It's always an encouragement to come to a
place to speak at a convention where they
believe in Christian literature, then I can feel
relaxed to start with.
I was in an embarrassing situation in California
a couple of years ago in a very
large church of a pastor named John MacArthur,
and a few thousand members there, and they
wanted me to speak, but they didn't, they
had heard that I was a book pusher,
and so they insisted that I really try
to limit pushing of books to three minutes.
I wasn't too worried because John MacArthur wasn't
going to be there anyway, but last minute
he changed his mind and he was sitting
there.
It's not easy to get in these rather
big churches when they have an outstanding Bible
teacher, they don't really need anybody else to
come along.
So I stuck very, very carefully to my
three minutes, we had a terrific display of
books, then during the message I weaved in
the other five books, and we had a
bonanza on the book table that I could
have never imagined.
I do hope you will, however, take a
look at the book table.
Noem, we also carry our own books, but
there were so many books here tonight, we
just added a few, and our little display
is on the other side, mainly just some
tapes, because in Operation Mobilization these days, the
fellowship I represent, we're not only bookworms, but
we also listen to tapes.
I heard someone almost say something that didn't
sound too good, but especially for Tony over
here, but I hope that you will just
take a look at those, because it gives
me that opportunity to get in your home
for a week or in your car, that's
a terrific place when you're stuck in the
motorway, traffic jam on the M1, you can
listen to George Verwer on The Fruit of
the Spirit, and we trust that might minister
to you.
There's several books that I especially want to
emphasize, and they're available, these two books at
half price.
One is, why is it taking so long
to get better?
This was an enormous struggle in my Christian
life.
Even as a Christian leader, I felt I
was so slow in a number of areas
of really growth and grace, and I met
this man at Filey, we were speaking together
at a minister's meeting, and he was sharing
that day at Filey to the ministers on
the subject of this book, why is it
taking so long for many of us to
improve after all the meetings and messages and
books, why is it taking so long?
And this is available, while the quantity lasts,
at half price, and I know it will
be an encouragement to many of you.
One of the books that we're also making
available at half price is called, There Is
Really Only One Way, Is There One Way,
by Dick Hillis, a great missionary statesman, on
the subject of whether Jesus Christ is the
only way.
This is being attacked very much in our
day, in our seminaries, some of our seminaries,
and people who say Jesus Christ is the
only way, the truth, and the life today,
they're thought of as some kind of a
bigot, especially in a multiracial situation, and we
certainly want to believe the best, we want
to respect people of other religions, I think
that's incredibly important, respect their culture, even try
out their food, but when it comes to
our faith, we believe that Jesus is the
only way.
I would not be here and believe these
conventions are a waste of time if this
isn't true, because it means really the Bible
isn't true, so what is true?
And I just want to commend this book
to you, forward by Billy Graham on Jesus,
The Only Way.
Three other books I'd like to emphasize tonight,
My Big Father, again available at a reduced
price because supposedly they're slightly damaged, I can't
find out, I think that little white spot
means it's damaged, so I got them free,
and you can have them at half price,
and the profit goes to missions.
This is about the land of Turkey, one
of the first men ever come to Christ
through the work of O.M. in Turkey,
where we have a church planting ministry, and
this is easy reading, it's not a heavy
book like some of the A.W. Tozer
books we've brought, but it's easy reading, but
very challenging, and then David Watson's brilliant book
on discipleship, as this man was dying, how
he managed to get so much in print
is really quite baffling.
His other books are more well known, none
of them in my mind compare with this
book.
This is to me the outstanding book that
David Watson wrote, but because it's called discipleship
rather than leaping and jumping or joy in
the night or something, people don't buy it,
people don't want books on discipleship because the
word discipline is a no-no, and yet
this is a message we need today, discipline
in every area of our Christian life, and
lastly, healing for damaged emotions, a book that
God has been using in such a mighty
way around the world, they finally just put
it in a British edition, half the price
of the old edition, the most, almost the
most widely read book in our work right
now, healing for damaged emotions.
Even today, as I was working in the
car traveling up here, I read a letter
from someone greatly blessed through this book.
If you get only one book, I'd really
commend this to you, healing for damaged emotions.
I'd love to speak on the subject, but
the book speaks better than I do.
There's a lot of other material, I'm not
here to talk about Operation Mobilization, but if
you want some literature about the work that
we're involved in, and we certainly need your
prayers at this time, I've just come from
the ship Lagos, literally arrived yesterday morning.
