In this sermon, the speaker addresses the challenges faced by young people in today's society, particularly the struggle with pornography. He suggests using modern technology, such as Christian praise tapes and music, as a tool to fight temptations. The speaker shares personal experiences of how listening to Christian praise music has uplifted his spirits and helped him overcome depression. He emphasizes the importance of accepting one's limitations and understanding the truth of God, rather than relying on feelings or blessings. The sermon also mentions the speaker's visit to Germany and the potential for World Missions in that country.

I actually want to share this morning a message that's been on my heart that I've never shared, sort of a teaching message that I hope you can make some use of. It's entitled, I've got somehow I put the notes for this, even though I've never spoken on the subject that I can remember, I put the notes here at the end of Haggai in my Bible. Why so many people seem to get away from the Lord Jesus. One of the greatest burdens on the hearts of those of us have been in O.M. long term are people who once walked with us and now are not away from Jesus. And this message in a sense is dedicated to them because under the teaching of the ninety and nine, we should be more concerned about those people. We have a terrific concern for new recruits. We certainly have a lot of concern for people that look like they're going to remain in the work. And we need such people make a longer term commitment. And usually when people hint to us that they're on that kind of road, we give a considerable amount of time to them. We give time to prayer partners, time to people who are involved with us financially, all of which is acceptable. But how much time do we actually give to people that once were with us and are now no longer even walking with the Lord Jesus? In some ways, there's part of me that would love to get out of my present responsibilities and just give myself fully to those who have been knocked out along the way. Though I don't believe that's the Lord's will for right now. In one sense, it's encouraging. It is very encouraging to see how many who have had some training and experience with O.M. are going on for God. And we could give a great message about that and give you all kinds of names, leaders of organizations, churches, plants. Let me just give you one story from Italy. I must say, I think this is one of the best stories that I picked up on this trip. In 1968, Ingmar Emker and a few other people were crossing the English Channel and they bumped into a man named Doug. He was a mess. He hadn't eaten. He stunk. He was dirty. I received this story, by the way, from Doug himself over an Italian meal a few weeks ago. Doug shared how he came to know Jesus Christ through meeting this band of early O.M.ers who gave him a tract. It wasn't the tract that led to his conversion, but the love of these people. They brought him to Bromley. They gave him a place to stay. They gave him food. As he shared this with me, it was just so beautiful the way he expressed just how this blew him away. You know, who are these people giving me a smelly, and he had some other adjectives which would be better for him to say, meals and a place to sleep. And he came to know Jesus and got involved almost immediately with O.M. We didn't have so much, so many policies about all those things then. And I remember meeting Doug and praying for him, but he's one of many that I completely lost track of until his visit to Italy, when he came up to thank me for what happened to him in 1968. He went back to the States, began to grow in the Lord, and from the conversation which I got later, including with a missionary that works with him, hundreds and hundreds came to Christ through this brother's ministry in the United States. He then applied to a very conservative mission society who really were quite unsure that they should take such a rough character. He especially, by the way, worked with young people in the States. The amazing thing is he was the son of a military man in Naples. This is 1968, and not Christian, and he had gotten involved really with the street people of Naples, their language, their swearing, their jokes, their mentality. So after his time in the States, he decided with the hand of God upon his life to return to Naples, and it was really the missionaries in Naples that pushed it through the screening systems the mission societies have. So he got accepted, he went to Naples, and he started planning a church, and it's a church with now 300 people worshiping, and really one of the outstanding churches in the nation, and he was just sharing. I was not even aware of how he's getting involved with his church in Operation Mobilization, sending people on Love Europe and all kinds of other things. He gave me a gift just before I left him, and more or less said he's just available to serve OM in any way possible in the light of these things that I've just shared with you. We know, of course, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories like that all over the world. I praise the Lord for it, and I trust that you are encouraged by that true story, even as I am. Being there in Rome brought back many memories, and before I go into this little talk, maybe I could just say a little word about that trip, because you were praying, and I believe we go into these trips as a team. I believe it was a