Having just arrived from England, I'm not sure
if I have the credentials to welcome anybody
to Memphis, but perhaps I could just add
my welcome to each one of you.
I think God has wrought many miracles to
bring us together at this time.
Every one of you could share the mountains,
the obstacles you've had to see moved just
to bring you this far.
Some of you, your parents were against your
going, and you saw the Lord change their
hearts.
Some of you had financial Mount Everest crashing
down on your head.
Others were beating their brains against exams, thinking
you'd have a total nervous breakdown before the
end of your school term, much less go
on Operation Mobilization.
But you're here.
We believe it's in God's plan that we're
here together.
And we just, by faith, are believing Him
to really accomplish some great things in this
week.
Now, I have to go off to Chicago,
actually, for the weekend of meetings, some of
which were booked before this conference was even
put on the calendar.
But I'll be back Sunday night.
I'm looking forward to being here the rest
of the week.
And then you'll have to look at me
in Belgium almost every day, and I'm sure
most of you will have more than enough
of George Verwer by the end of the
Belgian conference.
Then some of you will never see me
again.
It's hard to believe that this is our
20th summer crusade in Europe.
Very hard for some of us to accept
this.
And I have a 20-year-old son
to prove it.
He marks the beginning of the work in
Europe.
And it's interesting to meet sons and daughters
of people who came on that crusade 20
years ago, whose parents came on that crusade
20 years ago.
So O.M. is growing a little older,
but we're just excited.
We're just like big kids.
Look at that.
I warned Bert about that laugh.
It was relatively controlled.
But really, we're excited about this summer.
I just come from actually Germany before I
was in England.
I was only in England 24 hours and
wanted to see my family.
There were about 1,500 German young people
in that meeting.
I had six meetings actually, but it's sort
of a conference.
And I'm just so excited about what God
is doing in Germany.
And almost all of you will have Germans
on your team.
This summer, because of what God's doing in
that country.
I stopped in at the June conference in
Belgium just for an hour and a half.
Spoke at their conference.
About 200 are in the June crusade.
We, years ago, didn't even have a June
crusade.
So that's exciting.
The crusade in Europe has already begun.
And we're just excited.
We don't like to spend much time looking
at the past.
This is not of great interest to us.
If we do, once in a while, it's
just to give you a little bit of
historical roots.
But that's not really our interest.
We want to look to the future.
And we believe that God has a great
plan for each one of you.
So we're excited.
Praise God for this opportunity to be together.
I appreciated George Barathon.
I just can't believe this brother up here
making the announcements.
We met in Sri Lanka, and then he
was on my team.
It's a miracle he survived that.
Or I survived it.
George, you know, next to me, is so
gentle and calm and quiet.
You know, giving tornado announcements.
These panic doors we got to go through.
I was here in Memphis the last time
we had a conference here.
My wife and I were sleeping in the
choir dressing room.
And there was a fire alarm, a false
alarm, in the middle of the night.
That was the year we had men and
women all sleeping in this one church.
And I have been told this was an
unbelievable mobilization.
Everybody was out.
If the building had been consumed in fire,
everybody would have been out.
Except my wife and I.
Because the choir dressing room has no fire
alarm.
So we slept through the night.
We were happy.
It wasn't a real fire.
I'd like to say a little word about
the books, since I'm not going to be
here on the weekend.
I'd hate for you to miss out the
whole weekend on getting to see the books.
When I went into that book room, because
I've seen a lot of miserable OM book
tables.
It has often distressed me.
People after several years in the work can't
even put up a book table.
So I like to see a good, proper
literature display.
And when I went into the literature room,
I almost went into orbit.
There's avalanches of books.
In fact, you'll have to be careful going
in there.
You make the wrong move, you'll lose one
more under a mountain of books.
So they brought a whole truckload of books
up.
Some of them are at unbelievable special prices.
There's some of those magazine books that they
almost give away prices.
Because I have a lot of books that
I want to recommend, I need to start
tonight.
I am so excited about the ministry of
the printed page.
I am so happy to be back here
in the United States.
I don't get the privilege of being here
much.
God sent my wife and I out 21
years ago.
We have never been back in 21 years
on a furlough.
I only get back to the OM conferences
or to preach.
Now all over the world I'm trying to
be Mr. Cross-Cultural Communicator.
I found out my first month in Mexico
that as Americans we do things that are
very offensive.
I went to Europe and I found out
we do more things that are very offensive.
So I declared all out war against what
had been brainwashed into me for 20 years.
De-Americanized to some degree.
I've lived in England a lot for 18
years.
Often in the meetings if I'm a little
too loud, boisterous, some of the English folk
get a little bit concerned about that.
Over in Germany, Germans especially in their churches
like the preaching to be very dignified, very
much in order.
People that start shouting at them or getting
excited, they have little memories about that.
In the past.
It's a very big thing.
And I'm going away in Germany.
This is just this weekend.
After 20 years of trying to learn how
to communicate.
A little German girl comes up to me
and she says, I just want to tell
you that some of us really feel turned
off by the way you speak.
Great encouragement.
So I'm really relaxed here, I'll tell you.
And I like the South.
I went to school in the South.
