======================================================================== THE REVOLUTION OF THE LOVE / DIE REVOLUTION DER LIEBE - PART 2 by George Verwer ======================================================================== Summary: The sermon emphasizes the importance of Christians being involved in world missions and engaging with Muslims, and highlights the power of prayer, compassion, and forgiveness in this endeavor. Duration: 35:54 Topics: "Mission Evangelism", "Gods Grace" Scripture References: Matthew 6:33, Matthew 9:35-38 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this sermon, the speaker begins by reading Matthew 9:36-38, where Jesus is moved with compassion for the multitude and recognizes the need for more laborers in the harvest. The speaker shares his personal background, growing up in a non-Christian home and facing challenges. However, he highlights the impact of a praying woman who believed in the power of prayer and had a vision for world missions. The speaker emphasizes the importance of grace in mission and evangelization, and encourages the audience to embrace the Jesus Revolution and stay excited in their faith, despite struggles and mistakes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I was looking in the... I was there in the pastor's office. I forgot my Bible last minute, so he loaned me his Bible. Otherwise I'd be a Bible- less preacher. Here I saw a book on his shelf. My favorite book. Well, one of my favorite books. It's called Grace Awakening. I know it was available in German. It was hardback and it was very expensive. You needed grace just to look at the price. God... God spoke to me through that book. So when I was writing my own recent book, my latest book, for the first time I was writing about world missions. I was writing about the Acts 13 vision that God had given me. I was writing about the 300,000 workers that we are praying for, for all of God's work. I decided to make a major theme in the book, grace. This is one of the books, because it's a small book, that we do have available here at the conference in big quantity. And you can get it at a special price. And it's about the message of grace when we're involved in mission and world evangelization. How to know God's forgiveness in our own situation, when we make mistakes and when we sin. How to allow the Holy Spirit to produce a grace awakening in our own lives. So that we know how to forgive people. So that we know how to be big hearted. When people hurt us, we can forgive them. We can go the extra mile. We can believe the best. As we see so many different ways of going about things. Even in mission work. Even in the Muslim world. There are many different strategies. And there's a lot of controversy in the church at this time. In the United States they're having still controversy about what translation of the Bible you should use. They write whole books on it. Some will not fellowship. They will not fellowship with people who are studying a different translation of the Bible. And I have no part with you. Others are fighting over the issue of music. What kind of music? There are those that believe that only organ music is worthy of the work of God. Organ, organ music. But there are others believe God is only anointing guitars. Guitars is what's the Holy Ghost doing to them. Guitars. But others say no, no, no. It's this special keyboard. This is what has the anointing. Not organs, not guitars. You're laughing. I'm glad you can laugh. Because if you belong in the church, you're going to do a lot of laughing or a lot of crying. Because God's people really do a lot of funny things. And when I say that, I can only repent of some of the stupidity in my own life. But I can assure you with all of my heart after 46 years in the word of God. These issues are not what's on the heart of God. You can worship with an organ, you can worship with a guitar, you can worship with a keyboard. You can worship in the desert with no instrument and just bang on your old tin pot. And you can worship Jesus. But we shouldn't allow these things to divide the body of Christ. I'm of the guitar church. No, I'm the keyboard church. No, the organ church. I've got an idea. I'm going to start the global balloon church. If you don't have your big globe, you can't come to my church. When I first started carrying this globe around the world, I only had a small one, it was only this big. And I thought, then God gave me this bigger one. We discovered this in Germany. That's not the reason it has a leak. It was manufactured out in Asia and they don't manufacture them anymore. For those of you who are sitting in the back, you may not realize this is a global jacket. This is the entire map of the world. It doesn't look very good on me. It's like the world is flat. This looks so good when you put it on a global person. People say, why do you wear this? I tell you, I'm not wearing it right now in order to keep warm. I'm wearing it for Jesus. Because I want people to pray for the nations of the world. I want us to reach out to Tibet. Afghanistan. I want us to reach out to Germany as well. Because sometimes it's harder, sometimes, to go across the street