I'm reading this as a basis for thoughts
in line with it, but for many new
people here, allow me to read this, which
is part of the core values and the
whole foundation of our movement.
Even under this present hour, we both hunger
and thirst and are naked and buffeted.
We have no certain dwelling place.
Labor, working with our own hands, being reviled,
we bless, being persecuted, we endure it, being
defamed, we entreat.
You can read it in your own different
translation.
It will come alive.
They all say the same or similar things.
We entreat, we are made as the filth
of the world.
We're the off scouring of all things into
this day.
I write not these things to shame you.
Wow.
But my beloved sons, I warn you, for
though you have 10,000 instructors in Christ,
you have not many fathers.
For in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you
through the gospel, wherefore I beseech you, be
ye followers of me.
And all tied into all that suffering is
verse 12 for the kingdom of God is
not in word, but in power.
One of the greatest distortions in the church
today is that when we talk of power,
we're always talking about blessing, breakthrough, deliverance, and
wonderful things happening.
Whereas if you take it in the context
of this chapter, chapter, and what I've just
mentioned is included.
But if you see it in the context
here, it's power to endure, to persevere every
kind of wild, impossible thing that could ever
come upon the soul.
And some of you have begun to see
some of that in your own life.
And some of our brothers who were here
years ago are now already in the glory.
They saw their share and the Lord has
taken it.
Second Corinthians six, let the word of God
speak to you.
Maybe you missed your Bible study this morning.
Here's a little more to make up.
Second Corinthians six, for we're workers together with
him, beseech you, you receive not the grace
of God in vain.
Forgive me if in speaking about grace, I
have miscommunicated and given the idea that I
was in favor of some cheap grace that
didn't have discipline and holiness in it and
around it.
And if you read Swindoll's book, Grace Awakening,
you'll see that his challenge does include that.
Though there are certainly some mysteries and he
acknowledges that on how it all fits together.
For he said, I have heard thee in
a time accepted the day of salvation.
I've helped thee behold now is the accepted
time.
Now is the day of salvation.
Then we have clear instruction, whatever we might
put down on, uh, gifts and abilities and
skills that field leaders and area leaders and
others need to have.
They still have to obey everything they find
in the new Testament.
So there's a much longer list.
Someone felt the list was too long.
We'll try this one here.
Ways we give no offense, but in all
things, here's the list.
Commending ourselves as ministers of God, patience, afflictions,
necessities, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, toolmits, labors, watchings,
fastings.
We're talking about just one person.
It's just one person that's gone through this.
It's in the whole team.
You know, putting, if we combine all of
our suffering together here, you know, we might
get somewhere near the apostle Paul.
That's an overstatement, but it's powerful.
Stripes, imprisonments, toolmits, labors, watchings, fastings, pureness by
knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the
Holy Spirit, by love, unfeigned or genuine, by
the word of truth, by the power of
God, by the armor of righteousness on the
right hand and on the left, by honor
and dishonor, by evil reporting, good report as
deceivers and yet true as unknown, yet well
known as dying and behold, we live as
chastened and not killed as sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing as poor, making many rich as having
nothing, yet possessing all things.
Is that not awesome?
Even when we think of Briscoe's definition of
awesome and tie it to a couple words
in chapter seven, verse four, great is my
boldness of speech toward you.
Great is my glorying of you.
I am filled with comfort.
I'm exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation.
Yes, it is.
Whether you like the terminology or not, splashes
of joy in the cesspool of life, a
book that I believe God has raised up
in the day and hour in which we
live.
When you read that book, you'll discover it's
not a superficial book, though it is a
book that carries you from page to page
through a lot of humor.
I'm exceedingly joyful in our tribulation for when
we came unto you, for when we were
come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest.
We were troubled on every side.
Without we're fighting, within were fears.
Nevertheless, God, who comforted those that are cast
down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.
I've studied the word of God fairly thoroughly
for 40 years.
I never saw the point of comfort us
by the coming of Titus.