wise last-minute decision that Kevin also went with me, even though because it was a bit of an expensive air ticket being paid for by the two groups that invited me, though all kinds of other things would fit into the trip, decided that Kevin should go to Rome by bus. By the way, we are discovering just how many inexpensive bus trips there are now, right out of London, all over Europe, not every day. So it really proved to be a help to have Kevin with me on this particular trip. The meeting in Rome, just in case you don't know about it, was the Congress on Evangelism for Italy. The Evangelical Alliance in Italy has gone through a great crisis, there was a split, the former leader went off and has kept a lot of the money, and this particular Congress really is pioneered by a man that I'd like you to pray for, who's one of the outstanding evangelists in Italy, and has just a lot of hope with his brother, his name is Ghiettano Satelli, and he, with his organization, put together this Congress, working with the new Evangelical Alliance, I don't understand all the structure of it, and a couple of hundred mainly Christian leaders came from different parts of the nation, and I had the opportunity to share with these people in two or three plenary sessions. Chuck Smith, the other speaker, last minute cancelled, one of the other speakers was Stephen Olford, it was a real blessing after knowing him for years, never really sitting down with him, to sit down and have a meal and talk to Stephen Olford, who is 74 and still going like a rocket, and his ministry, as you can ask Kevin, is intensive. So that was a great Congress, I would love us and OM to be able to increase our thrust in Italy, not an easy place, most of these people from the south, it's the north of Italy that is more unevangelized, but some were from the north, they want to do more in the north, Kurt Yost came down, had a book display, sold a lot of great books. Some books don't sell well, you know that, don't you? They had Literature Evangelism, published in Italy in 1964, still on sale, La Stampa, and I hear there's 70 copies left, that's a long time ago, just to see those on the book table almost brought me a historic playback to when I lived in Rome, coordinating the Italian summer thrust in 1963. It was a very emotional experience to go to Rome, I didn't believe in sightseeing much in those days, I especially never got to the Vatican, so I popped over to the Vatican, we couldn't arrange a meeting with the Pope, that's too controversial anyway, but I visited St. Peter's, if you ever go to Rome, don't miss St. Peter's, a bit depressing, but you're allowed to climb up inside, there's elevators and stairs, and it's the largest single building I've ever, I've been in a lot of places, the largest single building I've ever looked into, it is so huge, this church, which by the way was, I think, being built around the time of the Reformation, part of it was paid for by indulgences, which O.M. was not planning to get into. Then you can climb outside and go up to the roof, where there's a big platform around, around the roof. Surely Rome, as far as the gospel of the Lord Jesus, is one of the needier cities in the whole of Europe, though there are some good churches there. I guess one of the highlights, again, was fellowshipping with ex-O.M.ers like Bill Quinnert and others, who have pressed on a long time. Bill reminded me that he wasn't planning to go to Italy, and he just fellowshiped with me in the old days, we were a little more like Salvation Army. I said, Bill, it's Italy, and he went. He met his wife there, went to Bible school there, he's an Australian by the way, now under the umbrella of the Australian Brethren, but he met his wife there, Italian, went to Bible school there, and basically has never left Italy ever since, you're talking a quarter of a century. So it's exciting to be able to see these people so many years later. Switzerland was next, just a weekend, again, just amazing. A very new church, in some ways to O.M., completely turned around for the leaflet, whatever happened to the prayer meeting. The pastor got that leaflet, he said, this is the problem with our church, this is where it's at. He started this prayer meeting, that prayer meeting, he then tried to do some research and found out who in the world George Verwer was, and immediately opened the door. This is only found out about this two months ago, to have sort of a seminar weekend with that church, and then with another church, and a few other things thrown in, like the Bible school up in Bjottenburg, where Paul Stilley graduated, he's now on the board there. That was an exciting time. My heart is really burdened for some of the people linked with us who really are now elderly people. The people in Switzerland, named the Scarbaths, are quite elderly, they just moved from their apartment to sort of an elderly person's facility. They're finding that quite difficult. We visited with them, he has Alzheimer's and he cannot communicate anymore, though he does talk in German and English, you can't understand what he's saying. If you can remember them before the Lord, they're the people that are very much supporting our team and other aspects of OM financially, and this is a very special time in their lives. Quickly over to Germany. Again, I would appreciate your prayers that somehow I could work it out to get more time in Germany, because OM has a tremendous credibility in