In this sermon, the speaker shares various anecdotes and experiences, including a story about running and pulling a lever that made things go faster. He also mentions the Islam debate and a man named Ralph Shallis who is currently dying of cancer. The speaker emphasizes the importance of discipline in the mind, body, and word, and encourages listeners to stand on the promises of God rather than the traditions of men. He also discusses the significance of information in the Christian faith and how it can touch people's hearts. The sermon concludes with a mention of a fire in Bombay and the importance of being informed in order to give to those in need.

I think the Bible College and Bible School movement across the world is one of the great movements of the Spirit of God. We know that Moody Bible Institute was the pace-setter of that movement. There are now hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Bible colleges all over the world, some of them very, very small. I've spoken to some of the smallest Bible colleges in the world, even some 15, 20 students. Some of the countries we're involved in. I've had the joy, I guess, in ministering in at least 100 different Bible colleges around the globe over these past years. And I'd love to bring you greetings from many of those colleges because I know how most of them appreciate the pace-setting ministry of Moody Bible Institute. This past November, I had the Spiritual Life Week again at Prairie Bible Institute. I don't know how many Canadians we have here. How many Canadians? It's a great nation. We Americans here south of the border are often a little bit ignorant of the great heritage God has given us to the north, the great people who have Commonwealth passports and go into places like Pakistan without a visa. And OM is actually more known in Canada, Operation Mobilization, than it is in the United States. Of course, in Germany and England it would be 25 times more known than in the United States. I guess that's why I appreciate being able to come back to this country every once in a while. My wife and I have been overseas for about 26 years. We're praying about taking a furlough. We're open to that. But we find that we so easily relax and refuel in other parts of the world that we don't find that a particular need at present. Thank God for many, many answers to prayer. We need to be praying for one another. I challenge people around the world to pray for Moody. I'd like to challenge you to pray for other Bible colleges. OM has been clearly led into many ministries. We probably have at least 25 different ministries that we're involved in, as each nation in OM is under national leadership, finding God's will for that nation. Our work in France, where we've seen about 16 or 17 churches born, is very different from our work in Turkey, which would be very different from our work in India. But one of the reasons we've never started any schools of any kind is because we want to channel people into Bible college and other Christian institutions. Some people come on OM after Bible college, but many come to us out of secular jobs, and it's through their time in OM, getting a start, and a missionary movement for non-missionaries, that they decide to go on to Bible college. I was in Singapore a few weeks ago. One Bible college there has 18 OM graduates, getting a little more academic study. And I guess we have Bible college students in at least a hundred, hundred and fifty Bible colleges or more around the world. I believe the world is going to be evangelized as we move forward together, so important to grasp that and to get it burnt deep into our hearts. I'd like to mention a couple of items of literature that are available on the tremendous literature table that's outside. I hope you'll go to the bookshop, but on your way, bookstore, say shop in England, you'll find I've got a lot of terms. I'm not sure whether they're from England or America or where, but I believe one of the greatest books that Moody Press has ever produced, certainly the top ten that Moody Press has ever produced, is the book I'm holding in my hand, Spiritual Leadership by Oswald Saunders, the man who led OMF China Inland Mission. I remember as a student when men like Arthur Glasser came here from OMF China Inland Mission and gave the challenge. I praise God for the tremendous missions conference that takes place here each year. I believe everyone in any responsibility in Christian leadership should read this book on leadership. It is the best book on spiritual leadership I've ever read. There are not that many, though in the last years there's been a number of new ones. This is an old one, tested, man 70 or 80 years of age, New Zealander, and Moody Press has added a whole new edition, an update on the old book. It's called the Revised Edition. If you get only one book at Founders Week, I recommend Oswald Saunders' Spiritual Leadership. Give it to your pastor, give it to an elder, a deacon, Sunday school teacher, take a dozen or two, what a ministry to give away books. That's dynamite. I want to mention also a book that is not