And I've always been the first southern girl
that came to my high school.
I was a Yankee.
Born in Patterson.
The first southern girl that walked in the
door, you know who was at her.
Her parents weren't too happy so that all
ended in one night.
But when I came to study in the
South, I found these people are more friendly.
You can be more relaxed here really.
These people in the South.
How many of you are southerners?
Oh, this is great.
This is great.
You know, you can really be relaxed with
these people.
You won't understand what they're saying, but you
can be relaxed with them.
No, that's not true.
Let me get back to my books before
we get carried away.
If you ever feel you're becoming extreme, can
happen very easily, you know him.
You're getting uptight.
You don't know how to really find freedom
in your Christian life, get a hold of
this book.
By the way, there are not many copies.
I don't know why.
One of my favorite books, but you can't
have big mountains of every book.
It's called The Wider Place by Eugenia Price.
She lives in Georgia.
Where God offers freedom from anything that limits
our growth.
I had many, many dangerous areas in my
Christian life.
Extremes, things that I was not aware of.
And this book and her other books have
helped me beyond words.
It's not everybody's book for the week, but
I believe that many of you want to
get that book and be helped through it.
Where God offers freedom.
Ralph Shallis, very different kind of book from
now on.
This man so identified with France that he
wrote, he writes his books in French.
We have to translate them back into English.
This is one of those books.
Ralph is the longest standing visiting speaker to
OM conferences.
He's a saint.
He's got cancer, though it seems to be
somewhat held up at present, cured.
He's writing.
I don't know how old he is.
Where's Malcolm Jones from France?
Is he here?
How old is Ralph Shallis?
Do you know?
65?
Yeah, 65, 70.
He's really a saint of God.
That is his book on spiritual growth.
Get it.
It really should be required reading, but we
have too many books.
I was listening to the tapes recently by
Elizabeth Elliot.
I listen to tapes in the bathtub.
And that's the advantage of tapes.
I mean, it would be difficult, wouldn't it,
to have a live presentation.
But with tapes, you can do almost anything.
So I was in the bathtub with Elizabeth
Elliot, or listening to Elizabeth Elliot, and my
bathing suit, of course.
And I am so impressed with this woman.
Really.
How many of you have read her writings?
That is also very encouraging.
This is her book.
I don't know if this one is on
half price.
There are a lot of books on half
price.
But it's a little expensive if it isn't.
Try to get it for half price, you
know.
A little bit like an Arab.
Treat it like an Arab market.
I was just getting orientation for my trip
to Morocco next year.
You know, if you want to pay a
dollar, usually he'll start offering you whatever you're
buying at two, three dollars.
You're going to come down.
So you know, bargain with him there in
the literature.
This is Harley Rollins.
He's a southerner.
Friendly.
Operation World.
How many have a copy of this?
Wow, that is amazing.
What can I say?
You already have a copy.
This is the revised edition.
Some of the slightly extreme right-wing statements
that upset some people have been modified.
We've put in some of the American missionary
groups as Europeans.
We want to acknowledge that Americans are also
involved in world missions.
There have been other revisions.
This is a truly great book.
And lastly, two outstanding books by A.W.
Tozer.
There's more spiritual meat in those two books
than we can give you here this week.
Treasury of Tozer, collection of favorite writings, and
The Best of A.W. Tozer.
Between those two books, you have enough to
digest in the next two years.
I just strongly recommend this man's writings.
Let's just pray, because we can't go late
tonight for a number of reasons.
Let's pray.
Father, help us now as we look into
your word, as we consider what lies ahead,
how we can get the best out of
this conference.
I thank you, Lord, for the freedom.
I'll be back here in my own country.
I thank you, Lord, for the freedom you
give in other countries.
Perhaps not as easy a situation, Lord, yet
maybe I can be deceived by that.
And I want your word this morning.
I don't want to get carried away in
some kind of Verwarian trip.
But I want your word.
We want your word.
We have not come here to seek the
counsel of men, but we've come to seek
wisdom from you.
Guide us in this time together in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
Now, though my message starts now, what I've
just said is also important.
Just to lay a little foundation for what
we're going to share tonight.
I want you to turn with me in
your Bibles to the book of Nehemiah.
How many have heard the tape on warfare?
Orientation tape number one.
Raise your hand.
Very good.
Some people get so frightened by that tape,
they never listen past that.
And they never read the little letter I
send around with the tapes to say, you
know, it's not always as bad as it
sounds.
And they never read spiritual balance, where they
can learn that we have perhaps progressed a
little bit since those early days in understanding
what the spiritual warfare is.
But I want to say right from the
beginning that we don't want you to go
to Europe if you don't believe there's a
war in Europe.
There is a war in Europe.
A spiritual war.
Now, the way things are going on right
now in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Iraq, we
may be in Europe at the dawn or
the beginning of World War 3.
And if you don't think that can happen
at any minute, then you must be very
ignorant of history and politics.
You say, well, I'm not into politics.
Well, you may want to get in just
a little bit to know that Russia is
armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, that
our nation is armed to the teeth with
nuclear weapons, that Russia is behind Iraq and
Syria, and that our nation is behind Israel.
Just add up the rest.