You would have thought by the Holy Spirit.
You would have thought by the grace of
God.
I mean, there's so many tremendous expressions in
the New Testament tied in with comfort.
But in this particular case, under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit, it was Titus, the
human factor.
And oh, how I thank God that somehow
in OM, despite all of our struggles, we
have been able, and we're still in a
learning curve, to combine the divine factors and
the human factors in our lives, in our
families, in our ministries.
And I thank God for the maturity I've
seen coming to all of you that I've
been able to observe over many, many years.
I thank God that OM and the leadership
of OM is more mature and therefore more
biblically committed than it was five years ago
or 10 years ago or 30 years ago.
But not in the absence of our frailty
and our weaknesses.
And of course, by the sheer size of
our movement, there will be new brands of
the human factor that will literally dazzle the
imagination.
Try not to overreact to it and end
in the deep sea of depression.
In one way, I wouldn't have to say
any more than read those scriptures.
But I think it's only fair to share
with you where I think you're going to
be tested and tried as you launch into
96 and as we move on a marathon
race toward the year thousand, 2000, with our
strategic plan, with all of our ideals and
the complexity of now carrying out this plan,
which of course will have to be modified
as we go along.
I've read a lot of books in recent
years about strategic plans.
Some are now even throwing out the concept
as we live in such a wild world
when it comes to business and when it
comes to how things are done.
And I would just give a little warning
not to overly model what you're doing after
the people of the world and the companies
of the world.
We can learn from them.
But I asked myself this question on the
plane 10 years from now, will our model
be SIM or IBM?
Will it be OMF or Microsoft?
Will it be Billy Graham or Bill Gates?
Will we know?
Will we be known for our great strategy
and our high-tech communication or will we
be known also for our Holy Ghost intercession?
We have to somehow always keep anything we
receive from the world, and I think you
know how open-minded I am, probably too
much.
Some of my friends are worried, to contextualize
it into what we receive from the Lord
and from his word.
Both extremes are possible.
We've all met many extremists and grace killers
who tend to just put down anything that
doesn't come from the Bible or that they
don't see in the Bible.
Therefore, they believed years ago electricity is from
the devil, computers are from the devil, and
all kinds of things.
And then those who go to the other
extreme and are so intimidated maybe have found
struggle in their effort to try to find
true spirituality and at the same time have
a healthy, solid organization or fellowship and therefore
have been intimidated into just taking on worldly
practices and procedures and allowing some basic principles
of the word of God to slip by.
We are going to be tested.
We are going to be tried.
We lost two people and had many injured
in Zamboanga, and if we don't think the
Lord will allow tests in the future, maybe
not to the ship ministry but to other
aspects of ministry, then we don't know what's
going on in the missionary world today.
And I've always felt that our coming together
for these annual meetings are a time of
counting the cost.
As we have our dreams, we have our
visions, we have our plans, we must also
count the cost.
As you accept a new responsibility, field leadership,
area leadership, then you must continue to count
the cost as to what will be involved.
And all of you, most of you have
heard me speak on the last verses of
Luke 14, which is so significant on that
biblical principle, which I'll not go into detail
about tonight.
What are some of the areas where we
are going to be tested?
And I wrote on the top of my
notes, brothers and sisters, we need wisdom.
And I believe it is a great mistake
when we analyze the early years of OM
and give the whole idea that there was
very little wisdom and mainly zeal.
I've done it myself for the cause of
humor.
But if you study the early years of
OM, you will discover amazing wisdom was given
to the leaders of OM almost before their
time.
Even in our very name, a name that
is more acceptable in 96 than it was
in 64.
And I guess ever since I met that
dear lady selling books who challenged me to
read Proverbs every single day, I have had
this very, very strong focus on wisdom.
That's why I've tried to pick the minds
of over 1000 Christian leaders these 40 years
by their books, their tapes and their personal
interviews.
That's why my whole life has been one
long learning curve with generally fair amount of
quickness to repent and to change and to
learn.