Germany, and they only planned this meeting 10 days in advance. It was packed, hundreds came to this meeting in Wetzlar, north of Frankfurt. They did some publicity. Again, I just have to keep this short because we don't have the time, but it was a very good meeting. The German office sent a very good music team and others to be there, and the potential in Germany is very, very great. Very, very great for OM, for World Missions. I did a radio broadcast. Transworld Radio is based in Wetzlar the next morning, and then visited their TV studio. They've actually been producing programs for the Super Channel and just pulled it, just pulled them off. I don't know all the reasons, except they are struggling financially. Transworld Radio is largely radio, and so the TV section, though the equipment in that TV section is state-of-the-art, just amazing. The leader of that is a very close friend of ours and of OM, especially Bill Thompson here. So he was just sharing some of the opportunities to attempt to get the Christian message on the television. I really would urge you to pray for the media in Europe. The media is coming out with highly destructive anti-Christian things in Britain and surely in other parts of Europe. There are also some Christian things. We need more. Again, we get probably, I can't prove this, more in Great Britain than some other countries. And the whole thing of satellite and cable is very complex. They have been offered now some time, free time, on German television. But the decision of their board seems to be that they want some money. I mean, it costs a lot to produce these programs. They want not just free time, they want somebody to pay. That's the normal thing, by the way, for the television company to pay for the programs. So here again, because of finance, they're in the midst of a big discussion and it may not happen. These programs may not get on to German television. This whole trip, by the way, was partly built around the Frankfurt Book Fair, where 9,000 companies display their books. Maybe Jerry, who's probably been there in the past, could follow up on that because it just sounds so bizarre. But the Christians have their own sort of section and the Christian publishers asked me to speak at their banquet, which is a very unusual opportunity. I didn't fully realize just how many of the main publishers come from all over the world to be at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Some people that I'd heard of for many, many years, I got to meet them. Banquets are always a little difficult, especially if you eat the meal. You stand up with sort of something large hanging there in your stomach and attempt to speak. But the Lord gave grace. It seemed to, from what other people said, went very well and I think we got a lot of new friends and some older friends bonded more with them. They want me to do something similar at a similar thing in the States one of these days. So that was that part of the trip. I then had an hour with my wife and dad at Gatwick and headed on to Atlanta for the weekend, which was Brother Andrew's annual banquet that I was speaking at. It was a whole weekend conference. Open doors is more known in the West Coast. It was a risk for them to go to Atlanta. I took a survey when I spoke. Not that many Atlanta people were there, but they were there, hundreds of them from all over the States. Just before I went to speak, the woman in charge said, look, we want you to take as long as you want. So I opened up my little story how much that turns me on. I have a few jokes about that. I was just with the Anglicans, an Anglican church nearby here, and I asked the man, the man asked me how long I wanted to speak and I said, you know, 25 or 30 minutes because I knew where I was. And the guy said immediately, the vicar, 25 is fine. So I said, well, the Anglicans, they get 25 minutes. When I go with OM, they give me usually an hour if I behave myself. But here I am unlimited. And there was a lot of laughs. And I spoke for an hour and a half, gave an invitation. About three fourths of the audience responded. The first one up was Brother Andrew himself. I don't know if I should say that, but since Andrew and I are so close, I don't think he would mind. Brother Andrew was just about killed two weeks ago. He was hit by a car in Nigeria. I think of all the risks this man makes. I mean, Brother Andrew goes right to the very top hostage taking terrorists in Lebanon for fellowship. This is the kind of people he's fellowshipping with. Another Terry Waite, but in a very different way. And when you think of all the other risks he's taken, and then in Nigeria, he's almost killed by a car. I was almost hit by a car last night. So I can relate a tiny, tiny, tiny way to that. And therefore he really didn't, almost didn't come to this event, but he did. And it was, it was, he introduced me. It was, it was just a special time. Pray for open doors. They are really wanting to be on the cutting edge, especially in the Muslim world. They have shifted. They did a long time ago. I think Brother Andrew must have known what's going to open up in Eastern Europe. So they shifted a long time to make their focus on the Muslims. And in the States, they're, they're struggling financially because their work in the States was a very important part of their worldwide work. And Johan Campanian and his wife, very good friends of my wife and I, have moved from the Netherlands to the States to be