Now, on this latest bomb attack by the
Israelis on Iraq, Mr. Reagan playing a little
token commitment toward the Arabs saying, we're going
to send you in planes.
Well, for how long?
Two weeks?
They have enough American armaments in Israel to
take on the whole Arab world.
But you see, the Russians may not appreciate
that.
Now, I'm not going to get any further
into that because that's not my interest.
But if those people are concerned and are
throwing themselves into that and are looking for
committed men and looking for equipment and are
preparing thousands and hundreds of thousands of soldiers,
everybody in Israel almost is in the military.
I've just come from Israel again a few
months ago.
How much more we spiritually must face the
reality that this is a warfare, this is
not a game.
My heart is so grieved by some of
the short-term work that I have read
about and been involved in because it seems
to me like a big evangelical game with
young people sort of running around taking snapshots
half the day or touring the world on
the money that some church provides.
And I believe that God wants to baptize
us during this week with a seriousness of
purpose about what we are doing.
One of the greatest problems in the present
generation is the lack of seriousness of purpose
in the things of God.
And this conference will be hard.
It will be hard.
I am just pushing myself to stay awake
because on my watch and on my body
it's 25 minutes to 3 in the morning.
Because when you cross the Atlantic, things happen
to you.
And the times change.
And I'm over here for such a short
trip I don't even bother to correct my
watch because this tells me what time my
wife is at and she's more concerned to
me than I am about myself.
I can always find a clock around.
So I keep it on English time.
Then I don't phone her in the middle
of the night when I get lonely.
There's a war on in Europe.
We are here in a military boot camp
to train you to go to battle.
And if you don't want that, if you
don't feel ready for that, don't go.
Because I am all in favor of cutting
down the numbers.
Now years ago I used to lead the
work.
This work is growing so fast.
It's moving so fast.
There are so many tremendous leaders who are
more spiritual than I am, more dedicated, more
disciplined, more loving.
Fortunately most of them aren't louder so I
still get an opportunity.
So I don't lead the work anymore.
I just follow.
I'm running out of breath.
Mike Evans, George Miley, Dave Hicks.
They're running all over the world.
We're in 35 nations.
The way they're going we'll be in another
30 nations before I even get my second
breath.
So I'm not going to worry if some
of you decide to go home.
You come to Dave Hicks.
You say, look this Verwer guy scares me.
I'm going home.
Now of course Hicks, he's been picking up
pieces for me for 15 years.
He'll console you and love you and he'll
sign you on the dotted line of the
25 year program.
Don't go to him.
Seriously speaking, and one thing that's very basic
when you're in a warfare is to know
how to laugh.
That's right.
And I will tell you if you don't
know how to laugh, don't go on a
limb.
You'll spend a lot of time crying.
There's no middle ground.
There is a war.
We have been commanded by the Lord Jesus
Christ to evangelize the world.
We take that with absolute seriousness.
Some of us have been for almost a
quarter of a century.
So many people thought O.M. would run
out of steam 15 years ago.
You can't imagine how many prophets of doom,
letters, tape recordings you know, telling us you
just can't live this way.
Sure, late adolescence, okay.
Married without children, okay.
But you know, you can't go on year
after year, summer crusade, Easter crusade, winter crusade,
12 months a year, 25 or sometimes that
many million people reached in a year, generally
more like 12 million.
But here we are, 25 years later.
Dick Griffin and I were just planning the
25th anniversary of O.M. in Mexico and
I'm going to go to Mexico City on
the 25th anniversary, quarter of a century.
And we're still burning.
It's burning.
We're still in the war.
We still believe Jesus is King and Captain.
We still believe that God is on the
throne and that we aren't just to present
our bodies daily as a living sacrifice and
to go forth in His name, dying to
self.
Now here in the book of Nehemiah we
have so many lessons we can't get into
it.
But we have Nehemiah going back to rebuild
the walls.
He spies out the land after much prayer,
after seeing answers to prayer.
He spies out the land in chapter 2,
verses 12 and 13.
The walls get rebuilt and in verse 3
there's tremendous opposition.
In verse 4 this is sort of a
quick Bible study.
And he got some people praying and some
people watching.
He preached some sermons and they got back.
And we read in verse 6, chapter 4.
So built we the wall and all the
wall was joined together to the half of
its height for the people had a mind
to work.
This is a week for work.
Sure, you're going to have a little relaxation.
You're going to have some good meals because
an army needs to get decent food.
And, you know, I even squeezed in a
game of tennis already this morning at 6
o'clock.
So, you know, we're not saying just here
24 hours a day, nobody's going to smile.
That's not being a faithful soldier of Jesus
Christ.
But we're here to work.
In a sense, please try to understand this.
This was burned into my heart again reading
a missionary book by one of the great
missiologists, Herbert Cain of Trinity Seminary.
How much training it takes to prepare people
for cross-cultural evangelism.
We are going to attempt in one week
and then another five days in Belgium to
get into your mind and to some degree
into your heart which normally we would need
a year.
Why are we doing that?
Because we believe the world is an emergency
situation.
A.W. Tozer said the whole world is
in an emergency situation.
The church to a large degree has failed
to obey Jesus Christ.