That's why we were able to break free
from what almost became in cement in OM
that we couldn't ask for money and we
didn't say much about money.
And I hope this learning curve will continue
until we're with the Lord.
We need wisdom.
The church is faced with problems that we
were never faced with a couple of years
ago.
Just the Toronto blessing and its complexity.
The latest news that that church has been
removed from the vineyard denomination.
That was on the BBC morning news or
one of the main stations.
In fact, I think it was in Toronto
media before the church heard about it, which
may not be true, but it was interesting.
A couple of years ago, this name did
not exist.
Today, over 25 books, approximately, have been written
on the subject, endless magazine articles, and there
are very few that have not been forced
to take a stand one way or the
other on this thing called the Toronto blessing.
Brothers and sisters, we don't just need a
forward plan.
We don't just need a breakthrough concept.
We don't just need commitment.
We need wisdom.
And some of the wisdom we need will
not come just from reading the Bible.
Will that help us decide what language we're
going to use in our computer system?
I think we've already chosen that language, so
I hope with this new Java thing launched
out that we're not in a major earthquake.
I think I've been assured by my friend
Clark that we're not.
But you can be sure whether the techies
have it or not, those of us who
lead the movement have endless questions from everybody
and his donkey about computers and Petra and
all of that kind of thing, which we're
going to have a wonderful presentation of later
on.
We need wisdom.
We need it in the area of transportation.
We need it in the area of budget.
We need it in the area of people
care.
We need it for the work in Rill.
We need it in Carlisle.
We need it in every team.
And it would be my heart cry that
as we continue to pray for power and
vision and strength and breakthroughs and souls coming
to Jesus and the evangelization of the whole
world that we would have a more supreme
prayer.
Lord, give us wisdom.
A.W. Tozer said the greatest gift he
felt needed in the local church was the
gift of discernment.
Do you realize when you say that, two
different kinds of Christians interpreted that completely differently?
In one group, when you say discernment, they're
incredibly happy you have brought that in.
But they believe that largely comes through a
miraculous zap experience from the Holy Spirit in
the form of a prophecy, a word of
knowledge, a picture.
But the other half of the audience believes
that that comes through using your head.
I'm sure that group wouldn't deny that as
well.
And to study and prayer and interaction and
reading proverbs and reading books and seeing what
mistakes people have made before us and just
many, many other sources of wisdom and discernment
like reading A.W. Tozer.
And here in OM, we attempt this unbelievable
marriage of these two kinds of Christians who
are sitting in this very room.
And it will take an ongoing miracle to
keep unity within operation, mobilization.
And if we presume that's going to be
any easier to maintain in the 90s than
it was in the 70s and the 80s,
and this movement almost came unglued completely at
one point, then we will, I think, be
very foolish.
We're going to be tested.
We're going to be attacked.
We're going to be hit.
And I believe as we just think through
these few areas, it'll enable us to develop
more wisdom.
It'll enable us to be more prepared and
we'll be a little more, I hope, ready
for what comes at us.
What are some of the big things that
you probably will have to handle as a
field leader, as a country leader, as a
major leader?
My list may surprise you, but I've listed
first on my list.
You're going to have to handle rejection.
I've hardly ever spoken on the subject of
rejection, and I've spoken on a lot of
subjects.
And I was speaking at a meeting and
business people in North London, and the big
thing was they were pushing the tape from
the week before.
That's always great to prepare you.
The man the week before spoke on rejection.
People were buying up the tape as if
it were the end days.
Enormous amount of rejection is being felt by
God's people.
I don't think you can be in ministry
without feeling rejection.
You may even feel it from your own
wife or husband at some point, which isn't
so unusual.
And I pray that you will develop a
strategy to deal with rejection and not allow
that to blow you off course.
It would be unusual in the church and
in the world to not experience some rejection.
There are just so many factors, and we
cannot go into details because we're fighting a
timeline.
But I know that God can give grace
and victory when you're experiencing rejection.