with Brother Andrew. And then I spoke at the Grace Church, which is the church of David Hicks, Sunday morning. And that was exciting. In God's providence, I just happened to be staying at the Atlanta property at the same time as a longer term, termers conference. And to see people who are planning to join long term, who I hadn't seen in a long time, including this couple that went with me on my big birthday thing a couple of years ago on all the roller coasters. Some of you may know the story of this moody student who wanted to go with me on the roller coasters. And I said, Hey, only if you can keep up macho style, no problem. You know, he was out the first coaster he was out later. We had to have the ambulance. And so anyway, he's got married now to Joan, who I ended up going on this roller coasters with Joan. I don't always tell that story. Later, she had to go and take care of him. And I went on my own. But they, they're joining OM. Chip Kirk immediately introduced him to me, reintroduced him. He said, if you ever think you have many ideas, meet David. This guy is just flowing with ideas. I remember when I was with him a year or so ago, how he had this plan to get this big multimillionaire pizza king in America donating to OM. I don't think it's ever happened. I think he's Roman Catholic, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't donate to OM. But it hasn't happened yet. And from there into the area leaders meetings. So I do thank you for your prayers. Let me now try to deal with this little topic I wanted to share about. Some more people have come in. That's great. I guess we got some people out in the street fishing them in. That's always encouraging. So many, why so many get away from the Lord Jesus? I've given seven reasons. And I hope you'll just jot these down. Number one, very basic, very simple, neglecting the word of God. I'm not going to say a lot on that, but I actually believe it's often when we feel the word is dry, doubts are pouring in. Even when we read the Bible, we feel it's not what we need at that moment. We probably need the word of God more. Don't neglect the word of God, even in a time of difficulty and dryness or whatever you may be struggling with to somehow get something from the word of God each morning, each day. Number two, again, these first two are very basic. There's not time to go into detail, but I've written neglecting prayer, praise, and worship. Again, it's often when we neglect these things that the enemy is able to get in. I'd like to just throw something practical in here that we live in a modern world. We're faced with a lot of temptations and difficulties in the modern world that people in years ago didn't have in the same way. I remember David Siemens, author of Healing for Damaged Emotion. There's something, by the way, very fluky in OM that someday I'll figure out, and I feel really bad about it. But if I recommend a book, there's a certain group in OM, if I recommend it, they will not read it. So I've got to go around now saying there's a book by David Siemens, Healing for Damaged Emotion, and I really want to urge you not to read this book. People's lives are being changed by it, but you'll probably find it very upsetting. It's controversial. There's magazine articles about it. David Siemens is an older man anyway. What does he know about these things? And certainly I'm so different from you that the fact that I've got blessed out of my socks by that book is totally irrelevant for you. So don't read David Siemens' book, Healing for Damaged Emotions. This is especially to any OMer who happens to be listening to this tape, even if you're taking a bath. The fact is, I remember David Siemens sharing, I think this was on a tape of his, how he doesn't know how he would survive as a Christian if he were a young person today, and he was talking about pornography. That kind of temptation has always been there. We know from a book about India that some people were tempted when they went into a cave, but it was a lot more difficult years ago to find this kind of thing, to get to it. You had to do a lot of sort of double living and conniving to get to pornography, at least the average person. Today, it is pouring out everywhere, everywhere. And he shared, and he was very sympathetic to young people, so many of whom he's counseled, who were struggling with pornography. So if we fight some very special battles in our modern society, which surely we do, we're not saying the saints of old had it easy. We're not saying you couldn't be tempted sexually in a cave, as monks were, but it is a different world. So why not use some of the benefits of modern technology to fight temptations? To me, one of those is Christian praise tapes and Christian music. There are a lot of days where I hardly listen to any music. In fact, I've discovered with the way my life is, it sometimes takes discipline to listen to a Christian praise tape. And yet seldom, even when I've been depressed or discouraged, could I put on a good praise tape and not have something happen to me, in the human side. And when you feel better, humanly speaking, and you've got that bit of depression dealt with because somehow you just feel better and you're praising the Lord, you can often then study the word more, or enter into intercessory prayer better, or worship the Lord with a better attitude. It's true, we can do all those things when we're struggling and feeling down and hurt and confused