a difficulty putting it
into practice under pressure in their local situation?
And we know that in some situations the
testimony of O.M. is not what it
should be because of demonstrations of the carnal
heart.
Someone described the carnal heart as being like
a balloon.
You push it in one place and it
just comes out in the other.
And if in O.M. our efforts are
merely to sort of discipline the carnal heart
without really dealing the death blow, we will
just push in one side and it will
just pop out somewhere else.
And we'll push that in and it will
just again pop out somewhere else.
There has to be a willingness to die
to self.
One of the main messages in O.M.
has been the message of brokenness.
So impressed was William MacDonald through his early
contact with O.M. when he was the
principal of a mass Bible school, especially affirming
seeing brothers repenting, seeing them go to other
brothers and breaking and repenting and saying they
were sorry that he wrote the little booklet,
Lord Break Me.
He had never used that terminology before in
his spiritual life.
He heard it in an O.M. night
of prayer where he humbled himself as a
principal of the school and came to pray
with all these nobodies and he saw people
before the Lord praying one main prayer, Lord
Break.
He wondered, what is this?
And so he wrote this booklet which some
of you maybe have now read called Lord
Break Me.
I noticed a strong emphasis in the ministry
of John's son when I was reading yesterday
that he was very strong on people making
restitution, people putting things right, people who stole
must return all the money, people who hurt
someone verbally must put it right.
And to me that would mean, for example,
if I spoke against Brother Mike Wheat, something
that he maybe had never even heard, I
wouldn't go to him.
That doesn't make restitution.
I have to go to the people I
spoke to about him and tell them, look,
what I said about Brother Mike Wheat is
not correct.
I gave a wrong impression.
I repented that.
And go to the next one, what I
said about Brother Mike Wheat is not correct.
I don't even need to go to him.
If I know that he knows, of course,
and it's become a public thing, then I
may want to go to him as well.
When a brother doesn't even know something, I
think to go to him isn't necessarily an
act of love.
And yet sometimes the hardest thing for us
to do is to repent and deal with
sin in this way, to really go to
somebody or to put something right.
Of course, there are other things that we
have done to people that they know all
too well.
In that case, we should go directly to
them.
If we have been offensive to our own
parents, they, of course, I'm sure must know
it.
I think letters back home, putting things right
with our parents are necessary, not to gain
forgiveness.
We are not forgiven by running around putting
things right, but to be able to appropriate
all that God wants to give us in
that experience.
Sure, we can appropriate some grace when sometimes
we don't do restitution.
Some people are mixed up as to whether
they should do restitution or not.
God is a God of mercy.
I think one of the greatest mistakes many
people make is they are totally black and
white in their thinking.
They either think, for example today, they're walking
completely in the Spirit or they're totally in
the flesh.
Most of you know very well how you've
specialized in going back even in one day
between the two.
There are many gray areas in one's walk
with God.
Fortunately, oftentimes, when we're walking in a gray
area, God, by His mercy, still accepts our
feeble offering and somehow uses us for His
glory.
I wrote down something especially for the ladies.
I never like to leave the ladies out.
This is from a woman named Alshorn.
Her book is not very widely known.
I'm just looking in my little index to
see if I can, in fact, find this
quotation.
Yes, here it is, page 16.
My book is coming apart.
Florence Alshorn, she was a missionary.
This is a biography by J.H. Oldham,
page 75.
Girls, you better get ready for this one.
If Christ cannot save me, the men, by
the way, have the same problem.
If Christ cannot save me from those things
that jar on my fellow missionary, then I
have but a thin message of salvation.
And if I cannot help my English sister
to get through certain selfish attitudes which create
unhappiness for myself or anyone else, how can
I say that I have come to help
my African or Indian sister to get through
hers?
There's a lot in that.
We shall have to realize that in building
up the recruit, the mental and emotional health
is of even more importance than the health
of the body.
Few men, I think, can fully understand how
much the emotional life of a woman plays
in the matter of her health.
And this is far more acute in tropical
countries.
What is it, she asks, in later years
that prevents people from becoming effective leaders?
Chiefly, the fact that they stopped growing.
They stopped growing.
They tried to face very complicated problems and
tasks at an immature level of spiritual life
and give up falling back on that most
dolorous of all refugees, spiritual window dressing.
There's a lot in that little statement, again,
that is very much linked with the very
inner being of our life.