It can happen in an OM situation where
leaders seem to all know one another, and
you hardly know anyone.
It could happen right here, even in the
first day upon arrival.
Some seem to be so friendly.
Some get hugs.
Some don't get hugs.
I want to confess that my own hugging
is one of the most inconsistent things in
my life.
Tied in with jet lag, tied in with
where I'm sitting, tied in with the angle
the person is standing at.
But I can assure you I would love
to hug all of you, though my wife
has now put up a restriction on women.
In Argentina, I kissed more women in 10
days than the previous year because it is
a culture, as you meet a woman, to
give her just a slight peck on the
side of the cheek.
It's quite a non-sexual thing, I can
assure you, for most people.
And if you're tempted to give her a
big walloping kiss right on her lips, you
should have fellowship first with Daniel Bianchi or
some other board member in Argentina.
Rejection.
The vibrations of rejection can be so subtle,
and sometimes you're feeling them, brother or sister,
when they're not even there.
It's part of your own ethos.
It's part of the climate and the complexity
of the human factor.
Try not to go around believing that people
are rejecting you.
You'll be happier and you'll be healthier.
And especially when you start to get the
first vibrations from your own children that they're
rejecting you.
Quite normal in most households.
Secondly, you will have to handle criticism.
They are closely related, though someone who doesn't
reject you may criticize you.
We've said these things for years in OM,
and I think we should still keep saying
them.
We need to know how to deal with
criticism.
I remember a major field leader who was
going through criticism, producing a fantastic paper on
the subject.
If you're experiencing difficulty because of criticism from
co-workers or some other source, make a
study on it.
I heard of one famous pastor who had
three nervous breakdowns largely because the inability to
handle heavy criticism was coming his way.
Brothers and sisters, you can't do anything in
the kingdom without getting criticized.
And sometimes it will be your close friends.
If God hadn't taught me, and I'm still
in a learning curve, I would not be
here today.
I would not be here today.
And I thank God for those criticisms and
my critics.
I may have had to struggle through it,
sometimes with tears.
At the end of the day, the grace
and the victory was there.
Of course, when speaking about this, I would
just urge you to turn the shoe around
or turn the coin over and try to
deal with yourself if you find, as you
wait upon the Lord, that you're a little
bit too critical.
I've often tried to tell leaders that I
was involved in training that if you haven't
affirmed someone five or six times, you've not
earned credentials yet to criticize them.
We've made an enormous number of mistakes in
OM over the years by coming down too
quickly on a new recruit.
Maybe it was a serious blunder before we
could ever give him any affirmation.
If we're going to find a new generation
of people that will sit where you're sitting
10 and 20 years from now, we are
going to have to become more gifted at
affirming people.
And I look back at my life and
see some of my greatest victories were affirming
people, and some of my greatest disasters, the
failure to affirm.
If you study in the new Westwatch 90s
Leadership Training School, you will definitely get affirmed.
I had the greatest dose of affirmation of
the entire year as I sat in this
circle.
And Christiana Boning, knowing George very well, and
I'm so glad she did, said, now when
this happens, you're not allowed to speak back.
So anyway, I'm still grappling with these things.
And I just believe we must learn greater
control of our tongue and have a greater
discipline over all forms of gossip and judgmentalism
and all that kind of thing, which is
still causing a lot of grief in the
body.
Thirdly, you're going to have to handle financial
pressure.
I have a number of messages on this
subject, but I am convinced it's not OM
that's under financial pressure.
It is to a large degree the entire
body of Christ.
Let us stop flattering ourselves, thinking that because
we're so cutting edge, the devil is hitting
us and we're under this phenomenal financial pressure.
I would like Ajit Fernando to share something
of your financial pressure that I read in
your prayer letter.
I don't know if you'd be willing to
do that.
It's not for me to tell you what
to speak, but the reality of your prayer
letters has been a ministry to me.
And when you spoke in Manila, you know
your message brought me to tears because it
was so real and it was so where
we really are.