She's in Canada, in Saint John, New Brunswick,
though I had meetings in Halifax and Montreal
on my way here.
I actually live in London, England.
And the other ship, the ship Doulos, which
many of you have visited in the last
year or so, is in Sierra Leone, and
it's just an overwhelming response.
The president and the vice president of the
nation came to the ship.
In two days' time, a ship's party will
be having lunch in the state house with
the president.
That, of course, opens the door for the
media, and when that happens, the people come
by the tens of thousands and receive the
word of God.
There's not time to share about that this
evening, but if you want some literature about
the ship ministry, about the Muslim world, about
the subcontinent of India, which is so much
upon our hearts, please do visit our special
OM display.
Meet my good friend Wayne Thomas.
He's also just back from India, though he's
actually Welsh, and I'm sure you'll get something
that you find profitable, and a lot of
it is free.
Let's just once again pray as we look
into the word of God.
Father, we thank you for the privilege of
being here tonight, just separated to you and
to your word.
And we don't want to just be hearers
of the word.
We want to be doers.
For we pray, O God, move in our
hearts through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
I want you to look in your Bibles
with me to Acts 20.
There are several words that are burning on
my heart, and if you have a pen
and paper, it would be a great encouragement
to me if you could write some of
these things down, because I believe God has
brought us here to seriously look into the
word of God together.
I'm not against other kinds of meetings.
I speak in every kind of meeting you
could ever imagine.
I have to actually return to North America
to speak at the largest Christian rock festival
in North America.
You may think that's all the devil.
Some people do.
But these young people believe that Christian music
is God's alternative to the heavy rock music
that is coming out and destroying so many
people.
And though I can't handle all the music
myself, I have met these young people, and
I've seen so many of them on fire
for the Lord that I just have to
believe the best and not try to figure
out everything.
That will be a meeting a little bit
different than this.
Five thousand young people out in the open
air.
Last year when I was there, Steve Taylor
was singing.
They kept wanting him to sing more.
I wondered, when am I going to get
to preach?
Finally, the police moved in and closed him
down because they had a curfew after 10
o'clock at night, and they couldn't have
any loud music.
So then I was able to speak, and
many, many responded.
But I think one of the purposes of
a meeting like this, where we actually have
two men teaching each night, is to heavily
emphasize the Word of God.
We're not against other emphases.
And they also preach and declare messages from
the Word of God.
So if you can write some of these
things down.
I was just preaching Moody Church in Chicago,
and they had a man there many years
ago, Harry Ironside.
A man from a brethren background, but he
became the pastor of one of the largest
churches in America.
Interesting.
Whenever he was speaking, people were writing down
what they received, and studying it, and comparing
it.
And there's just a number of words that
are burning on my heart tonight.
And often God hits me with just a
word from the Word.
I may be reading a whole chapter, but
a word just jumps out of that chapter,
and that becomes something to challenge me during
that day.
I'm sort of a natural backslider myself.
I don't know, any of you, if you
automatically go on spiritually, that's great.
You know, I can't relate to that, but
I don't want to say it doesn't exist.
But I'm a natural backslider.
And if God doesn't somehow touch me every
day, I begin to grow cold, or I
begin to get a wrong attitude.
You ever get a wrong attitude toward other
Christians?
And I find that I need that fresh
touch, that fresh message.
Sometimes for a character like me, that fresh
kick from God's Word.
Acts 20 is one of those powerful chapters
for me.
Starting at verse 19, serving the Lord with
all humility of mind.
We could stop right there and be here
a long time, because it seems that so
often today we know so little of humility
of mind, the right attitude, the right disposition.
Serving the Lord with all humility of mind,
with many tears, trials which befell me by
the lying in wait of the Jews.
How I kept back nothing that was profitable
unto you, but have shown you and have
taught you publicly and from house to house,
testifying both to the Jews and also to
the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward
our Lord Jesus Christ.
And now behold, I go bound in the
Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things which
befell me there, except that the Holy Spirit
witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and
afflictions await me.
When I was a young teenager, I made
verse 24 my key verse.
Let's read it, my life verse.
None of these things move me, neither count
I my life dear unto myself, so that
I might finish my course with joy in
the ministry which I received of the Lord
Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace
of God.
Now behold, I know that you all among
whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of
God shall see my face no more.
Wherefore, I testify unto you, this day I
am pure from the blood of all men,
for I have not shunned to declare unto
you all the counsel of God.
Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all
the flock over which the Holy Spirit hath
made you overseers, to feed the church of
God which he hath purchased with his own
blood.