Now, this self-life we're talking about, that
is so easily hurt, so easily disturbed, and
all the rest, of course, is completely linked
with our emotional life.
As leaders or followers, I think we need
to give a little more consideration to people's
emotional life, especially as we're working in a
strange land.
Now, oftentimes I can speak very hard to
the foreigners.
I don't get too much trouble.
Sometimes if I say something too hard to
some Indians, it could be misunderstood.
I beg of you not to misunderstand me,
my Indian brothers, because in OM we work
as complete equals, absolutely equals in God's Word.
Therefore, we can also equally take the knife
of God's Word.
But sometimes Indians are very, very slow and
insensitive to terrific struggles that foreigners are going
through in their own country.
And they only learn something about this when
they got into a foreign country and fell
apart in a matter of weeks, or got
onto the ship and spent weeks in loneliness
and with all kinds of emotional problems that
they never thought they had.
Just as foreigners who come to India must
be patient and must adapt to the culture
and they must go through terrific orientations, very
few can understand even what it is for
a Westerner to live on this kind of
Indian food diet.
Not just stomach-wise, emotionally, mentally, it can
affect a person.
And so, just as the foreigner must come
and adapt and die to self, fall into
the ground, they could be greatly helped in
this process by Indians who realize that foreigners
are just as they, human beings with struggles
and battles and fears and that some of
them live perpetually, emotionally, within five feet of
the airplane that will deliver them from it
all and put them back in the homeland.
I think it's a very, very beautiful thing
in OM the way foreigners and Westerners have
been able to work together in a relative
amount of peace and harmony.
In wanting to study about how to do
this when we first came to India, I
can assure you there was very little material.
Because foreigners, living together with Indians in the
backs of trucks, eating rice and subji and
rice and subji and rice and more subji
day after day, giving out tracts, selling gospel
packets and engaged in other humiliating activities, in
some people's thinking, there was not much material
for me to review in order to present
OM India with how to do this kind
of work.
This is one of the great benefits of
youth and this is why my burden is
to bring single people basically into this work
because I do not believe most people, once
they get set into their life with their
families, would ever be able to adapt to
this kind of lifestyle, this kind of environment.
Of course, there have been, even in the
past, beautiful examples of individual missionaries who have
adapted and who lived this way long before
any little OM brother came on the scene.
But they were a minority group, I can
assure you.
There are many complications when we try to
have an international and intercultural work.
Many complications.
And this is one of the values of
a conference like this, to be able to
openly talk, just in fellowshipping every day here,
fellowshipping about three-fourths of the time with
Indian brothers, one-fourth of the time with
foreigners, just in talking to them, letting them
share their burdens and their questions.
I can assure you we are in two
different worlds.
The Westerner and the Indian are very, very,
very distinct in the things that they're concerned
about, the questions they ask, their whole thought
process.
There are exceptions.
There are some foreigners who are beginning to
become very Indian.
There are, of course, some Indians who begin
to be very, very Western.
Now, there's nothing wrong with this, but we
can see when we understand this why it
is not going to be easy to have
real fellowship.
I feel on some of the teams, all
we get is a mutual toleration society.
The Indians are tolerating this foreigner.
They know that he's the truck driver.
How are we going to go anywhere without
the truck?
They know also he's short term.
He'll soon be leaving.
So there is a toleration.
Also, some of the foreigners can be very,
very, very cold and just barely tolerating some
of the Indian brothers.
They try to speak to this brother and
he doesn't seem to say too much.
And he makes a few efforts to fellowship.
He thinks of aiming toward fellowship in depth.
He doesn't get anywhere.
And so he gives up.
We have a lot of this giving up,
more than we will admit, on trying to
build deep relations.
We realize some foreigners can more easily relate
to an Indian.
But as an Indian brother, you don't want
to just have fellowship with the one who
finds it easy to relate to you.
As a man who wants to respond to
a challenge, you will try to break into
that more shy, reserved foreigner who finds it
difficult perhaps to fellowship with anybody.
You may think that he has got prejudices
against you as an Indian.
In fact, he never had any fellowship with
anybody in his own country either and was
basically a withdrawn introvert.
So it's not that he's in India and
he doesn't like you.
It's that he's an introvert, he's shy, he
doesn't know how to relate to people and
he's got emotional struggles and he needs your
help and your love just as probably it's
true vice versa.
So we need to take this on as
a challenge.