In attempting to be relational, things just get
so messy.
And when the financial pressure comes on and
we're relationship oriented, it can get even more
messy.
Hasn't that been the history of missions even
since the day of Hudson Taylor?
Do you think Hudson Taylor's particular teaching was
a cure-all for everything?
If so, you've never read missionary history.
In fact, I believe one of the weaknesses
in OM leadership is we've not studied his
missionary history.
I had to take a course in foreign
missions at Moody Bible Institute.
Maybe it wasn't much, but it grieves me
today that we have people going to the
field that have not had clear teaching on
missionary history because we don't want to repeat
the same thing over again.
Praise God for what is being done.
Yes, 1995 in some ways was one of
the toughest years financially with mega heartbreaks, and
yet it was one of the greatest years
as income has generally increased, though we know
that's hard to measure in some fields with
inflation, with the change in the dollar, with
increased costs.
I know there has been a lot of
pain and many of you have endured it
as a field leader as well as the
international leader of OM.
I can say the field leader's pain is
greater than the international leader's pain.
There'll be no gain without pain, and many
unconverted people, like 40,000 about to be
fired by AT&T, I believe are often
suffering more than we are in God's work
where we have one another, where the end
of the day most people get their food
money and their allowances, where we could hardly
look at all of OM's assets and the
way we live and exactly classify as suffering
and poverty stricken.
It's a hard thing, isn't it?
And we'll never all agree on how it
all should be worked out, so unless there's
the oil of the Holy Spirit and a
lot of wisdom and patience, we might be
in for even a more difficult year.
And then the great testings that come when
there are misunderstandings.
Misunderstandings can be more difficult and uncanny and
subtle than even rejection or criticism, because they
seem so unnecessary.
They seem so unnecessary.
If you had said this and done that,
maybe you wouldn't have this misunderstanding that you're
dealing with.
And I want to personally apologize if anything
I've said or done this year has created
misunderstanding.
It is not possible to be a committed
disciple in the fast lane attempting to reach
the world with the gospel and not create
some misunderstanding.
If we become intimidated by the misunderstandings we
sometimes create, we will not be useful very
long in the work of God.
Yes, we do have to develop sensitivity, but
we also must develop spiritual toughness.
Otherwise, our unconverted cousins down the road will
prove to be more committed and more realistic
and even more dedicated than we are in
the body of Christ, and that must not
be.
We know we don't measure them and measure
things in the exact same way.
But I have come to respect unconverted people
throughout the world.
My heart breaks that they're lost and they're
because of sin on the way to eternity
without Christ.
But in their particular sphere or arena, whether
it's sports or politics, whether it's computers or
business or whatever, there are people who seem
so incredibly committed and often their commitment leads
to imbalance that brings confusion, which is what
we don't want.
And that's why ours is a message of
grace, dealing with misunderstanding.
One of the hardest things for us men
is to avoid misunderstanding with women.
Let us be honest.
God has broken me two weeks ago as
I read How to Esteem Your Mate.
Why didn't anybody give me that book 30
years ago?
A brilliant book.
It was interesting.
I was in a missionary home and I
was talking to the husband.
He didn't even know the book was in
the house.
His wife obviously did because the book was
underlined in every single chapter.
And I had a wonderful time of fellowship
with those missionaries before I left.
And it's beautiful to see their relationship.
And I can imagine some of the obstacles
they've had to overcome.
And I'm sure God used that book through
that wife to help make that marriage tick.
Don't ever arrive to a point of arrogance,
men, about how to treat your wife, how
to have more understanding and less misunderstanding, how
to listen a little better, how to esteem
her.
But women, be patient with us men because
we are, we are so easily, we stumble
in this area.
Keep in mind that many of us never
had in-depth fellowship with any woman except
our girlfriend.
And the in-depth fellowship I had with
my girlfriends was not exactly a super learning
curve.
Though I thank God that one or two
women, especially a girl I went with before
my conversion for three years, was definitely in
God's providence a mentor in my life.