and angry, but how much better when the emotion is on the same line as the mind of Christ working through our intellect. And I've been amazed, some of the people who've had a rough time on OM and interviewing them later, I remember a guy on the ship, how in the rush of certain things they wanted to do, they neglected other things. This brother who had a complete, more or less nervous breakdown when he came back from the ship, which wasn't largely a ship, it was more a broken romance, this is ages ago when he came back, and other things. I said, look, when you were on the ship, did you listen to praise tapes, did you listen to music? It doesn't have to be even Christian music. And he, to his own surprise, realized that during that very intensive time on the ship, by the way he enjoyed his shift time, very positive about the ship, but he neglected that. I don't think he even had a tape recorder. Sometimes we have to take the initiative, a little sanctified in the imagination to get something arranged that may be a difference at the end of the day between spiritual life and death. That's why my next point is why so many get away from Jesus is perhaps the strongest, I wish I had an hour on it, false views of sanctification. A high percentage of us, especially who go to Bible college, are injected with a basic perfectionistic mentality. In our desire for holiness, to be God's best, to be like Christ, we develop a form of perfectionism where we will acknowledge sin theologically, but we cannot handle sin when we see it, especially in our brother or sister in Jesus Christ. And many of the problems we're wrestling with, even in OM now, especially the difficult challenge for a leader to respect, to keep respect of his people. Even on the phone this morning, I got indirect negative feedback, information about a letter to another leader about one of the very best persons I've ever worked with, and it was quite negative. I believe if the apostle Paul were leading OM teams, there would be letters about him, absolutely I'm convinced of this, moaning about something. Unrealistic views of sanctification ultimately plant the seed that destroys people. There's not time to go into detail. Some of you have heard me speak about this before. Any view of sanctification, I believe must include the fact that man is a sinner and that includes women, and sin will be there until that man is with Jesus Christ. The more godly he can be or she, the better. Never to give up on our goals concerning holiness, but with that, if we don't have that grace awakened attitude toward the other brother or sister, it is like swallowing ultimately some kind of spiritual hand grenade without the pin Beware of extremes in the area of sanctification. So many people are being hurt by the church right now. Many of us could be full-time just counseling people burned out by the church and in some cases burned out by OM, and often it's linked with false views of sanctification. Isn't it so sad that a leading movement now, their main message is the lordship of Christ. Everything is the end of the day, nobody is saved except their group. They're the only ones really going to heaven and basically you have to join their group, get resaved, rebaptized, and then you'll be there. Do you really think the people in that group now are living the life in which Jesus Christ is absolute total lord over every second, every minute of the day, 24 hours a day? If you have any difficulty in perfectionistic thinking, maybe you should have some fellowship with some more balanced people along the way. Number four, of course, tied into this, extremism. I never dreamed when I was a young, loud-mouthed, aggressive, semi-hostile extremist that this thing could torpedo so many people for Christ. I never dreamed. My heart aches as another major Christian leader in America who I know is extreme, I've confronted him about his extremism, has now announced through a prophecy that he believes absolutely is from God that New York City will be almost destroyed by fire within the next couple of years. Far beyond Los Angeles, thousands of fires, he will be there at the time. As I read this prophecy, which is probably a false prophecy since the prophecies he gave 20 years ago have not yet been fulfilled, I just weep. I weep because I meet the people hurt through this kind of thing and they say Christianity is a load of eyewash and these people are just, they're just doing their own thing. I happen to know this particular man is as sincere, he's probably more sincere than me. He is absolutely sincere and committed to the Lord, to the word, but somehow extremism has got in. I think of another major Christian leader of one of the biggest ministries in the world. I just had lunch with the man who was his senior advisor for many years. The man is so grieved because the whole thing is going off the rails slowly but surely and it's extremism. No wonder people do get away from Jesus. What do you think happens to people when they're in a church, when the church comes completely unglued? First is immorality, then there's disunity, then there's accusation, counter accusation. Have you ever been in a church like that? Have you ever sat in a meeting when it's actually happening? People that you respect with all your heart begin shouting at each other, accusing each other. It happens. It happens. Maybe we're overprotected. Maybe we're not involved enough in church life. Praise God there are many