Therefore, half the people in the world have
never yet had the gospel in any way,
shape, or form.
There are another ten reasons I can give
you why I feel we're in an emergency
situation.
That's why I believe the Holy Spirit has
raised up what old Ralph Winter calls the
spiritual guerrilla force, Operation Mobilization, to launch out
now and to help the struggling existing church
in Europe and the missionaries in Europe to
do the job.
We're not going to do the job.
We're going as an emergency force in training,
in training to help them do the job.
And we've got to get to some degree
into you in the next week and in
Belgium.
Of course, that's considering you've gone through the
tapes, you've gone through the books.
Without that, we're already in trouble.
We've got to get into you what normally
we would like a year to do.
I want to tell you some of the
short-term workers going out from the United
States are causing harm in existing missionary work.
And we now have a number of key
leaders in Europe who are opposed, opposed to
especially American short-term summer holiday trips.
And they're speaking out.
One of them is Dr. Michael Griffiths, a
very close friend of mine, very outspoken, now
the president of London Bible College, formerly the
director of OMS, the Great China Inland Mission.
You should hear some of his lucid descriptions
of some short-term operations.
I was concerned about this.
I wrote him a letter and I was
greatly relieved that he strongly is linked with
us and would love people to go on
OM before they, of course, come to London
Bible College or join OMS. And we just
have to get some of this basic orientation
over.
It doesn't mean we're going to be perfect
in doing it.
We won't be.
Therefore, we don't expect you to be perfect
in the response, but let's do the best
we can, preparing to amalgamate our hearts with
these Europeans who we're going to meet in
a few weeks' time.
Preparing to work as servants, because this is
the present place that American missionaries and trainees
must go as.
If we are going to be accepted, if
we are going to be appreciated, if we
are going to leave something more than just
the smell in some of these countries, we
must go as servants.
We must go as co-workers.
No longer with the big heavy American or
Anglo-Saxon image.
That's why we're here.
We're here to work, to study, to prepare,
to discuss the problems, to be interviewed, to
get the final confirmation on what we're doing.
Praise God.
The wall was built because they had a
mind to work.
Because they knew the God who would fight
for them.
Chapter 4, verse 20, our God shall fight
for us.
These men were so committed to the task
that we read in verse 23, so neither
I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor
the men of the guard who followed me,
none of us put off our clothes except
that everyone put them off for washing.
Isn't that interesting?
Last night, after being up too late the
night before, being on jet lag, I went
home, it was five or six o'clock
in the afternoon which was midnight or more,
and I somehow just didn't make it getting
the clothes off.
I just fell asleep and woke up.
So I get encouragement by this scripture.
Now this became my habit before I was
married.
If you think I'm intense now, you just
thank Jesus you didn't live around me then.
You know, to me, there's only so many
hours in the day, so many seconds use
them.
Taking clothes off, putting clothes on, what a
waste of time.
So many nights I went to sleep with
my clothes on.
The floor, chair, anywhere.
What is the purpose of taking your clothes
off?
I slept, I learned to sleep so well
with them on, you know, I took them
off I didn't, I had to sleep.
Now this was one of the areas where
I had to come into balance.
When I got married, my wife somehow didn't
go for this.
Especially the shoes.
Boy, 21 years of marriage it's been God's
great graduate school for me.
And I thank the Lord for that institution.
So here's the biblical basis for that.
So neither I nor my brethren nor my
servants nor the men of the guard who
follow me, none of us put off our
clothes except that every one put them off
for washing.
Now we don't make major theological issue of
this.
So don't worry.
But do you picture the intensity?
It was a warfare situation.
People were ready to attack, tear down the
walls and destroy them.
A lot of things that we feel are
important, if we're thrown into a war, become
unimportant.
And this is the problem.
The church is not on a militant stance.
It's not an invading army.
And I just feel, this is why the
world is not being evangelized as it should
be.
Well, they had a lot of problems.
But I want to jump over to the
great revival that came under Ezra.
Chapter 8.
Because I see in this passage, and there
are many other similar passages, the biblical basis
for gathering together in this way.
Even if we were not preparing to go
out into a spiritual invasion, there is a
biblical basis for God's people gathering together.
I am personally the kind of person, after
all these years of conferences, that only come
here under holy orders from the King of
Kings.
I have a great love for people.
I want to give my life to people.
But I prefer one at a time.
One at a time.
I find crowds very hard.
I was very nervous in the dining hall,
lunch time.
You wouldn't think that.
Do you think leaders are the kind of
people that have it all together?
You know, you're just beginning.
Because I tell you, you're looking at one
leader who doesn't have it all together.
But I know a God who is somehow,
by His grace, keeping me, keeping on.
But I find conferences a little difficult.
Already I've seen so many people I did
fellowship with, not for five minutes, passing like
two locomotives, but you know, let's go for
a walk.
One of my closest friends in England is
Peter Maiden.
Last time we got together, we started talking,
then we started walking, then we started talking.
We came to the highest mountain in England,
and that looks nice.
We climbed up to the top of the
highest mountain in England.
This was the dumbest thing you've ever seen.
Peter Maiden with a suit coat and a
tie on the top of Snowdin.
People were looking around, hey, what's going on?