And I know some of my failure has
been the inability to relate in-depth to
the opposite sex.
We just naturally end up living, you know,
in the men's dorm.
What happens if some poor guy wanting to
relate more to women, you know, moves into
the women's dorm?
Of course, this isn't exactly a dormitory situation
here.
I don't know if you understand what I'm
saying, but many of us as men, a
high percentage of all our in-depth fellowship
and contact and bonding has been with other
men.
Therefore, we are, I'm not excusing it, we
are going to be weak on trying to
relate and have in-depth fellowship with other
women without going across the board that our
sister Lois Mowdy so warned us about so
relevantly with such wisdom in her book.
Therefore, patience, grace, forgiveness, believing the best is
one of the keys that is going to
keep men and women together in OM.
I believe it is a grievous thing to
the Spirit of God that there are still
women's jokes among men in OM.
There's men's jokes among women in OM.
I'm not talking about innocent, harmless jokes, but
we've already discovered that in cross-cultural situation,
what seems harmless becomes hurtful.
And I feel we as men must make
an extra effort to esteem all women.
And women, I know we cannot do it
without you.
If you don't make an effort to esteem
us, to understand us as we attempt to
understand you, then we will not make it.
And if you don't think there's misunderstanding between
men and women in this movement, you must
really be naive.
I'm not saying it's some huge problem.
I'm not interested in dealing with huge problems.
I don't want any huge problems.
I like to deal with small problems.
I don't want a huge problem in my
marriage where I'm standing in a divorce court
trying to figure out what to do.
I want to handle little small problems as
my wife and I will celebrate next week
36 years of misunderstandings, 36 years of marriage
with some misunderstandings.
Just very quickly, three other points, and you're
free like birds.
As you face tests and difficulties, you're going
to face the struggle of people leaving.
We cannot pretend that it's easy to see
a major leader leave.
But we know this is a commitment of
the movement to train people and send them
into other agencies.
It's an area where we'll wrestle endlessly for
balance.
But there's a great difference when someone leaves
with our blessing and peace, a sense of
oneness.
And when someone leaves hurt, bitter, walked on,
and then for weeks doesn't get a phone
call, doesn't get a letter, doesn't get enough
money, somehow we've got to find that balance.
We want to learn more how to win
that loyalty, how to bond with people.
Some leaders seem to have the idea that
Peter Maiden and a few others have a
box full of potential leaders.
And when you have a slot in your
country, call us up and tell us who
we're going to send.
It's going to become more difficult to find
the men and women to step into your
shoes.
Every movement has proven that.
Let's not get into some kind of inferiority
complex about it.
Most missions and agencies look at OM and
speak more highly of it than I do.
We know our warts, we know our failures,
but I'm convinced that it's going to be
harder in the 90s to win the loyalty
of people on a long-term basis.
The ship has gone through agonizing struggles in
this area and deserve great credit for the
victories.
And I just hope and pray that you
will not be discouraged if some key person
leaves you.
That is completely normal.
I know great men of God.
They may have considerable weaknesses in certain areas,
but God is still using them.
They have no one that has stood with
them for 30 years on a long-term
basis.
Now it's easy to criticize and point out
his mistakes.
Now, those of you sitting in this room
will have to find them, love them, bond
with them, mentor them, and train them.
It can be small group, it can be
one-on-one.
I'm not that concerned about what mentoring, training,
discipling method you use.
I'd like to quote out of context Billy
Graham, who when he spoke about the Holy
Spirit and the reality of it, said, I
don't care how you get it, just get
it.
I don't care in one way how you
get those right leaders to carry on the
vision, just get them.
And if I can be any help, Peter
and ICT, we certainly want to.
And then, second before last, you're going to
have to cope, and this is the toughest,
isn't it, with your own sins and failures.
Please, please do not harden your heart against
confession just because you tried it and it
didn't work.
Maybe you were about to confess something to
a leader and he got distracted, and he
didn't realize it, but he snubbed you.