churches where that never happens. That's wonderful but we are talking about the 99. We're here trying to talk about the cases where it does happen, therefore people get confused and discouraged and they lose their faith. The church I spoke at Sunday morning, I was there five years ago. It was a beautiful church, there was great fellowship but somehow the pastor started reading more and more of the more extreme Calvinistic books and he decided that the church was completely astray and so he led a coup right within his own church, full one-third of the congregation to a few miles down the road. Here I go four years later to minister to the same church and as the pastor shared with me on Sunday morning, they're having to do and see a lot of healing but they are encouraged and that church is pulling through that crisis and that is an enormous word of encouragement that churches can pull through these divisions and these crises and people through it understand spiritual warfare. They understand more the real world in which we live in, where these things do happen and we must not allow them to confuse us or discourage us or to get overly subjective where we weigh Christianity on the basis of some church or some Christian, whoever he may be. We are Christians because it's the truth of God. It's not because it makes us feel better or because we got a blessing, all of that is part of it but we are Christians because this is the truth of God, this is historic truth. That's why we brought Dr. Schaefer into this building in mid-60s to lecture to us for three solid days, the first time he ever put anything on film. He talks about truth truth, he talks about if you're at the cross and run your finger down you'll get a splinter and we need, I believe, greater apologetic teaching in some of our churches and a greater emphasis on the mind so that people are strong in their intellectual faith as well as the other aspects of faith and praise God for some of the material we have right here on our team and scattered throughout OM that can help build us up intellectually. Extremism, one of the reasons people get away from Jesus. Number five, the failure to forgive. The failure to forgive, I was looking again at Smitty's book on forgiveness, somehow just found a copy, put it in my briefcase. I don't know if you know that book, I don't agree with everything in it but God has used that, what you'd almost call an extreme book on forgiveness since Satan seems to be very extreme in his efforts to bring bitterness and unforgiveness and resentment. Maybe at times we need an extreme message like Smitty's book on forgiveness and Grace Awakening, perhaps a more mellow book on forgiveness if you can use such a word but I know this, some people who had deep deep unforgiving spirits and bitterness have been set free by that book. The beautiful thing about that book is it doesn't just yell at you and say forgive, it shows you how complex forgiving people can be, how it can go back to our childhood, it can go back to all kinds of hurts, a lot of it can be subconscious but we've got to forgive for our own sake. Do you remember my story of the woman who was in prison falsely in Britain for 15 years and she was interviewed on television and she's not a Christian as far as we know and the British government gave her 200,000 pounds and she said that can't make up for all these years I've lost and then she turned around and said but I know I cannot be bitter about this because I will only harm myself. That's from an unconverted woman being interviewed on British television. It is the failure to forgive that opens the door to bitterness which can lead to depression. I would love to talk a little more about depression but one of the keys to depression which is so prevalent in our day, I'm not thinking now of the more extreme brands of depression but the milder brands of depression. A lot of books are saying that depression is very closely linked with anger, very closely linked with anger with certain kinds of personalities. I need to study that more but if the enemy can get us angry and we don't get a solution to that anger. I had to deal with anger every single other hour in the last three days. If I didn't know how to deal with anger I'm finished. You go into these kind of meetings that I sit in you just have to listen to what everybody says and the complexities. My kind of temperament with the way I suddenly think ahead I get angry and for three days I have to deal with that. Now I don't just have spiritual ways of dealing with it but I have other ways. One of my ways is to go hit golf balls and at West Washington you can hit golf balls and I have to use a nine iron you can't use a driver who put it right through the window but I go way down the field with my nine iron and I hit golf balls and some of that I'm not saying this is a solution for anger but some of that emotion that wells up in me you swing that club it goes through you in the club in the golf ball and the golf ball takes off. This is why they say a lot of people in Japan now before they see their wives because the tendency is to take your anger out on your wife even though that may be the last thing you want to do especially certain temperaments so the Japanese are having a lot of problem in this area according to what I read it's maybe completely up the spout they go and box for 20 minutes before they get home to their wife. The wives are just so much happier because what