What's this guy doing up here?
People die up there from improper clothing.
Of course, this was a warmer season, so
that wasn't too much of a problem.
We had a whole day together.
This is what I want.
One of these little interviews, you know, step
right in, sit down, let's have a great
time together.
Well, it was great to know you.
What was your name again?
Luigi?
Susie?
Oh, I always get those mixed up.
God bless you, Luigi.
I'll be praying for you next.
You think we want this?
No.
But you see, if we're going to evangelize
the world, if we're going to obey God,
we're going to have to lay aside, at
times, some of the things that we would
prefer, the way we would prefer them.
And we're going to have to lock hands
and lock hearts, believe the best.
We will get longer fellowship with some, but
we've got a war to win, a battle
to fight.
I've come here because this is where God
wants me.
I'm not interested, really, at this point, in
my emotions.
My wife and I never like to separate.
It's always tears.
It's always agony.
I am emotionally only half functioning without my
wife.
I don't understand that.
But it is.
She normally comes with me.
Last time I was in Memphis, she was
with me.
I had a wonderful time.
We actually came over by ship, just to
take life a little slower.
It was a fantastic time.
She had to remain in England because my
son is in very, very big pre-university
exams and wanted her to be there.
I'm here because I'm bought with a price.
I belong to Jesus.
I'm not interested mainly in how the vibrations
of the conference are going on or how
much emotional satisfaction and fulfillment I am getting
from the conference.
I'm interested in the glory of God.
I'm interested in obeying Jesus.
And I know that means George Vorah is
going to have to be crucified.
Not destroyed.
Crucified.
Which means that Jesus Christ is going to
live this life out through us.
And He is going to accomplish the impossible.
So I feel it's sensible.
It's reasonable.
It's biblical to gather in this way.
That's what they did here for the reading
of the law.
Notice verse 1 in chapter 8.
Isn't that interesting?
Have you ever studied those words?
They gathered themselves as one man into the
street and there was before the water gate
and they spoke unto Ezra the scribe to
bring the book of the law of Moses
which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
And Ezra the priest brought the law before
the congregation, both the men and the women
and all who could hear with understanding upon
the first day of the seventh month.
And he read from it facing the street
that was before the water gate from the
morning until the midday before the men and
the women and those who could understand.
And the ears of all the people were
attentive unto the book of the law.
Think of how much more we have today
than those people.
The New Testament.
The Sermon on the Mount.
The deeper teachings of God.
Yet they with just the book of the
law listening attentive were brought into revival.
One of the most spiritual movements I've ever
worked with.
They've got plenty of weaknesses.
Every spiritual movement has weakness.
Every spiritual movement has extremes.
One of those movements is the movement under
the leadership of Bhakt Singh of India.
I've lived with this man.
I've traveled with him.
I've prayed with him.
I've preached at his convocations.
And that's one of the backbones of their
whole movement.
They've planted 300 churches and more across India.
One of the biggest factors in their whole
movement is they gather in what they call
a holy convocation for a week.
They gather.
They live together.
They share.
They have nights of prayer.
They have three hour Bible studies.
Then they parade through the streets witnessing.
And the Spirit of God every year has
poured Himself out upon those great holy convocations.
Thousands have come to Christ and that has
been acknowledged even by men like Billy Graham
as one of the great spiritual movements of
our day.
Those of us who have traveled among those
assemblies and lived with those people know that
this doesn't deliver them from problems.
I remember Bhakt Singh sharing with me one
of his men committed suicide.
I'd call that a fairly substantial problem.
This treasure beloved is in earthen vessels.
If you're looking for the perfect New Testament
organization, you're in the wrong place.
Get your ticket and go back home.
You will not find it here.
In fact, I would say if you're looking
for the perfect organization and the perfect church
and the great final New Testament movement, you
are on one big fat tangent.
And the sooner you get off it and
come down to earth, the happier you'll be.
We are linked heart and heart with the
whole body of Christ around the world.
Even those that don't agree with us, we
feel linked with them.
And our burden is not to exalt operation
mobilization or certain men, but to just sense
our oneness with the whole body and to
bring glory to God in everything we do.
But we do at the same time feel
that there are certain biblical principles we must
obey.
We feel one of those principles is that
as God's people we should gather in special
times of prayer, worship, the reading of the
law, the reading of the word.
I can't take the time to read the
whole chapter, but look at verse 8.
So they read in the book in the
law of God distinctly and gave the sense
and caused them to understand the reading.
And Nehemiah, who is the Tirshatha, and Ezra
the priest, the scribe, and the Levites who
taught the people, said unto all the people,
this day is holy unto the Lord.
This day is holy unto the Lord, your
God more not, nor we.
For all the people wept when they heard
the words of the law.
And he said unto them, go your way,
eat the fat and drink the sweet and
send portions unto you.
Unto them for whom nothing is prepared, for
this day is holy unto our Lord.
Neither be ye grieved for the joy of
the Lord is your strength.
It's fantastic.
It just ministers to me that passage.
Revival through the reading of the word of
God.
We believe in these days gathered together God
wants to meet us in revival.
He wants to revive our hearts.
He wants us to be caught up together
praising Him.