I'm sure I've done that.
I find myself sometimes, I'm a person with
lots of questions, and I like to hear
the answers, but my mind goes so fast,
I've had cases where I've asked people a
question, did not wait for the answer, went
on to the next question.
I thought, imagine being married to someone like
that.
Let us not be afraid to confess our
sins.
The pastor in the church in London, where
I preached Sunday morning two days ago, before
I preached, he put up a little chalkboard
and asked people to list some of the
sins they wanted to confess that morning, right
in the church.
And he's just new there, he's a new
pastor.
The church has been through quite a few
difficulties, and not many were responding.
So I, you know, the visiting preacher, I
raised my hand and I said, you know,
impatience, and they wrote it down and had
prayer for me.
Others did follow.
Dealing with our own sins and our own
failures can be such a struggle, especially when
the same things pop up and punch us
in the nose.
I wanted to read that tremendous accountability list
that some men in the United States are
reading to each other.
I think many of you have seen that
circulated, in which you actually ask someone whether
they've ever watched anything that particular week that
they felt was really inappropriate for a Christian
leader to watch.
That's a good one.
Maybe you're blessed because I can't find the
list and there's not time to anyway.
Praise God for the blood of Christ.
Praise God for 1 John chapter 2.
That way he forgives, he cleanses, he renews.
And I hope that some of you, if
something is really bothering you, that you'll not
be afraid to confess it.
Of course, before God is the bottom line
and he forgives and cleanses.
But sometimes for the sake of your ongoing
growth and health, it's good to confess it
to someone else.
In the middle of my time in Argentina,
my helper, Graham Jack, who surely is one
of the best helpers I've ever had in
all these years.
It's always hard to remember so many years,
but what a blessing he has been to
me.
He asked for so little of my time.
He's the most undemanding person I think I've
ever worked with, which is helpful in the
particular day and age in which we in
OM find ourselves.
But he came in and said he wanted
to talk and I said, sure, sit down
on the bed.
And he just confessed some things that he
felt were wrong in his walk with the
Lord.
And we just had some prayer and he'd
been wrestling with us for a couple of
days and it was gone.
The Word of God says, confess your faults
one to another.
Pray for one another that you may be
healed.
Confession is not for forgiveness.
That's between you and God.
We don't go to the confessional.
But sometimes some confession, which brings things into
the light, can be a healing experience.
Again, we may not all agree on the
fine tuning of this.
No problem.
I'm not giving a full message on confession.
But I know that brokenness, humility, walking in
the light generally within the body of Christ
involves some confession, some putting things right.
Of course it's risky.
Sometimes when you attempt to do it, it
gets worse.
That's part of life.
Don't give up at that point or you'll
be dumber than your unconverted neighbor.
Learn from it.
Try it maybe a different way the next
time and stand on God's promises and his
forgiveness.
And then lastly, you're going to be tested
in the area of marriage or singleness.
My heart just breaks as I see missionary
couples' marriages come apart across the world.
Keep in mind that we in OM are
involved, many of us, as much outside of
OM as we are inside.
That's why I guess this strategy of bringing
the missionary sending challenge more wholeheartedly back to
the local church is such a challenge to
me because I just feel so strongly that
Satan is trying to destroy local churches.
And one of the methods of Satan is
to destroy the marriage.
I believe somehow in OM, one way or
the other, all of our couples need to
get into some kind of marriage enrichment course,
study, at least minimum into books.
We tend, when we're fast movers, shakers and
movers, we got a lot to do.
Some of us are borderline workaholics, whatever that
means.
There is a natural tendency to neglect your
marriage, to neglect your wife and neglect your
children.
It's like some of the bad particles you
have in the air in London that causes
a lot of asthma.
It's just there.
Therefore, unless we make an extra effort with
our marriage partners, with our children, the problems
will increase.
They will increase.
And in some cases, they will explode.
And if you tend to justify your own
problems by quoting someone else who seems to
have similar problems, be careful because you may
not have the same wife or the same
husband.