wife wants to be a punching bag for some uptight Japanese business executive the rest of her life and it's true around the world as well the failure to forgive learning how to deal with anger bitterness hostility for some of us maybe an ongoing thing for those that don't battle with these things more outwardly they must be very very careful they're not just repressing it all because that can turn into all kinds of things that are much worse. Number six the failure to pace oneself to pace oneself and accept limitations. Surely this is one of the great sins that burnt out a few OMers over the years. OM can become a very hectic pace and believe me it is not the amount of work that a person is doing that is a factor but it's often the guilt trip manipulators to use somebody else's term that are in every Christian movement people that even though you're doing the best you can and you may be working hard and you may be living quite close to the Lord they can say things that produce guilt false guilt and if we don't learn how to deal with false guilt we're going to have trouble even Peter Maiden this is just sort of a joke when we were some were playing croquet at Westwatch you're talking about maybe 20 minutes and I was hitting my golf balls so Peter Maiden reads this American article about how in choosing the right place for intensive conferences you must be aware of choosing a place that has too many recreational facilities all things need balance of course we didn't seem to get Peter Maiden out doing those things but he did go on a seven mile run I wonder if that helps consume any potential Maiden hostility I'll be sure to send him a copy of this tape but everybody's different the failure to pace oneself and accept one's limitations if there's anything that's been impressed in my mind over these years and I beg of you to accept this is how limited we all are those of you who are new on this team I guarantee I'll never live up to your expectations if you're one of those hyper gun hoe for Jesus boy I'm going to follow George Brewer spiritual radical and revolutionary to the ends of the earth you are going to get disappointed if Kevin who has to actually live and travel with me or stay in the same hotel down there they stuck us in a hotel in Rome that's where the conference was if he doesn't get a few disappointments then you know we'll have to we'll have to interview him and see what's what's what and I've been working at this by God's grace for many many more years than many of you God's pace for one person is not God's pace for another person do not try to keep the same pace as someone else you admire you have to find your own pace and you have to be honest in sharing with your leaders plural where you feel you're having difficulty the last thing we want is judgmentalism that comes in because some people have much more energy I had a very high energy quotient that is a gift of God it is a gift of God there may be some practical things I learned maybe my parents helped me in some areas and being out with my dad last night and so we tried to get the train we had supper with my son Daniel it was a very precious time and as we walked into Charing Cross you know typical announcement bomb under London Bridge explosion my dad I think was already getting going since early morning we we were walking around London he is 86 it is not possible for us to walk together I need to repent my wife walks with him and I walk ahead and keep stopping going back it's terrible when I think of it then Daniel was with me and Daniel and I were together and they were behind us and Daniel and I almost got hit by the car so we had to go down to the tube and over to Victoria and it was an interesting hassle and yet there my dad was at 86 years of age 1130 at night coming into the house and he was still talking and still going so this is a gift from God and we are all different some of you realize my wife has an enormous struggle with getting enough energy just to keep going and there are quite a few people like that sometimes it is actually an illness sometimes it is metabolism we are not going to have a medical report this morning find your pace don't be intimidated there are other people who operate at a different pace this touches every area of life and it is especially important when you go home and have to re-enter so-called normal society Chosard by the way says nothing is normal but something very very different and beware of even the false guilt that you can create in other people who don't understand OM they don't understand what this thing is about and the things we say create false guilt in them and then break the relationship we have with it instead of seeing bonding new prayer partners and all the rest we have heartache and disunity and lastly number seven and I realize there are many other things that cause people to get away from Jesus we don't have the time so my seventh one is the failure to grow in maturity and maintain a childlike spirit that's why David Seaman's second book is better than his first giving up your childish ways what is the exact title childish ambitions something like that it's been a long time since I've read it and praise God no matter how mature we are we will at times be childish that's wrong and you will probably see me as the leader here in childish moments forgive me my burden is to be childlike sadly the last few words of this talk have been lost due to damage on the original recording