We need to see how death to the
self-life and coming into greater spiritual reality
is going to open the doors of fellowship
and build true relationships that are going to
last all of eternity because someday we're all
going to be in heaven together.
And if we're going to have all of
heaven together, it might be good to start
to get to know one another here.
These things, the way of true fellowship, is
as important in many ways as the way
of evangelism.
They work together.
Think of the powerhouse a team is when
they are really in fellowship with one another,
really walking in the light, really living in
brokenness, really experiencing the crucified life.
Can you think of a power that can
be released by such a team?
What is the purpose of having long prayer
meetings with people who are not even getting
on with each other, not even really loving
one another?
Can our prayers go any higher than the
ceiling if there are things in our hearts
and grievances and questions and doubts and jealousies
and fears and even shyness?
Certainly spiritual reality opens the way for true
prayer, which in turn will open the way
for accomplishing the job that God has put
on our heart, the evangelization of India.
I wrote something down that really helped me.
Again, very similar to the C.S. quote,
which I'm always giving C.S. Lewis.
He had the tendency to think and not
to act, the tendency to feel and not
to act, and if we go on thinking
and feeling without acting, someday we'll not be
able to act.
You've all heard that many times.
But he was a similar one that helped
me in trying to understand why there is
not more action when there is so much
in the mouth.
So much of the trouble in life is
due to the division of our lives into
emotion and action.
It is not that we do not feel
pity or compassion.
It is that so often the pity and
the compassion remain untranslated into action because so
often we are not prepared to make the
sacrifice which action involves.
That's the key sentence.
So often we are not prepared to make
the sacrifice which action involves.
Almost all of us lie under this condemnation
for in many ways selfishness and self-centeredness
are the essential human sins.
Self-centeredness and selfishness are the essential human
sins.
What a challenge that is to our hearts.
I think that is very, very much related
to another quotation which you may or may
not have that is extremely important for the
work in India.
And that is the need to be able
to distinguish and again I've been speaking so
often I may be confused as to whether
I've already given this even in the evening
meeting but it's worth hearing again because you
couldn't have written it then.
But the need to be able to distinguish
between a spiritual burden from the Lord and
a religious irritation.
Something that's bugging you, something that's bothering you.
Someone has touched one of your holy cows
as someone once taught me and it is
bothering you and you are deceiving yourself thinking
this is a burden from the Lord.
It is a religious irritation.
You have been upset, you have been irritated.
Irritability is sin.
One of the most subtle sins and one
of the most personal sins in my own
life.
I am an irritable person.
In myself I'm a fussy, cranky, old, irritable
twit who should be shoved down a tube
somewhere and a cork put on top.
In myself.
In Christ I know that I have the
fruit of his Holy Spirit but I'm aware
of the ministry this morning being probably more
for myself than anyone else.
And I'm determined if it takes my whole
life to know more of true crucified living
and true spirituality.
And one of the reasons I think I
stay in OM is that it seems to
be an ideal grinding machine to work some
of these things into the fiber of your
life.
It requires great care, this is Tozer again,
and a true knowledge of ourselves.
Great care.
Most of us don't have that much.
True knowledge of ourselves to be able to
distinguish a spiritual burden from a religious irritation.
Often acts done in a spirit of religious
irritation have consequences far beyond anything we could
have guessed.
Always it is more important that we retain
a right spirit toward others than that we
bring them to our way of thinking.
Even if our way is right.
Satan cares little whether we go astray after
a false doctrine or merely turn sour.
Either way, he wins.
Satan cares little whether we go astray after
a false doctrine or merely turn sour.
Either way, he wins.
In the light of what I've said, I
would like to read some scriptures that I
believe are absolutely relevant to the whole development
of spiritual life in each one of us.
I believe many of these things we have
been reading, if not all, are clearly based
on the Word of God.
People are expressing from experience and in their
own terms the very foundational teaching of scripture.
Let us look at some scriptures to just
further allow the Spirit of God by His
Word to work in our own hearts.
The book of Galatians, chapter 5, verse 13.
Galatians 5, verse 13.
For brethren, you have been called unto liberty.
Only use not liberty for an occasion to
the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Serving one another.
What a significant part of life art thou.
Another place it says that we are to
outdo one another in good works.
Not generally the main competition going on, especially
in the mornings early.
By love serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one
word, even in this.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Now a description of too many churches.
But if you bite and devour one another,
take heed that ye be not consumed one
another.