For I know this, that after my departure
or departing shall grievous wolves enter in among
you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise,
speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after
them.
Therefore, watch and remember that for the space
of three years, isn't this incredible, the space
of three years, I cease not to warn
everyone night and day with tears.
And now brethren, I commend you to God
and to the word of his grace, which
is able to build you up and give
you an inheritance among all them who are
sanctified.
I have coveted no man's silver or gold
or apparel, yea yourselves know at these hands
and ministered unto my necessity unto them that
were with me.
I have shown you all things, how that
so laboring you ought to support the weak,
to remember the words of the Lord Jesus,
how he said, it is more blessed to
give than receive.
And when he had thus spoken, he knelt
down and prayed with them all, and they
all wept much, fell on Paul's neck and
kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the
words which he spoke, that they should see
his face no more, and they accompanied him
onto the ship.
To me that passage is so powerful.
I remember as a young baby Christian, I
had just been converted.
I think some of you, if you've read
my books or perhaps been in another meeting
where I've shared at Keswick or somewhere, know
my testimony, how I was from a non
-Christian background.
I was a loud mouth, pornoholic, outspoken, bombastic,
intimidating young man with three businesses and a
lot of other crazy things happening in my
life, when a dear elderly lady, who surely
if she lived anywhere within range here would
be here every night and would have busloads
of her friends as well, a woman of
tremendous vision, put me on her hit list.
And she started to pray for me, and
she prayed for me for three years, and
every year I got worse, but she was
spiritually stubborn.
She had a fight within her that the
Spirit of God had put there at her
conversion, and she had been persevering in prayer
for 15 years for that ungodly grammar school
where often a third of the students were
drunk on the weekend.
And she was praying that people would not
only be saved but be sent.
She had a great missionary vision, and she
sent me a Gospel of John through the
post, and that began to prepare me for
a one-night meeting when Billy Graham came
to New York City.
He came just to spy the place out.
It was considered the toughest bastion of hell
in America at that time, and he came
that one night, and I was prayed into
that meeting, and there found the Lord Jesus
Christ as my personal Savior.
And I never tire of telling that story
because without the gift of salvation, you know,
I would just not be here.
And the message I have is simply Christ
and Christ crucified.
And there may be someone that's come with
a friend, or perhaps you've just come here
this evening for some reason, and yet you
yourself don't yet know Jesus Christ personally.
And what a wonderful thing.
Many times when I'm preaching on recommitment, people
actually come to Christ.
We've even had people come on OM who
had a written testimony and have come to
Christ during the early orientation.
A young man who came to work as
my typist.
I was in the States at that time
for a conference.
He flew ahead of me, and he was
sweeping the floor, preparing a factory floor for
the OMers to sleep on, and he got
saved pushing the broom as he realized that
he didn't really know Jesus Christ in a
personal way.
I went back to that high school, a
child of God.
We started prayer meetings in the high school.
Some of you know the rest of the
story.
That became the birthplace of Operation Mobilization.
Two years later, three of us went off
to Mexico.
That trip is quite well known.
But the year before, I was still in
business, and I went across the States selling
firefighting equipment, and also I started distributing Gospels
of John.
I was a baby Christian, and I met
a lady who was a distant relative in
Pittsburgh traveling west, and she tried to tell
me that I was from a Reformed church
background, and I think I'd been christened a
Methodist.
So I didn't know anything much about baptism,
believer's baptism.
But this lady tried to tell me that
night it was necessary to be baptized to
be saved.
I'm telling you, she scared me.
I stayed up the whole night reading the
book of Acts.
I decided baptism was an important teaching, but
it wasn't necessary for salvation.
And that very night, God gave me this
verse, and I never, never ceased to go
back to this passage and meditate on this
verse.
None of these things, verse 24, moved me.
Neither counted my life dear unto myself, so
that I might finish my course.
I don't know where I am in my
course.
I've been now living for the Lord every
day these last 31 years.
Maybe I'm three fourths of the way, maybe
I'm halfway, doesn't matter.
We never know.
We've all got to be ready to go
at any time.
But that verse has never ceased to burn
in my heart.
And I'm going to be emphasizing through my
ministry here, my burden to seek greater commitment
among God's people.
I really sense that so much Christianity today
is superficial.
Even as I say that, I know it
needs a lot of definition, because I know
something can look superficial, and there can be
a very deep root.
And we need to be very careful of
just judging people by outward appearance.
Some of the things that young people are
into may look superficial, but some of those
young people may be going on in a
very deep way for God.