than it is to go across the ocean. One of the burdens I have for this great land of Germany are the Muslim people that God has brought here. These Turkish people. Pakistani people. Many different nationalities. Some of them have never had even a friendly conversation with another kind of German. Let's be honest. Isn't it good if we can be honest? There is racism and prejudice in every nation of Europe and every nation in the world. And when I meet a person that is free from racism and prejudice, then I know I'm with someone in which a deep work of the Holy Spirit has taken place. And I have met such people because they experienced the revolution of love outlined in the Word of God. When I went to Mexico, God gave me such a love for the nation of Turkey and the Mexican people. How could we ever think of them as being inferior as most Americans do? When I saw the way Mexicans were treated by people north of the border who even professed the name of Jesus, it was a grievous thing in my heart. Jesus didn't just die to save us so we could go to heaven, of course. That's the heart of the message of grace. Jesus died to change us. The Word of God says, if any person be in Christ, they are a new creation. One of my other books that we have on our little display table has been republished many times in the German language. Jesus in the Practical Life. If you've got a few Deutschmarks, I think it's only 5 marks, get a copy of this book. Jesus wants to bring radical change into our lives. We will go out from here and embrace the Turkish people in our town here in Germany. We will try to find out where the mosques are. And we will go to the mosque and we will try to be their friends and listen to them because many Muslims feel very frightened, much more so in the United States right now. And I believe part of the problem we have in the world today is because Christians have neglected the Muslim world for this 1,000 or more years because we've discovered when you love Muslims and you give them the Word of God and you spend time with them some of them come to Jesus and some who don't come to Jesus they can still be your friend. They can still live together in the same town. It's only a small percentage, a very small percentage that become terrorists or fanatics. But brothers and sisters, if we don't handle the present situation right if the church especially does not respond to this huge challenge facing us in the world then we're going to be facing many of these Muslims in a very, very different way. It's already happening and one out of every six people in the world is a Muslim. Just a few weeks ago after September 11th God in a very unusual way without any major preaching invitation I didn't have any major preaching invitation just told me to go to New York. I didn't want to go. I had just come back from the States a missions conference and some meetings. I had a mountain of work in my office in my team that I'm leading and then I told the Lord I can't get any cheap flight. Last minute bookings I won't get a cheap flight so Lord I'm not going. But I made a few phone calls and if you can't stay over a weekend often you have to pay a lot more for a ticket. I did some phoning. Air India was giving a special offer to New York City from London. Round trip for 400 marks and so Monday afternoon after my Sunday preaching I was sitting on the Air India jet and headed for New York City. I said God why am I going there and God told me you're going there to weep. You're going there to weep. You see God had saved me in New York City in a Billy Graham meeting I'll share about that tonight 46 years ago in Madison Square Garden. So New York City had become a big place in my life. I used to go there as a young kid. I did a lot of stupid things in New York City. I climbed the Empire State Building and threw confetti all over New York City which is illegal and the police of course got a hold of me. Then I had been back there just last June. I was speaking at a huge Jesus music festival in Memphis, Tennessee and my passport was stolen so I had to go to New York City one of the few places where you can get a passport fast and so I had to go to New York City which is one of the few places where you can get a passport fast I went in early before things were open and I sat at the foot of the Twin Towers and had my morning prayer and devotions. I went in to those magnificent buildings So on September 11th I was on our ship Lagos II sailing from England over to the Netherlands and I saw those images on the screen I don't think I've ever been the same. A friend of mine gave me a special pass right to Ground Zero when I stood in front right next to this mountain of rubbish realizing 5000 people were dead there. What went through my heart and mind wasn't all good. I had lots of struggles especially because the terrorists were Muslims and I love Muslims. The main thing in my life has been the Muslim world. In OM we do many things but the priority for over 40 years has always been the Muslim world. I was so emotionally moved by this that even before I went there I wrote an email letter to President Bush. I don't do things like this normally but I felt there may