The Muslims and the Hindus do not need
to attack us in India.
We are devouring ourselves.
Satan doesn't need to send armies of Muslims
with swords to kill the Christians as he
once tried.
He's just leaving the Christians to themselves and
they're managing to devour each other.
Churches, assemblies, groups, embezzlements, impurities.
You've all seen it if you've worked in
India very long and it's not just India.
Now what a challenge this is.
If you bite and devour one another, take
heed that ye be not consumed one another.
This I say then, walk in the spirit
and you shall not fulfill the lusts of
the flesh.
Then it gives some examples.
We'll bypass the negative if you've read that
and go on to verse 22.
But the fruit of the spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness,
self-control.
Against such there is no law, but here's
the way it's done.
That they that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh with the affections and lusts.
If we live in the spirit, let us
also walk in the spirit.
Let us not be desirous of vain glory,
provoking one another, envying one another.
What incredibly penetrating words we have here.
And if we're tempted to grow weary in
such an awesome challenge, we can read verse
9 and let us in chapter 6 not
be weary in well-doing.
For in due season we shall reap if
we faint not.
Turning over to the book of Ephesians, we
find also some very penetrating words.
Verse 15 of chapter 4.
But speaking the truth in love may grow
up into him in all things who is
the head, even Christ.
Many of you in this room are on
a level in OM in which you are
supporting the existing leader.
The main leaders are not in the, at
least most of them, are not in this
session.
Some are here leading discussion groups.
You are the vital link in God's plan
to keep that leader functioning in a happy
and healthy way.
Very few leaders can make it through if
they don't have a faithful number two man.
And it is harder to be number two
for most people than to be number one.
The number two man is going to be
close to the leader he will therefore see
the leader's weaknesses more than most.
And if he is not careful he can
be used of the evil one to undermine
the leader's total authority on the team.
We've had cases with people openly challenging the
leader in front of the whole group.
Major error.
If you have something against a brother you
should go to him clearly alone and speak
to him privately.
Not with even in range of other people's
ears because some brothers in India, we don't
know who they are, sisters as well, only
God knows, but they have long ears.
They have supersonic transistor ears that can pick
up stories from long distances and manage to
screw them up and transmit them off to
someone else and how deadly he is.
So when you have a burden or a
grievance about your leader how much wiser it
is to go off alone.
You have some great truth to share with
him.
You have been enlightened more than he.
So you are going to share some truth.
But the word says, speaking the truth in
love.
So often it's not what we say that
gives all the difficulty.
It is how we say it.
It is the insinuation that goes with the
few sentences we're giving that causes miscommunication, distrust,
and confusion.
Ephesians chapter 4, by the way, is certainly
a mountain peak of inspiration when it comes
to the Christian life.
Let us look at verse 30.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God
by whom ye are sealed unto the day
of redemption.
Verse 30, chapter 4.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and
clamor and evil speaking be put away from
you with all malice.
And here's a key verse that we should
all memorize.
And be kind one to another, tender hearted,
forgiving one another even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you.
These themes across India will not work without
a continued spirit of forgiveness.
Mistakes are going to be made.
In fact, this very message the devil can
try to use to bring difficulty.
Because instead of seeing the application of this
strong word about the self-life and the
need for the crucified life and Christ-likeness,
instead of applying this to ourself, we will
increase the standard at which we expect our
leader to live.
And when we see him breaking some of
these principles, we will be quick to judge
or we will lose our respect for him
or something else.
Satan is not stupid.
Do you not think he knows how to
counter-attack even a session like this in
which we're looking at some of the greatest
jewels of his word?
Do you think he's been around for thousands
of years watching blue movies?
Satan is aware of the greatest challenge God
has given to us to become more Christ
-like and he'll do everything he can to
hinder it.
I have seen this in my own marriage.
I'm so idealistic, I have such high goals
that instead of keeping most of my aim
at my own personal life and being sensitive
about any area of sin, I can start
getting upset or concerned because I feel my
wife is not living up to this high
standard in Jesus Christ.
That is one of the greatest mistakes a
husband can make.
A wife can do the same thing.
And everything we receive from God's word must
be kept in total balance with other truths
that he has already given us.
How important that is.
Become one to another.
Is that one of your mottos?
Tender-hearted.
How much do you know about that?
Forgiving one another.
Even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you.
And then we go into the fifth chapter,
one that the whole chapter should be memorized.
I've managed to memorize it.