Our work was written off by most older
people in its day.
It was written off by most people when
we came to Britain.
Most Christian leaders wouldn't give us the time
of day.
They said, this is just young people, they're
just youthful zeal, and this will just blow
over in a year.
In 62 there were 200 of us, in
63 there were 2,000, and now you
have 25 years of O.M. Britain to
see if it's all going to blow over
in one year.
Christians tend to get stuck.
They tend to become very conservative.
They tend to be unwilling for change.
And then they tend to write off other
Christians who may be different as being superficial.
And so I don't share this burden about
true commitment that we may go out of
here and judge others, that we may examine
our own hearts before God, that I may
examine my own heart.
Now as I read this passage, a number
of words just jump out at me.
And let me just see how many of
those words I can share in my time
this evening.
And I know that Tony, as we've been
teamed up together many times, especially in his
own church, will just follow on, and we're
just thrilled to be here together as a
team.
No pastor in Great Britain knows O.M.,
or has ministered to O.M. more than
Tony Sargent.
So we're thrilled to be here together as
a team.
But there's several words that are just jumping
into my mind right now.
The first word is reality.
Commitment must include reality.
We discovered in our early days that it
was easy for a young person to give
a superficial commitment.
And there may have been some evangelistic zeal,
there may have been some willingness to go
to a prayer meeting, there may have been
a willingness to even sell a few possessions
as that kind of thinking came through our
work.
But in-depth commitment, the 1 Corinthians 15,
58 kind of commitment does not come overnight.
Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the
work of the Lord, knowing that your labor
is not in vain in the Lord.
When I think of the Apostle Paul, I
think of reality.
Just think of the reality gripping this man's
heart when he says for the space of
three years he ceased not to warn everyone
night and day with tears.
What are we going to do with verses
like that?
Think of the reality that gripped this man's
heart when, for the sake of his situation,
he decided that it was best to support
himself.
Amazing.
Verse 35, I've shown you all things, how
that so laboring you ought to support the
weak and remember the words of the Lord
Jesus.
The verse just before that's what I want.
Yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have
ministered unto my necessities and to them that
were with me.
You know one of the really dirty words
in our generation, you know what it is?
Work.
When I first came to Britain 24 years
ago, I learned a new hymn.
I can always remember it.
I was in Birmingham and it was called,
There's a Work for Jesus.
And brothers and sisters, if we come to
a convention like this and we don't go
out from here with motivation to work harder
for Jesus Christ, it's a sham.
And you know, we get a lot of
people today that are coming and they're always
writing another article about workaholics.
You can imagine, I mean, I'm just written
off as a complete workaholic.
Can you imagine working six days a week?
I mean, this could be dangerous.
15 hours a day.
You know, around in the third world countries,
people have to do that just to eat.
Just to eat.
And my work, I will tell you, and
what a pleasure it is, what a joy
it is to serve Jesus Christ.
It's a lot easier than some man working
14 hours in a field just to get
a little food on his table.
How easy it is on these fair islands
to become unreal about life.
Most Christians have a naive view of life.
I believe if God does something in our
hearts in these days, we're going to be
willing to work harder for him.
It may mean visiting the sick more.
It may mean visiting those in prison.
It may mean distributing literature door to door.
It may mean helping someone in a practical
task.
You know, if you invite the most famous
singer and most famous speaker in the town
like we do in London, England where I
live, and we're actually competing with each other
every Saturday night, you can pack out the
Albert Hall and even charge five quid a
ticket.
But I'll tell you, if you call people
to work, whether it's to clean the church
or to go out door to door with
the Word of God, you'll be able to
meet in the church vestry.
How in the world people can go to
some of these conventions year after year and
never become workers, never put their hands on
the plow, and begin really working for God
is beyond my comprehension.
We see the Apostle Paul gripped with reality,
a realistic view of life, a realistic view
of people, a realistic view of himself.
We need to study a lot of other
passages in order to emphasize this, and we're
limited in what we can do.
That's why it's so good we can come
back again tomorrow night.
But I was looking at those words in
Corinthians the other day, 1 Corinthians chapter 2
verse 3.
Paul says, I was with you in weakness,
fear, and much trembling.
Brothers and sisters, great faith is not made
in the absence of doubt or fear or
trembling or difficulty.
Great faith is made as we battle through
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't know if they have on the
book table Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones's book, Spiritual
Depression, Its Cause and Cure, but after going
through about 1,000 books, I consider that
the greatest book of this century.