So the tearing and comparing is always a
little bit dangerous because your marriage and your
personality and your situation is unique.
You can learn from all those things, including
the books, but you've got to contextualize it
into where you are, what you're faced with,
your children, one, two, or five, where you're
living, your financial pressures.
Somehow, it's a very personal thing, isn't it?
That's why I'm very hesitant to stand in
judgment over people's marriages.
It is a very personal area, and I
stand very cautious also to stand in judgment
over single people.
Why is he or she single or what
or what?
Because it's also very, very delicate at times
and very sensitive.
Let us pray for one another in our
marriages.
Some of us who've been in this a
long time are involved more than we want
to with broken marriages of ex-OMers and
ex-OM leaders.
Not many.
Hallelujah.
And some of them, of course, when it
happens, they drift almost totally out of sight.
They don't want to even have contact.
But I believe somehow God did give us
some wisdom, and we started emphasizing this about
30-some years ago.
Though our failures are there, I believe our
successes have been much, much greater.
Don't hesitate to get some help if your
marriage is in difficulty.
Don't hesitate to read a few books.
Arrogance is so subtle, especially among us men.
Let's face it.
Women are generally much quicker to read a
new book on marriage.
There are plenty of exceptions, because some may
not read that much in the age of
video.
But there's a subtle arrogance that causes men
to think they're beyond books on marriage.
Well, I'll tell you, when a few months
ago or a year ago I picked up
a secular book called, Men Are From Mars,
Women Are From Venus, I was into pretty
heavy repentance and great blessing from the Lord.
And my marriage, by the grace of God,
has continued to experience renewal and blessing, without
which I cannot function in my position in
this movement.
Thank you very much for your patience.
Let us pray.
Lord, we know our testings and trials in
the 90s may not be the same as
the Apostle Paul 2,000 years ago, but
they can be just as real, just as
vicious, just as fiery.
And we know this is a very short
list of what you and your sovereignty may
allow into our lives as we attempt to
carry out your will here in this lost
and needy planet.
And God, we would come to you in
surrender.
We would come to you in renewed commitment
to be the kind of men and women
you want us to be, and to somehow
hold up the shield of faith which can
stop the fiery darts of the evil one.
And yet, when those darts get through, somehow
that we may be able to counterattack and
bounce back and receive the help and the
grace to go one more mile and one
more step.
We thank you, Lord, that we can come.
Even now, as we contend to get our
minds overfilled with all this, we can come
and cast every care upon you and deal
with these things one at a time, as
your Holy Spirit brings them to us in
the days, weeks, and even months to come.
We thank you, God, you're not putting us
into the vice grip of some quick fix,
because we know that crisis that may happen
must be followed by the process which all
of us, probably all of us in this
room, are already in.
We thank you for your Word.
We thank you for the model of the
Apostle Paul.
We thank you for what he has written,
and we long to contextualize that into the
everyday aspect of our lives, from marriage to
missions, from preaching to picking flowers, from loving
an unconverted person across the street to being
in love and maintaining a deep love relationship
with our own marriage partner.
Oh, God, do a new thing in our
midst these days.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Ford, is there something we can respond with
in the way of a song?
I'd appreciate that.
Maybe Ford had to slip out.
Let's just sing our favorite, He is Lord.
He is Lord, He is Lord.
Let's stand.
He is risen from the dead, and He
is Lord.
Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord.
Once again, He's my Lord.
And make it true of your marriage, your
singleness, your relationships, your team, your field.
He's my Lord.
Let's sing it.
He's my Lord.
He is risen from the dead, and He's
my Lord.
Every knee shall bow, every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord.
Let's just pray in twos or triplets.
I really feel some of you felt we
didn't give you enough time to pray last
time, so we'll give you a second blessing.
Let's just take this to the Lord in
prayer in triplets or in twos.
Please just do that for a few moments.
Short prayers, esteeming the other, but make it
from the heart.
Make it from the heart.
Amen.