be a spirit of vengeance rather than just justice a spirit of vengeance coming upon the American people and other people. And I wanted to urge the President or anyone else who read it and many thousands of people did to be patient and to be compassionate and to be forgiving as we seek justice. I got a letter, an email from the White House saying my email was received but the President was not reading such emails. Some of his top advisers were saying similar things and I believe it was an answer to prayer. And so many, many weeks a number of weeks passed before anything was done. And now when I see the pictures on the screen I don't know what to say but I want to commit myself to pray for the Afghan people once again. To pray for the Uzbek people just to the north. To pray for the Tajik people just to the north. To pray for the Pakistanis on the east. To pray for the Iranians on the west. Because we've seen what God has done in Iran. Through the revolution then through the war with Iraq a horrendous war with tens of thousands dead the world hardly even paid any attention. And yet through all that chaos thousands of Iranians around the world have come to Jesus. In the United States there are 50 or more Iranian churches worshipping Jesus and winning other Muslim Iranians to Christ. I wanted to close by reading a passage of scripture from Matthew chapter 9. Turn with me in your Bible. We see the Lord Jesus in verse 35 of Matthew 9 going about the cities and villages. We see Him preaching the gospel but we see Him healing the sicknesses. And let's read verse 36 and 37 and 38. When He saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion on them because they were fated and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then said He unto His disciples The harvest truly is plenteous but the labors are few. And then what does God say? Pray. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest He'll send forth workers into the harvest. I wasn't from a Christian home. My grandfather from the Netherlands was an atheist. My grandfather on my mother's side was Irish, Scottish and English mixed blood. I think that mixture is probably toxic. He was a complete drunk. And my grandmother divorced him. And at 16 years of age I was on the highway to hell. I'll tell the story tonight. But this little lady across from my high school a praying woman who believed those verses who had a vision for world mission who received missionary prayer letters from all over the world and she prayed through those letters. She heard about me. I was in trouble in the school. I was in trouble with the police. She put my name on her Holy Ghost hit list. Not only prayed that I become a Christian she prayed specifically I would be sent as a missionary. Wait a minute. How about talking to me about that? She didn't even discuss this with me. You know even a note a phone call would have been polite. New Jersey people are not known for their politeness. And then she sent me a spiritual hand grenade through the mail through the post. Spiritual hand grenade. Gospel of John. And God used his word to bring me to repentance to get me into that Billy Graham meeting and almost the same week that he saved me he sent me as a missionary firstly to my own ungodly high school. Let me ask this question. How many of you are seriously praying about launching outside of Germany as a missionary? Not because that's any better than staying here but it's an important question. You have sensed the guidance of God on your life and you're moving out of these borders to more unreached people. I wonder would you just raise your hand. That's a lot of people. Hallelujah. Let's pray for them. Father this is amazing. Father this is amazing. This is one third of the people here who already made a commitment to go. Lord I believe you're going to help me change my messages or organize my next two messages in the light of this tremendous fact. But Lord we know the way will not be easy. We know 50% or more of those who make this commitment they never actually get there. There's a financial mountain to move. There's a family mountain to move. There's a local church to be mobilized. There are other factors in our situations that have to be sorted out before we can go. So I pray for each one of these. That these will be very special days for them. They may grow in wisdom and knowledge. That they may grow in spiritual discernment. That we will learn some basic things that are going to help us make this happen so that the ends of the earth feel the impact of this meeting tonight. Lead them to study the right books. Give them an Antioch church or an Antioch fellowship like Acts 13 that will stand with them. May they experience supernatural grace. In Jesus' name. I hope you'll look at this passage another time. Make this commitment to be a man or a woman of prayer. And remember what we said in the beginning. Failure can be the back door to success. I know God wants to use each one of you who is here today. You may feel very weak. You may feel you've failed the Lord many times in your own situation now much less thinking about some spiritual adventure in China. You can't even handle your little