And in that book, he puts an emphasis
on discipline.
He puts an emphasis on denying self, taking
up the cross, and following Jesus.
Following Christ will be rough, and it will
be tough.
Reality.
Sometimes when we're preaching the gospel, we give
the unconverted the idea that to come to
Christ is mainly peace and joy and forgiveness
and happiness, and all of that is part
of the picture.
But the fact of the matter is that
when we decide to follow Christ, it will
be rough, it will be tough, there will
be misunderstandings, our heart will be broken, and
there will be failures.
Erwin Lutzer, that great Canadian ministering in Moody
Church, said failure is the backdoor to success.
I was going to read the book, but
just the title brought me into revival.
I never bothered to read the book.
I loaned it out to somebody.
The second word that burns in my heart
as I read this passage is vision.
Vision.
You know how many people find the Christian
life hard?
They don't have a vision.
They don't know why we're doing this.
They don't know why we're going here.
They don't know why we're trying to mobilize
an army of people to go out to
the Baluch and the Kurds and the Uyghurs
and the Turkmens, these unreached people's groups, millions
of them, where the church doesn't even exist.
The Christian life without a vision is drudgery.
It becomes church-anity.
This is why now in America, many people
will not go to church except once a
week.
It's just out of the question.
You can find churches with 5,000 members,
3,000 Sunday morning, 100 Sunday evening.
Church prayer meetings, finished.
In order to get the numbers, we've dropped
the standards.
It's as simple as that.
And the first thing to drop, if you
want the numbers, at least in the States,
prayer meeting.
That is an obnoxious thought to many people,
a prayer meeting.
Isn't it interesting that when we bring in
our celebrities, we can pack out the biggest
auditorium, but when we have a meeting, which
according to the Book of Acts is the
most important meeting in the church, only the
Holy Spirit and the Living God are present,
no one is really very interested.
I will tell you, if that is an
indictment against present-day evangelicalism, then I don't
know what is.
Maybe I'm reading the wrong New Testament.
This is the authorized version.
Maybe you can check me out after the
meeting.
Vision.
I was climbing a mountain in Scotland for
a little recreation a few weeks ago, and
I had my Walkman with me.
I find the Walkman's the greatest invention since
the printing press, and I was listening to
some lectures by John Stott in the Contemporary
School of Christianity in London, and he was
sharing on leadership.
And you know, John Stott is the kind
of man that can get very quickly to
my heart.
It takes a phlegmatic, brilliant, calm Englishman to
very quickly get to the heart of a
big mouth, tending towards superficial, especially before I
knew Jesus, American.
And as I was climbing this mountain, listening
to this tape, and praise God the rechargeable
batteries lasted, he spoke on vision.
And I just had to, before I got
to the peak, where by the way, I
lost my hat.
If any of you climb that mountain and
find my hat, please return it.
Anyway, I just had to cry out to
God that he would increase my vision.
He especially on that tape spoke about Wilberforce,
the vision of Wilberforce, to stop the slave
trade and to get the slaves free.
And how that man worked 5, 10, 15,
20, 30 years.
He never moved from that vision.
God gave me a vision for world evangelism
when I was a young man.
I've been discouraged hundreds of times.
I've had my heart broken hundreds of times.
I border on giving up.
It just seems so hard.
There's so little interest in the church in
world missions today.
We got the Muslim world.
We got population explosion, 4.7 million.
We've got a billion people, 1,000 million
just in the subcontinent of India.
And as you go up and down this
country and around the world preaching on world
missions, number one, you can't even get the
people to the meeting in the first place.
And number two, the response is always so
small and yet the population continues just to
explode.
And, and, you know, it took till about
1830 to get the first 1,000 million
people in the world, about 1830.
We had that many just in India and
Bangladesh and Pakistan.
How are we going to do it?
And I tell you, if I get my
eyes on the task and on population and
on the church and on the problems, the
visa problems, the resurgence of Islam problem, the
divisions within the church problem is, is very
different problems you can think about.
If I start getting my eyes on the
problems I've had, I don't know if you're
like that.
There may be someone here tonight, you've got
your eyes on people.
You've got your eyes on your church, which
may be going through a division.
You've got your eyes on your wife, who
you feel is really as predicated as she
should be and her cooking's not like it
used to be.
Or you've got your eyes on something else.
I just would recommend to you Hebrews chapter
12, running the race with your eyes fixed
upon Jesus.
Our first vision must be the Lord himself.
Other visions will come and go.
Some of my visions have come and gone.