We are an army of praise.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but spiritual.
Mighty unto God to the pulling down of
strongholds.
The weapon of praise, the shield of faith.
God's spiritual boot camp is very, very unlike
a military boot camp in so many ways.
There are a few similarities.
Most comparisons in scripture, beloved, only go so
far.
I went too far for a while in
my teaching on the militant.
I was reading war books and how Rommel
did it in the deserts of North Africa
and God just spanked me.
And I haven't touched many war books for
many, many years.
Because the comparison only goes so far.
And that's very important in understanding scripture, not
to take the comparison further than the scripture
takes it.
Because the scripture has many other comparisons.
We're not only soldiers, we're pilgrims.
We're not only pilgrims we're servants.
Jesus said more than servants, friends.
And if you don't get the balance of
all these things, you become lopsided.
And you become some kind of, you know,
a military a military freak, which is actually
very obnoxious in the work of God.
And you get little generals.
We had some of our early leaders, they
thought they were Napoleon.
They thought they were, you know, okay, line
up you guys.
What do you mean you don't feel it's
in love?
Boom, I love you.
And, you know, God's had to give us
many spankings.
Because we so quickly you know, went to
one extreme or the other.
Yes, we're soldiers.
But our joy comes from the Lord.
And the joy of the Lord is our
strength.
We're pilgrims.
We're friends.
We're servants.
We're high priests.
We're co-heirs.
Don't think of yourself as some little private
joining this, you know, army.
There's General Hicks and your private Susie Bell.
I think there's actually a girl by that
name who may be coming here.
Forgive me.
You know, that's carrying the comparison too far.
We as leaders are not generals.
We're servants.
Shepherds.
And we just want to love you.
We want to help you.
Don't think because I do some of the
speaking at this conference some of them conferences
I don't even go.
I haven't been to the M.D. Dula
House in one year.
I say that because some people think George
Durr, he's the big leader.
We don't operate that way.
Our whole work is led by a team
of people.
Each field is somewhat autonomous.
Basically they do what they feel led to
do out there in Pakistan and France.
If I see something that's unscriptural even then
I contact some of the other leaders.
We pray about it then we may go
and have a chat.
Every major decision in this movement, the whole
movement is led on a team basis.
The brethren of course are all very kind.
Still call me the international coordinator simply because
for the sake of continuity and pressing on
in the work it is good for someone
to be often the voice to express the
final decision of the body and to help
through the authority the Lord gives them to
try to carry that out by prayer, by
persuasion, by weeping, by every possible biblical, sometimes
unbiblical.
I try to stay away from that method.
What a blessed day it was when the
law was read.
The Spirit moved among these people and revival
came.
Let's pray for revival in these days together.
In closing let me give you one of
my lists.
You know I'm famous in my messages over
the last few years for my lists.
And I just have a few points on
this list just on how you can make
this conference really count.
How you can make this holy convocation really
count.
Number one, make God your goal.
We often sing that seek ye first the
kingdom of God.
Make God your goal not firstly the summer,
not firstly evangelism or discipling men or planting
churches.
Yes we're into all that very much.
But our goal is God and that has
helped keep this movement on the narrow road.
So easy to get our eyes on other
things.
Even that money some of you are a
little neurotic about that money.
That's not the big thing whether your money
comes.
I'd rather stay home and worship God than
just get caught up in some kind of
extremism about money.
God can provide.
That doesn't come by a series of neurotic
jerks.
They know that the Lord is watching their
every action.
So they become very jumpy.
And he goes on to say when Tozer
said this I almost came right out of
my shoes.
God is easy to live with.
And I believe that if OM is a
movement of God I pray it may be
that we will be easy to live with.
And if you don't find us easy to
live with, maybe this is not God's place
for you.
And we will respect you.
Now personally I don't think you can know
that at a conference.
That's why we have a summer crusade.
Because our big interest is the year and
two year program and on the summer you
can get to know us.
And if by the end of the summer
you just feel uptight about it all the
way it happens, this thing, that thing, the
leadership, the message praise the Lord.
A charter flight is already booked to take
you home.
Those that come for the year or two
we hope you'll find God easy to live
with.
And we hope you'll find God's work.
We'll never be as easy to live with
as God because we're human.
We fail.
And that will hurt you sometimes.
Don't go into Christian work if you don't
want to be hurt.
Forget it.
In fact I don't know how you can
handle this planet without being hurt.
Maybe you ought to sign up, I heard
the Swedes are planning big holidays out in
outer space in 1987 or something like that.
Sign up.
Maybe it's better out there.
But if you're going to be on planet
Earth you're going to get hurt.
You're not going to join any church.
You're not going to join any spiritual fellowship.
You're not going to go on any arm
team.
You're probably not even going to be able
to be at this conference without something happening
that may hurt you.
And this is only, we're only getting started
here.
God is our goal.
Number two, the right attitude.
God is concerned about our attitude.
This is an area where the Holy Spirit
has been working in my own heart a
lot in the past years.
I want a revolutionary attitude toward all of
God's people, all of God's organizations, all the
churches.
I want to learn how to believe the
best.