available generally in the United States, published by Charles Marsh, who's dying at the present time. 45 years in the Muslim world, a dynamic outspoken Englishman. After 45 years in the Muslim world, he wrote a book for young people. And I seldom write any forwards to books, but I wrote the forward to this one because this man has been such an inspiration to so many of us in OM. OM has never been a youth movement. It was often older people that set the pace for us, prayed for the work, supported the work, and it's never been a youth movement. And so those of us who are getting older, it's no big deal. Operation Mobilization can fit any age group. And I'll tell you, I think of men like Dr. Homer Payne, who when he retired from one or two mission societies in Europe, joined OM for a number of years, and then he got really quite old. He left OM, I think he was moving on mid-70s upward. He's now the principal of a Bible college in French-speaking Canada. And I tell you, I've watched that man. He makes many of the young people look like they're going downhill on a gospel skateboard. Praise God. You can be mobilizing right to the end, generally speaking. Here's a man, the same breed of dynamic disciple, into action, Charles Marsh, probably the first time you've ever seen it, and the last chance you'll ever see that unusual book only published in Europe. I wanted to also mention a brilliant book by David Bryant, probably one of the leading missionary books of this generation, In the Gap. How many of you young people have studied or read In the Gap? Raise your hand. A number of you. This is one of the men God's using in this movement of prayer concerts. There is a movement of prayer for missions taking place in the student world. Some people feel the greater hope for world missions does not lie in Christian colleges. They've done a lot of research. They feel that the movement for missions in the next decade is at the university level. I, of course, known for my compassionate disagreement, don't agree with that. I believe it's both. And I am convinced from my feeble research that there's a movement in Christian colleges and Bible colleges of young men and women that want to move out into missions in the 80s. Whatever, that's a book they need to be studying. The primary target of our fellowship, OM, a long-term and a short-term missionary fellowship, is the Muslim world. One out of every seven people in the world is a Muslim. I remember when I was a student at Moody, we had gone down to Mexico a number of times, and some of the students at Wheaton were beginning to get interested. So I went out to see my old friend, Dale Rotom. We had been separate for one or two years. He was involved with Whitcliffe, and then somewhat with the Brethren Assembly out there, and was headed to the mission field with one of those two groups to work in a tribe. And I went out after studying, and a lot of my vision, people often ask me wherever I go in the world, where did you get this tremendous vision for all these nations? You know, they think I had zap experiences in the night, you know, with pygmies coming into my bedroom, and texts written across the wall. You know, I'm hyper, but I'm not that hyper. And a lot of my vision, I had some of it before I ever came to Moody. I'd already gone to Mexico, which I shared with you. But a lot of my further vision for different nations came in the library of Moody Bible Institute. I was a radical student. I was bored with a lot of the things being taught me. That's probably my own fault. I decided I'd settle on being a B student. The A thing looked like too much work, and I wanted to get out into the streets. I got in trouble because I had six or seven practical Christian work assignments, all that I had dug up myself. I found out there was a rule against that. I'm sure they've changed that now. But I decided I'd only come to Chicago mainly to evangelize. I didn't even know what a Bible school was, hardly. Saw this ad about Moody, and I wanted to get to the mission field fast. And I thought this was the place that could get me out there fast. And I spent a lot of my times in the streets of Chicago. But also, I wanted to study things that related to the vision that was on my heart. The communist world, the Muslim world, the unreached people. And so, instead of studying sometimes my assigned lessons, forgive me, don't follow my example. I went into the library, and I dug up old books on missions. And every missionary I could get within range of, I would get them in a corner. I got in trouble for that too. And ask them hard questions. The greatest blunder I ever made as a student, I was feeling pretty moody one morning. And I was listening in a meeting to a boring missionary. I raised my hand. I was always raising my hand in most of the classrooms. After going to India, you should raise your right hand. I raised my hand, and I said to this missionary, tell me, in your missionary society, in your work, does prayer have any part at all? Whoa. I remember old Dr. Cook in the missions class a few days later. First time I ever brought my girlfriend