I forget good chunks of it, but it's
in my subconscious, and so I'm not going
to be discouraged by this.
It speaks about walking in love.
And it goes on to give such a
beautiful description of life in the spirit.
And then it goes on giving these beautiful
instructions to husbands and wives, which we feebly
expounded the other day, to some degree, at
one of the married couples' sessions.
And then we go into Ephesians 6, which
we all know, and which, of course, shows
us how to put on the armor of
God that we can stand against the wiles
of Satan.
This rather disjointed message that I have shared
with you this morning, if anything, is the
heartbeat of Operation Mobilization.
Christ living in people.
Christ continuing his work of destroying the remnants
of the self-life and bringing us into
freedom and into reality.
And God is probably going to arrange your
circumstances this coming year in some amazing way
to bring you more and more into this
type of brokenness, Christ-likeness, unselfishness, and purity
of life.
There are many names you can put on
this life, many labels.
The spirit-filled life, the victorious life, the
life of the cross, the exchange life.
It's easier to get labels than it is
to get the ingredients.
Don't be satisfied arguing over labels.
Different groups and different conventions and conferences manufacture
different labels.
Instead of giving people the message of life,
they give them a label to carry out
the door when they go home so they
can judge others who don't have the same
label.
Any true spiritual work of God in your
life will not produce a super-spirituality or
a critical spirit, but will produce a spirit
of humility and brokenness.
Do not confuse, however, cowardness or cowardice with
humility.
Do not think because someone is shy and
quiet and does everything he's told that somehow
he is a humble brother.
He may be a frightened brother, not a
humble brother.
Humility has its many, many dimensions.
Jesus Christ was a meek man, but you
would hardly say that he was on the
retreat as you see him go forward in
his ministry.
I want to close by reading something about
Fanny Crosby, which is very precious and beautiful
and indicates the kind of reality this woman
had, which is also expressed in her many,
many songs.
Keeping in mind that one of the greatest
difficulties in life that some of you are
going to have to face is suffering.
All of this can sound very nice and
we can begin to put it into practice
until suddenly into our life comes some tremendous
suffering.
Then we begin to question why.
We're thrown off balance.
Suffering may even prevent us from engaging in
what we feel is the calling of our
life.
Very few have faced suffering as beautifully as
Fanny Crosby.
Let me read these words about her suffering.
In talking to herself, she said, this is
Fanny Crosby, Fanny, there are many worse things
than blindness.
She was totally blind.
Totally blind.
That might have happened to you.
The loss of the mind is a thousand
times worse than the loss of the eyes.
Then I might have been speechless or deaf.
I do not know, but on the whole,
it has been a good thing that I
have been blind.
How in the world could I have lived
such a helpful life as I have lived
had I not been blind?
I am very well satisfied.
I never let anything trouble me.
And to my implicit faith and to my
implicit trust in my Heavenly Father's goodness, I
attribute my good health and long life.
It's worth a thousand dollars a year to
look on the bright side of things.
I found sorrow to be one of the
threats in the scheme of life that must
be woven in the warmth and wealth of
existence.
And that the things which were too wonderful
for me to fathom, I must leave in
the hands of Him who is able to
sustain under all circumstances.
Scotch Minister questioned Fanny concerning her blindness.
The minister remarked to her, Oh, I think
it is a great pity that the Master,
when He showered so many gifts upon you,
did not give you sight.
She answered, Do you know that if at
birth I had been able to make one
petition to my Creator, it would have been
that I should be born blind.
Why, asked the surprised clergyman, because when I
get to Heaven, the first face that shall
ever gladden my sight will be that of
my Savior.
The greatest need in Operation Mobilization is more
love for Jesus Christ, more Christ-likeness of
character that will be produced as we draw
closer to Him in true holiness and spiritual
life, which is so precisely linked with the
death of your self-life and all that
goes with it.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we thank You for
Your Word, which is like a double-edged
sword cutting right into the very heart of
needy ones like us.
We thank You for these arrows from other
men who have walked with You, who have
demonstrated that this life of denying self and
taking up the cross and following You is
possible, and it is not some fairy tale
that's only thrown out in deeper life conventions.
It can be worked into the wolf and
wolf of our life, right on the teams
and in the heat and in the problems
that lie ahead in reaching a nation with
Your gospel.
Help us to maintain and to grow in
true spirituality in all circumstances, for we pray
in Jesus' name.
Amen.