I want deep soul surgery and crucifixion in
the area of the disposition because I'm the
kind of person that, you know, outwardly I
can say praise the Lord and shake your
hand and inwardly I might be depressed or
upset or in some other emotion.
How's your attitude toward your brothers and sisters?
How's your attitude toward those who refuse to
pray for you?
Those who have opposed you in the past
weeks or months?
God wants to operate on our attitude.
If you come in with a wrong attitude,
a basically cynical or negative attitude no matter
how hard we try, no matter how many
things go right here you'll probably see the
things that are going wrong and get discouraged,
upset or depressed.
So much is hinged not on just what
we say here.
It's hinged on your attitude and mine.
Number three, prayer.
The quiet time, waiting on God.
Those who wait upon the Lord, Isaiah says,
will be renewed in strength.
You might want to study the whole 40th
chapter of Isaiah.
Try to get that time with God in
the morning.
I don't always get a good quiet time,
but this morning I tell you I met
with God for two hours in His word
and prayer before that tennis game and that
has set the pattern for today.
People who know me, I think they've seen
something in me today that they don't always
see.
I met with God.
And sometimes I have these little crammed quiet
times, you know, 10 minutes of the word
scooping up some prayer, you know, Operation World
...
I mean, it's alright, you know, basic survival
but you're not getting what God wants to
give you.
You're not getting what God wants to give
you.
In the word.
I'm not saying two hours.
For most people, even my own life, an
hour in the mornings is a beautiful thing.
Sometimes you can't get that.
Number four, don't presume.
I've already touched on that.
We're in a warfare.
It's going to take commitment.
Number five, faithfulness.
Faithfulness in some of the areas that have
been mentioned to us, like the meetings, the
attendance.
And then you're going to be given some
chores, things to do.
As you're faithful in little things, God will
enable you to be responsible for bigger things.
A lot of the things that Brother George
Barathon did in this work, I think for
the first, what, five years in my view,
a lot of them were quite small.
When he came on my team he didn't
get any big responsibilities.
I said, George, this is it for today.
Set up a book table for a meeting
of eight people.
And I watched Brother George Barathon for one
year on my team working as my assistant
just doing the simplest things.
Here's a big job for you, George.
Carry this paper up and give it to
Sue.
And I watched the Lord just move George
into other responsibilities until he was lining up
ports for the ship and 300 people to
come in and carry on their ministry with
all the details and headaches and problems that
that would involve.
As you're faithful in little things, God will
move you into other things.
Number six, learning submission.
Now, I know there's some extremist teaching about
submission.
You won't find much of that in OM.
If anything, we're over here too much.
But we believe that you must learn something
of submitting to those over you in the
Lord.
You study Hebrews 13, 17.
You study 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 through 13.
You'll see the biblical basis for leadership.
At the same time, we as leaders, we
have to learn also to submit to you.
We learn from you.
We want to listen you out.
We're a movement that operates not by dictatorship
but by negotiation.
And so we submit to one another.
We read about that in the Word of
God.
It also says the leader should not lord
it over God's heritage.
So without the two things, it gets out
of balance.
But for most of you, your big task
isn't learning not to lord it over God's
heritage.
That's not where most of you are in
your faith.
It's to learn something of submission.
And until you can submit to some things
that you don't understand or don't even agree
with, you haven't accomplished very much.
I believe that for the sake of world
evangelism and the reality of the spiritual warfare,
we need to agree on a plan of
action.
That's one of the reasons we're here.
We need to agree on a plan of
action and a strategy and policy to carry
out that action, even when there are things
we don't like or even agree with.
We're never as evangelical Christians with all of
our strong ideas going to agree on everything.
Forget it!
We're not expecting you to agree on every
little jot and tittle of O.M.'s policy
and what's been burning in our hearts.
We as leaders worldwide don't agree jot and
tittle on all these things.
But we have a like-mindedness and a
submission to one another and a love that
enables us to move forward as a mighty
army.
Number seven, patience.
That's one of God's most important schools.
I'm still in it.
It's a long-term training program.
God's going to teach you patience even during
this week.
Some of you may feel this is not
going fast enough.
Maybe the food line isn't going fast enough.
Why does it have to be a line
just to get to the john?
Isn't this place organized?
Why didn't they put in a few extra
toilets for us?
Didn't they know we were coming?
I want to tell you if you think
you got a toilet crisis here, we're going
to take you to some countries where you're
going to have experiences that you will never
forget.
Especially the ladies.
I won't go into details.
Patience.
God has His wonderful way of teaching patience.
Number eight, unselfishness.
Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
Some people are disappointed in O.M. because
they think of O.M. as a giant
ministry gun.
They're going to get in front of the
gun and George Soros is going to light
the fuse and boom, they're going to get
ministered to.
That's not how you get ministered to.
You get ministered to by ministering to others.
And only as you give out and put
into practice what you receive, then God can
give you more.
The little ways that we can minister to
one another.
And then very quickly, the last couple of
points and we're going to close.
The balance of our ideals and the reality
of the situation.
Young people often coming into O.M. are
very idealistic.
In one way that's good, but if that
idealism isn't balanced off with biblical teaching, reality,
an understanding of what life is really about,
a deliverance from naive views about problems, about
life, about people, about so many things that
we easily pick up, then we're doomed I
believe to a cul-de-sac.