to my class. She was studying in night school. And Dr. Cook gave a little exhortation. He was the head of the missions department. He said, some of the students are putting the missionaries on the spot. And he gave a little lecture. I found out later he didn't know it was me. There may have been others. I wasn't the only loudmouth in the place. You know, I had read that little book Calvary Road. And the Holy Spirit convicted me of my impoliteness and rudeness in front of the class, in front of that missionary. I stood up in front of the whole class. They knew me, and I repented. And I apologized to the class, to the missionary. And that's what led to the long-standing relationship between Dr. Cook and George Burwer. You know, whatever else you get, young person in your life, you may have a lot of ideas. You may think you have a lot of doctrine. You may think you're really dedicated. But I will tell you, if you don't have brokenness, you don't have the cross. If you don't have love, you don't have anything. You don't have anything. You might as well throw your diploma in the scrap basket when you finish, because you don't have anything. That's God's mathematics. Anything minus love equals nothing. And we promote that doctrine in some parts of our near country. So I thank God for his mercy to me as a student. And I thank God for the library, the books that gave me my vision for Iraq, one of the first countries, my vision for Iran, my vision for Turkey. We've been laboring in church planning in Turkey for 23 years. We are in almost every major Muslim nation in the world. 250 people now in O.M. are committed to just the Muslim world. Now, you know missionary work. One out of every seven people in the world is a Muslim. Less than 2% of the missionaries are working among Muslims. Very few people are even praying for the Muslim world. Now, I don't know how I got into this, except I wanted to encourage you to get Josh McDowell's book, The Islam Debate. This is not the book review. These are all individual messages that I don't have time to share. If there's anything I threw out the window after I got it at Moody, it was homiletics. And wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. If you're not a wildcat, loudmouthed, and you're more a phlegmatic, normal type of person, you can do that. But, you know, you've got to find what God is doing in your life, and you can't wipe out your personality. God's not out to destroy your personality. He's out to work through you and to make you more Christ-like. And I've tried a lot of little nice homiletic messages, and homiletics did help me. Helped me learn some things and learn what not to do. But I very much appreciate these well-organized preachers. My, Stephen Alford, praise God, Charles Swindoll, John MacArthur. I listen to all their tapes. I jog, and I listened to tapes when I was jogging. This morning, I didn't jog. I got on one of these machines, the most sophisticated running machine I ever got on. And I didn't understand it. There was a lever there, and I was running, and I pulled it, and suddenly the thing was going faster. And I was up to seven or eight miles an hour, and I wanted to take off my shirt. And as I tried to take off my t-shirt, I almost flipped. I thought, that's it for today. I tell you, modern technology. I'm going back to the woods in England, despite the dangers there. But I hope you will get the Islam debate. Ralph Chalice, another man dying of cancer right now, an Englishman, writes in French. We translate his books back into English, unknown in the United States. The Winnetka Bible Church, when they found this book, required it for everybody that became a member. From now on, a down-to-earth book on how to grow, how to grow in your Christian life, not available very much in the United States. From now on. Of course, every time you buy a book, you get another book free. Chocolate Soldier by C.T. Studd, you know, another wildcat. Christian Strategy, Dale Roton, Logic of Faith, the book written for Muslims. And of course, the maps and the prayer cards. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Acts. The book of Acts. Forgive me, I got stuck in the King James Bible when I started to memorize as a baby Christian. And then I got stuck into the Scofield Bible when I was a young college student before I even came here. And here I am, still with the same Bible. But I want to speak a word in favor of many modern translations, especially in other languages. And tremendous work of groups like Living Bible International, putting Bibles into other languages, not copied from the American Living Bible, but languages, and in languages that other people in those countries can understand. Many of the Bibles in some languages, you can't even, the people, especially if they're Muslims, can't even understand them. So I'm here in the King James. But that doesn't mean I don't believe God ordains and uses other modern translations of the Scripture. The book of Acts, we have subtitled in your Scofield Bible, I'm sure you all have that, Conspiracy Under Oath to Kill, page 1200, chapter 