Some of O.M.'s great dreams have come
and gone.
But the Lord is the same yesterday, today,
and forevermore.
Paul was a man of tremendous vision.
Read about him in this passage.
Read about him in other passages.
And he had the vision despite the fact
that he just didn't know what was going
to happen next.
Some of the things he knew would happen,
I would not say would generally be very
motivating.
For example, verse 23, I only know the
Holy Spirit witnesseth in every city, saying that
bonds and afflictions await me.
Now in the past couple of years, a
new doctrine has arrived in Great Britain.
You can imagine where it came from.
It was in Australia.
I was just down there.
You can't blame the Aussies for too much.
This new doctrine has come right in from
Texas and Oklahoma, good old Oklahoma.
This new doctrine, folks, says that if you're
spiritual, you're going to be able to trade
in that old crummy Ford Escort and get
yourself a Rolls Royce.
And if you're really spiritual, you're going to
be able to get yourself a much bigger
house, and you're going to be able to
get a triple car garage, and you're going
to be able to just, well, more or
less get whatever you feel you really need
to be spiritual.
It's called name it, claim it.
You think I'm talking about something small?
We're talking about a movement that has now
attracted hundreds of thousands of people.
One church that went even more extreme, no
matter how extreme you are, you can go
more extreme.
You may think some of your friends are
extreme.
They haven't started yet here.
It takes English people a while to get
really extreme.
But one church has 80 people dead.
Tomorrow night, I'll have a book on the
table that shows the difference between presumption and
faith, actually written by one of the great
leaders of the charismatic movement who strongly believes
in healing.
He actually teaches theology at Oral Roberts University.
And that man has seen extremes, and he's
written this book.
And people of all different theological sides love
this book, except the very, very extreme, like
that one church in America where 80 people
were dead as a result of extremes in
the area of healing, refused to go to
doctors.
Finally, some people took this man to court.
And guess what happened to this dear man
preaching this extremism when they were in the
middle of the court case?
Guess what?
He died.
Absolute truth.
That's absolute truth.
Of course, this has been a national scandal
in America for a number of years.
And one of the things I like about
Paul's vision and about the reality I see
in Paul is the balance.
Here's the man who wrote 1 Corinthians 13.
Here's the man who, one hand, is going
over the wall in the basket.
In the next hand, we read in Thessalonians
that he was like a nursing mother among
her babe.
What a challenge the apostle Paul is to
the church today.
And believe me, he was not in any
way teaching some kind of hyper-prosperityism where
if you're godly and you're dedicated and you're
led of the Spirit, everything is going to
be wonderful and you'll never be sick and
there'll never be any problems and you'll never
have any financial difficulties.
This passage is one of 20 passages that
completely demolishes that concept.
He said, the one thing I know the
Holy Spirit has for me, the one thing,
talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit,
bonds, afflictions, bonds and afflictions.
It says later in Timothy, all who live
piously in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
We know there are different kinds of suffering.
Some suffering is directly for the cause of
the gospel.
Other suffering is because we are human beings.
I find sometimes the suffering I have to
face just because I'm a human being on
planet earth is more difficult to deal with
spiritually than the things I've suffered directly for
the sake of the gospel.
Because it's more subtle and it just doesn't
seem like any sense to it.
And yet, it's through these sufferings and through
these problems, not that God doesn't heal, not
that God cannot deliver, but the Word of
God shows that sometimes He delivers and sometimes
He does not.
Sometimes He heals and sometimes He does not.
People don't like this.
They like to get everything in neat little
black and white categories.
But you see, God doesn't work that way.
And as we follow God with all of
our hearts and we follow in the steps
of men ablaze for God, like the Apostle
Paul, there will be the human factors.
There will be the element of mystery.
There will be the questions that we won't
have answered.
Like the millions who have never heard the
gospel and who tonight go for a Christless
eternity while the church seems to sleep on
or fight on or get sidetracked into things
that are so obviously not the best.
Reality and vision are the two words I
want to leave with you this evening.
We'll follow on from here, both Tony and
I, as we share together.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we thank you for
your Word.
We thank you for this tremendous example in
the life of the Apostle Paul.
This commitment, this reality, this enthusiasm that we
see gripping him and yet the balance, the
earthiness about him.
And Lord, it challenges us with all of
our struggles and our weaknesses and our failures
to recommit our lives to you and to
run the race with our eyes fixed on
the Lord Jesus.
Oh God, increase our vision on many different
levels, but also especially our vision of the
Savior.
For we pray in his precious name.
Amen.