We call that in Europe a dead end
street.
In the most disciplined organized Christian work, mistakes
will be made.
There will be problems of disorganization no matter
how organized we are, no matter how much
we plan ahead.
Plans have gone into this conference months and
months ahead.
In one sense, almost a year ahead, we
met for leaders for a whole week to
wrestle with our problems, to try to improve
every aspect of the work.
And yet, sometimes we find ourselves making the
same mistake we made 15 years ago.
Especially because one of our policies is to
constantly throw new men into leadership.
And they've got to, as they're thrown into
leadership, have the privilege of making the same
mistakes we made.
Some of you, to your surprise, are going
to end up in leadership this summer in
some form.
You're going to have very interesting lessons.
Pray that doesn't come upon you prematurely.
Of course, in O.M. sometimes it does.
And then learning to believe the best.
I think that's so important about people.
We are, as human beings, tend to very
quickly judge other people.
Generalize, judge people by their outward appearance.
Americans misjudge Europeans by outward appearance.
You can meet a Cambridge graduate who will
be absolutely brilliant and you, as an American,
never having been in England, looking to him,
maybe even talking to him, you would judge
that he had not yet been in school.
Because he's just so different from you.
His dress, his appearance, his vocabulary.
We get some Americans that think somebody they're
talking to, on O.M., is a communist.
Europeans understand this.
They believe Americans are paranoid about communists.
They always get the wrong stories.
That's the way the media is.
And you're going to meet dedicated, Christian, born
again, socialists.
Because Europe is socialist.
But they won't be the kind of socialists
you've been reading about in some of your
little books.
And I will tell you some of the
interesting things we've had.
With little Johnny right-wing American who sees
communists coming out of every bush.
Meeting a leader, O.M. leader, former vice
president of the Cambridge Socialist Club.
Nobody told him about this at Bible school.
So, I can assure you, we don't have
any communists in Operation Mobilization.
And most people would classify as an anti
-communist movement, though we don't like such classifications.
Because in one sense, the greatest opponent to
communism is the preaching and the proclamation of
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But Europeans and Americans do not always see
it the same way.
We're going to a very complicated continent that
has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and thousands
of years of history.
We come from our relatively newly born nations
into this great cultural continent.
And we need wisdom.
And we need to esteem them.
And we need to, with all of our
hearts, find a balance in what we say
and what we do.
And between our ideals and the reality of
the situation.
And we need to believe the best.
And then willing to change even from what
we may think is God's will.
Maybe you're absolutely convinced you should be on
God's will.
God's will is a year program.
Okay, you're convinced.
But be willing for one of God's surprises.
Be willing for one of God's surprises.
And then lastly, learn.
Please, please, I beg of you, learn something
of organization.
Organizing your papers, organizing your briefcase, writing down
addresses, phone numbers.
Organization is so important.
Just recently in India, one railway engineer made
one mistake driving his train in North India.
It happened last week.
And 1,000 to 2,000 people were
plunged to a hideous death.
One mistake, one man.
One of the things I was naive about
as a young Christian is how much mistakes
cost.
We cannot afford to be flippant.
We have got to learn to be diligent.
Many of you are going to be driving
vehicles.
One mistake and you plunge a whole team
out into eternity.
Hopefully they'll go to heaven.
But we don't tempt God.
We need as many people as we can
get for world evangelism for the next 20
years.
We need people who will learn to organize,
who will learn the secret of the ordered
life, who will be disciplined in food, in
time, in diet, in reading, and in all
these other aspects of the life.
We know this doesn't come overnight.
That's why we'd be happy to welcome as
many of you as possible to the two
-year training program.
And you can put in for a third
year with no trouble at all.
And we're happy that at least you're coming
for the summer.
May God give us a spirit of expectation.
Perhaps that's more important than anything else.
A spirit of faith, of hope, of expectation.
That He's going to meet us in this
place.
He's going to teach us wonderful things.
And though we feel weak and inadequate, and
maybe even in our own being we'd just
love to run out the door and run
home like me, God will meet us here
and will bless us and teach us.
And this will be revival, a holy convocation,
a time set unto God to praise, to
worship, to grow, to be His praising, worshiping,
joyful children.
Let's pray.
Our God, we just thank You for Your
Word.
We thank You for this challenge from Nehemiah.
And Lord, we ask that there may come
a spirit of revival upon us in these
days together.
Lord, we ask by faith for a spirit
of expectation.
We ask by faith for the wisdom and
discipline to put into practice these principles that
will enable us to get the most out
of this conference.
Enable us to see this, Lord, as a
military training camp in which we're being prepared
to go into battle in Europe.
And yet, let us not in the process
of that miss these other great truths about
our kingship, about our friend relationship with You
and all the rest.
Oh God, it's great.
It's really great.
We thank You for all these Europeans that
are over there waiting for us to come
and work with them.
We want to be a blessing to them,
and if we're going to do that, You've
got to bless us right out of our
socks this week.
Because we haven't got it in ourselves.
We're just going to go over there and
make one big mess, unless You move in
our hearts and break down the barriers and
crucify self.
Do it, Lord, we pray.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.