23, for the more traditional, verse 12, "...and when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together and bound themselves," notice that, "...under a curse, saying they would not neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul." That's interesting, isn't it? I wonder how many of us have ever taken this seriously, ever really looked at it? What a challenge we have this morning from Stuart Briscoe, from the book of Acts. I'm only going to just start here. Notice verse 21, "...but do not thou yield unto them, for there lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, who have bound themselves with an oath that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now are they ready looking for a promise from thee?" A lot of my ministry around the world is to Christian leaders, pastors conferences, and often as I share with Christian leaders, and my messages keep changing over the years, but often I have felt burdened to speak a message similar to what I'm sharing with you tonight, though different. Many of you I know are Christian leaders, pastors, coming here for days. God bless you. If you want one little weak prayer warrior, because prayer is the main ministry of my life, for your church, you just write to me. You know, don't get any false ideas about George Burwer after this last day or two. You know, I'm no, you know, great speaker taking all big meetings. I'm just an evangelist missionary that really should be in Pakistan. For lack of money, I've canceled that trip this year, one of the first years ever I haven't gone to the subcontinent. Subcontinent means Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, that area. One billion souls in that area. A lot of the meetings I take in Pakistan, in Nepal, one of my favorite countries where my wife and I lived for a number of years. When we were there, there were only a few thousand believers when we lived there. Now there are twenty, thirty thousand believers in Nepal, a land where it's illegal to become a Christian, and where people are in prison for the sake of the gospel right now. And I tell you, many of those meetings are in little houses. I pour out my heart with as much energy and love with fifteen people in Nepal through interpretation, or in Mexico where I speak Spanish. In fact, I get more excited speaking Spanish. It's, it's, it's got more, you know, Spanish, more, whatever, than English. English. So, you know, don't think, oh well, George Burr, you know, he's a famous guy, can't talk to him. You know, I can't talk to everybody standing here after the meeting. You're right to me. I read every single letter I get. They're not in English, they're translated. I answer fifty, seventy-five percent of them. Some of them sit for many months. I'm always battling to catch up. I got two hundred letters in yesterday. They forward them from England. What a blessing. And I just believe, I just believe, you misunderstood that, I believe that my work next to prayer, worshiping and knowing God, is people, individuals. I pray for individuals. Many individuals send me their photo. I put it in my prayer book. And I pray through all those photos, not as frequently as I would like to. As I'm on the road, I can't carry all these books with me. But I hope there won't be anybody here that has a burden or a question or something I've said that you misunderstood or maybe understood all too well or upset you, that you will not feel free to write to me. My address is on a lot of that OM literature that's there on the literature table. Because I believe in world missions, it has to be hand-picked through. We got to get in contact. We got to get in communication. I just had the privilege of lunch with one prayer partner and his son. That's, to me, is much a blessing in some ways of speaking to all of you. Most of my time is just individuals, though I've learned my limitations and I'm one feeble individual. I also believe, and this is part of the burden on my heart this afternoon, that the local church is the key to world evangelism. And I thank God for the high esteem they give to the local church here at Moody. I believe one of the most satanic tricks that the enemy has pulled out of his bag of tricks is to try to bring division today between the churches and what they sometimes call para-church, Bible colleges, groups like Operation Mobilization, para-church. People say that often without knowing what they're talking about. Most of us on Operation Mobilization have been commended out, just as it is in Acts 13, by Bible-believing churches to do the job we're doing. Even before I went to Mexico, I went to a little Bible-believing Baptist group in my town. I had been saved out of this other sort of more social club church through that Billy Graham meeting. I went to that little Baptist church where they knew they loved Jesus and they loved His Word. Now, I didn't do it completely, Acts 13. I didn't understand it yet. I just went to them and told them I was going to Mexico. The Spirit of God was leading me, and if they wanted to join in and pray, I was really happy. You know what? They