hometown in Padacubango. Let me say this. For 47 years I've seen God using all kinds of people including many thousands from the land of Germany in Austria and Switzerland and all over Europe. People who never thought God could use them. They felt they had too many problems. Especially problems in the area of sex. And somehow I'm the kind of guy that goes all over the world speaking about sex. I shouldn't do it but I do it. And I'm always getting in trouble speaking about sex. I speak about Jesus. People don't seem to bother. I speak about world missions. Many say praise the Lord for the vision God has given you. I speak about grace, grace awakening. Oh, wonderful! We want more about grace. But when I start to speak about sex somehow I get these funny looks especially if it's in the church. Speaking about sex in the church even recommending that married people make sex one of the great priorities in their life. And saying that when single people are present you can be stumbled by this. I especially got difficulty here in Germany 40 years ago speaking about sex. I think it was the interpreter he got mixed up. 500 verses in the Bible about sex. That's why I speak about sex. And in my next message I'm going to talk about sex. Because if we don't get victory in that area and I was taught this by Dr. Billy Graham if we fail in this area it will be the biggest disaster and failure of our youth. And so many people that we have talked to they feel God can't use them because they don't have absolute total 199% victory over all sexual temptation. And sometimes Christians have more problems than non-Christians. Because when they fail they carry around a ton of guilt false guilt and some maybe true guilt and they don't know how to get free from that. I wonder how many missionaries you know. I know thousands. Let me tell you missionaries are very sexual people. And that's why in Operation Mobilization we have produced thousands and uncounted thousands of children. And certainly who can speak against that? We even had one man with a Bible come through preaching against birth control. Birth control is from the devil. I thought it was a gift of God. So we had a little bit of a conflict. And as I look back at the places where he fellowshiped over a 15, 20 year period he was an older guy. He's now 90 years of age still going strong at 90. This man who's teaching you know as many children as possible against birth control. I could tell where he had spent some time. Because that family had 6, 7 children. Operation Multiplication. Don't worry. God can use single people as well. Single people are also sexual people. And God has a special way of grace for that if he calls you into that. And we have something the world knows very little about. We have a relationship with Jesus and the living God which is greater than any human relationship no matter how great that relationship is. Some of the most dynamic people I know are single people. But they have a deep relationship with the living God that meet their needs in those moments of loneliness and struggle. Would you respond to this passage? Pray that the Lord of the harvest would send forth workers. And I believe missionaries whatever term you want to use. Sometimes they're called tent makers. Sometimes they're called ambassadors of Jesus. Missionaries are needed as much as ever before. We're going to talk more about that tomorrow morning because missions has changed. We shouldn't be going to the same countries. A lot of countries now don't need many foreign missionaries. Other countries have almost no missionaries. These are the places we've got to start to emphasize. And as we go we as Europeans may not always be the leaders anymore. We're not as humble servants and partners of the churches and the people in those nations where we go to. So I'm excited about these days together. As soon as I say that it's a bit ridiculous to say that because I've never had a single non-exciting day since Jesus Christ saved me 46 years ago so I'm not about to start tonight. Why do I say a thing like that? I don't want to boast. That would be stupidity. I'm just trying to say in my funny way Jesus is alive. The Holy Spirit indwells you. That's one of the greatest things that can ever happen. And when you get involved in the Jesus revolution you're going to be excited the rest of your life. Of course that's not on the same level. There can be the struggles. There can be the doubts. All of that's part of God's great plan. You might say, well I made a lot of mistakes in my life. I missed plan A. I got away from Jesus for some years. I think I missed plan B and missed plan C. I've met people who've been through three marriages. They're probably on plan H. You know what I say? Praise God for a big alphabet. Press on in the grace that is in you in Jesus Christ. God bless you. Amen. ======================================================================== Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/2/SID2599.mp3 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/george-verwer/the-revolution-of-the-love-die-revolution-der-liebe-part-2/ ========================================================================