prayed. Several of the men in that church became the original board of directors of OM. And you want to hear something? Some of those men are still on the board of this movement to this day, watching over all the finance. Everything is done decently and in order. Acts 13. Please, let's beware of throwing around this word parachurch. Sounds too much like paralyzed. If you study the book of Acts carefully, men like Donald McGovern, great missionary leaders, have, you will see that it was teams, biblical teams, moving out. That's what OM is. They have teams in 35, 40 nations around the world, some of them planting churches. And to argue or put a division between teams and churches is like saying, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Restudy the book of Acts, my friends. We need one another, and we need sending churches. Through my feeble ministry, tens of thousands of young people have made commitments to world missions. It's a frightening thing. I'm glad the responsibility to give an invitation this week is not mine. I haven't enough. I was in those Keith Green memorial concerts in England. I met Keith shortly before he died. We fit together like hand and glove, both very extreme characters who needed to be broken. God brought us, at least me, to tears when I fellowshiped with his brother. 40 days later, he was killed in a plane crash. And last day's newsletter and the memorial concerts caused thousands and thousands and thousands of young people to make commitments to missions. I was involved in those concerts in England, not here, preaching around England. We showed the videotape, and then I preached. Even in England, 3,000 young people make commitments to foreign missions. But you know, many of those, an amazing percentage, they never go. They never go because it's a very complicated road. I've just written an article, but I don't know if I'll ever find anybody that'll publish it. It's just been turned down today. I'm not a writer, so that's no big deal. But it's called, uh, Why Many Volunteer and Few Go. Even if we took a survey on how many thousands have stood at our own missions conference here to make a commitment to our missions, and the small percentage that ever goes and remains. I'm writing another article, Why Some Go and Few Remain. And it's not that they're all casualties. Don't make such a generalization. Far more complex, linked with culture. In fact, this article I just wrote has 12 reasons why many volunteer and few ever go. Maybe I'll just print it myself. But this is a great burden on my heart. And I believe one of the main reasons is a failure to understand the nature. Get this, if you write anything down, it's thrilling to see notebooks. This church under Harry Ironside was known for its note-taking. But I believe one of the reasons we're not seeing more men and women on the field and staying on the field is the lack of understanding about the nature and the intensity of the spiritual warfare. And if there's a pastor, a Christian leader listening to me, I want you to look at Acts 23 and I want you to understand that there is probably a conspiracy to wipe you out of the ministry. How many leading men of God have been wiped out of the ministry in the past five years in the United States and women? Or at least through immorality and adultery and other problems. Though they have repented later on, their ministry has been spoiled to a degree for life. Now God is merciful. I will never fathom and fully understand the mercy of God. But I certainly believe it needs emphasizing greatly. And I think we need a broader view of God's mercy and God's forgiveness to his weak, fumbling, feeble people. And especially things that have happened to them in their lives when they were babes in Christ or didn't even know Christ. But I believe when we see a Christian leader fall in Erwin Lutzer's newest book, When a Good Man Falls, should be read by every leader in America, that it is partly the responsibility of the church. Because we're not praying for our leaders the way we should be. I cannot tell you how strong this burden is on my heart to mobilize God's people in prayer. Some character out in California wrote a book and he said, you know, any meeting in your church that you have to push, just drop it. Modern philosophy for contemporary pastors. I want to tell you, thousands of pastors have accepted that philosophy. And there are no prayer meetings in many churches in America today. Bible-believing churches, even Bible-thumping churches, I want to tell you. We're deceived by numbers. We're deceived by the size of the building. Brothers and sisters, forgive me, but I believe the spiritual temperature of the average evangelical in America is extremely low. And as Tozer said, we have measured ourselves by ourselves for so long, there are no longer higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit. I don't want to pick on any one part of our nation, but I studied in the South. I studied in the South a long time ago, when there was racism so raw in our country. You can feel it in the streets. It took Mexico and Spain and England to show me that I was an ugly American and a racist without knowing it. And I'll tell you, God broke my heart. I went to those beloved black people and I kissed them and I hugged them. And I went to where Martin Luther King was shot in that motel and I stood and wept. And then went out to the street to win black people for Christ. And I tell you, when you get to know the cross, people of other races are going to become some of your best friends. And you're going to start to become colorblind. And praise God for so many dear black people who have had some training in this institute and have gone out. Oh, my heart is full because I long, I long for higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit. I long for God's people to radiate love and power, not just words. The churches I went to so oftentimes in Tennessee, it was words, just words. Dedication had lost its meaning. Revival was the most ridiculous word in the vocabulary. Vance Havner comes here often. I was listening to seven of his tapes from Founders Week in the back of my old bus traveling across Europe. And I tell you, when I heard this man of God speak, my heart was broken again and again. But it seems sometimes the Lord sends men like Havner. The Lord sends men like like Alan Redpath. And we hear the message and we say, oh, praise the Lord. Oh, I believe in that. But we don't change. We don't change our lifestyle. We don't change the way we spend our time and our talent or our money and our energy. C.S. Lewis said we have the tendency to think, but not to act. We have the tendency to feel, but not to act. And if we go on thinking and feeling without acting, someday we will be unable to act. That scares me. I call it in my little book, Spirits Will Schizophrenia, which grew out of my speaking at Urbana back in the late 60s, that great convention that has put so many on the mission field. Let us search our hearts. Let us open the book of James where it says, let us not be hearers of the word, but doers. Did you know that Founders Week was a dangerous place to be? You know, when I was a student and Founders Week came, I'd go to the absolute minimum number of meetings. You wonder why I became a little bit of a mythological figure at Moody Bible Institute, supposedly. I've been told that. Some of the things said about me aren't exactly the truth, but anyway, we won't worry about that. But we were required to go to quite a few. I don't know what it is today. So the minimum was a lot of meetings. I was absolutely a truth glutton already. I would thought I was going to explode with all these messages. I was repenting and rededicating my life. All these heavyweight speakers coming in from all over the world, pulverizing us. The dust was sitting there. And I wasn't as balanced back then. Now I know how to handle it. The biggest mouth speaker in the world won't intimidate me if it's not in the word of God. And whatever we hear from me or anyone else, search the scriptures. See if it be so. Find verses that will bring what that man is saying into balance. That's why the range of speakers here is so good, because people will bring into balance what I'm saying. But oh my, what a danger. What a danger in America today that we will become, if we go to places like Founders Week or if we listen to these things on the radio so often, we will become truth gluttons. While millions across the world are starving to death, without their first gospel breakfast. And I believe there is a conspiracy for every man and woman of God in this auditorium. I believe Satan is out to discourage you. You know, there's a lot of things you're probably not tempted to do. You know, I don't know how many of you are tempted right now into really going down to one of the really big Chicago banks and, you know, like you see in the films, you know, come out of there with a couple of million. You know, is that your big temptation? Any of you? I've, you know, I've had it a few times, O.M. gets in a lot of financial trouble, but I don't think it's the average temptation. Let me tell you, don't misunderstand. If Satan can get you discouraged, that's his primary goal. That's his first goal. If Satan can get you discouraged or get you into bitterness, get you down, get you into self-pity syndrome, the juniper tree syndrome. Let me tell you, my dear conservative Bible-loving friend, you will do things that you never even dreamed you were capable of before you were saved. And I've been counseling such people for 30 years. I could tell you things and people I counseled when I was a student here. It was here in this church that my ministry began 30 years ago, no, 27 years ago, among homosexuals. It started right here. Just a young student, witnessing. You know, now I read my little book, you want to come to Jesus? And I found out this person was a practicing Christian, but also a homosexual. He had never shared it. He was being torn apart. And I had no difficulty in that area. Mine's the other side of the fence. And so I started to counsel him. I remember him running into my room in the YMCA, where the police, he thought they were right behind him. And I will tell you, one of the most glorious privileges I've had, it's 27 years of counseling and seeing homosexual men, mainly men, because I haven't been so much involved with homosexual women, though it can happen in their lives as well, helped and delivered and strengthened and used of God, even in missionary work. But I will tell you, that's no easy road. There may be people listening to me that have that problem. Maybe you have some other problem. You're afraid to share it. It's all repressed. And I tell you, you're headed for trouble if somehow you don't get a systematic plan for spiritual growth to deal with whatever area is hindering and causing you to fall again and again. Yes, Satan will try to get us discouraged first. One of the reasons I've never got into a lot of these sins that Satan has tried to tempt me into is because I don't believe in discouragement. I fight discouragement just as I would fight drug addiction, whiskey drinking, bank robbing, grandmother beating, or any other wild thing. The Bible says, don't let the sun go down upon your anger. That's another one of my problems. I've been working on that one for a long time. In all the glorious victory that Christ can give, He can change our lives. Maybe you're the angry young man. Maybe you feel there's no hope for you. Your temper's too big. Your mouth's too big. There's hope for you, I'll tell you. I've seen some of the most angry people made gentle by the power of Jesus Christ. Don't give up. My brother, my sister, don't give up in the battle against anger. Because if you don't get victory over it, in a moment it can destroy your ministry. In a moment it can destroy your marriage. Billy Graham had the strongest message I think I ever heard as a baby Christian about anger in his brilliant book, Seven Deadly Sins. We're all different. But I decided if the sun should not go down upon the anger, my anger, I wasn't going to let the sun go down on discouragement. And I wrestled discouragement a lot. A lot. Because I'm idealistic. A lot of my prayers have never been answered. A lot of these countries I've been working on and in for 25 years. We haven't seen the breakthroughs. We don't have the recruits. We don't have the finance. Somebody once said, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. I've had 25 to 30 years of research on that particular cliche. Let me just tell you, it's not true. God's work done in God's way all over the world is often lacking God's supply because God uses people. And people are not committed to world missions. People are not committed to systematic sacrificial giving. People are not generally committed to obeying the voice of God and the word of God in doing what they should do in connection with a missionary cause. And at present, the tiny percentage of money that ever manages to get out of the United States for overseas missions borders on being a scandal. We seem to have money for everything else. And I'm very big-hearted. I believe God is in a lot of things. I don't believe in judgmentalism and criticism, or I wouldn't have pushed love covers by Paul Billheimer. But I believe God wants to give some of us what I call the Oswald J. Smith vision. He preached it right here in Moody Church. He said so many people have a vision for doing things here, and for feeding people, and for building buildings, and building gospel golf courses, and spiritual retreat centers. So many people have a vision for that. Even unsaved people are giving millions to that kind of thing. If you have a vision for the unreached, if you have a vision for Pakistan, for Afghanistan, for the regions beyond where they have no Bibles, no tracts, many people's groups that I can mention have nothing. If you are among the few who have that vision, then you should give a lion's share of your time, effort, energy, and finance toward that vision. That was the philosophy of people's church that made such an impact across the world. And I want to say this, unless we see more sending churches raised up who will give total commitment to missions instead of token commitment, the job is not going to be done. A high percentage of missionaries, especially nationals and Europeans, but some Americans as well, who have sensed the call of God to go to the mission field return largely because of the financial problems connected with it. I've researched that for 30 years. Remember, you're listening to the character who tried to out Mueller, George Mueller. I tried to out Hudson Taylor, Hudson Taylor, until six months ago, OM was completely silent about money. The most radical change in the history of OM came through research, prayer, the advice of other missionary leaders, tremendous examples like a number of societies I could mention, like Whitcliffe and so many others. We finally, as a decision of our whole movement, three or four hundred of us in our general council, where we make our final decisions waiting upon God, decided that in OM we needed honesty as much as faith. We had faith, we believed in prayer, we know God can bring in finance in answer to prayer. We're still probably the greatest pushers of George Mueller's books, but George Mueller had information. Hudson Taylor was a literal telegraph pole of information, and those churches where everything is local, it's right there, the information is face to face. The history of OM includes information, God using information, touching God's people's hearts through information. So in fact we never have been silent. But we would have the craziest problems, because when we didn't speak openly about money and people saw two ships, they thought we were loaded. I remember Founders Week a couple years ago, when Dr. Sweeting announced that OM had just had a fire in Bombay. A quarter of a million dollar fire destroyed everything we had built for 17 years in Bombay, mainly literature and films. And he shared, and the Moody students took an offering and gave it to Bombay. If you hadn't had that information, how would God expect you to give? That's like the man who says he doesn't believe in going to doctors, just pray and leave it. How many are dead in America by that kind of teaching? And a few weeks ago, and I want to thank you, Moody students, you saw a film strip about OM's work in Mexico, and the big campaign we're having in Mexico this summer. And I told David Hicks, I said, look, I remember when I was a student, I used to help raise money for those projects as a student in the MU. I said, you know, they got so many projects, they can't give any money to OM, forget it. But Dave Hicks, the USA director, working with Paul Troper, who was the director for 17 or 18 years, another Moody grad who's here somewhere, said, let's get some information out to Moody. I think in all these years, the first time Moody students ever had a project connected with OM, because we never tell you anything hardly. And so you saw the film strip about Mexico, and I just heard that somehow in the vote or the decision, Operation Mobilization Mexico, Dick Griffin, the leader of that work, another Moody student, he and I met when we went out in open air campaigners the first week we were together. We've been together now 27 years in the work. I remember when Dick went to Mexico and OM was in Mexico, people said, oh, fly by night, ridiculous. How can young people go into mature missionary work? Dick Griffin speaks fluent Spanish, lost one eye through cancer, was voted Missionary of the Year in Mexico, has given 26 years in one city, one nation, and millions and millions and millions have been reached with the Word of God. Both ships have been to Mexico, thousands have come to know Jesus Christ, Mexicans are moving out with OM to other parts of the world, and now we're in the biggest campaign yet, Mexico City, 86, and we're praying for 10 million pieces of Christian literature, though that's not our main strategy. God showed us, slowly, slowly, slowly, just be honest and open. Share the need as the Holy Spirit leads, and leave it with Him. Why am I mentioning this, young person? One of the things I failed to learn, I'm sure somebody taught it when I was a student, but I failed to learn it, was how to see money released for the work of God as a missionary. Maybe it was in one lecture. Some of you are praying about being missionaries. How many are praying about going to the mission field? You're quite open, you're pretty leaning that way, you're not sure yet. That's quite a few, not as many as I thought. They're probably all off at missionary prayer meetings, praying for this meeting. But anyway, let me just tell you, it is 10 times more complicated to become an overseas missionary and remain there, than I ever thought when I was a young student. I believe the greatest problem I had as a student was I was naive, I had an immature view of life, and I failed to understand the intensity and the nature of the spiritual warfare, though I remember Dr. Culberson speaking on the whole armor of God. You take Ephesians chapter 6 and you memorize it. The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit. If there was a conspiracy of 40 men who said they would not eat until Paul was dead, that's pretty heavy. What if you went back to your dorm and there were 40 names on a piece of paper on your dorm door? We're not eating until you, little Sally Jones, are dead. I dare to say the most phlegmatic, quiet, shy little sister would get quite a metabolistic bump from that kind of letter. But you see, this isn't a joke. This isn't a joke. We are in a spiritual warfare. The word of God says, Corinthians, be not ignorant of Satan's devices. As this brother sung, what a beautiful voice God has given him. I knew he'll be attacked. Christian musicians in America, I don't want to frighten you, you already know this, they are under attack. And some musicians are turning against other musicians because there's different kinds of music. And it's out of control. People are behaving in a way that makes some of the pagans in the bars look sane. You know, as Christians, we get a lot of convictions. Did you ever notice that Christians get convictions? Have you ever met them? You know, vitamins for Jesus and soap products for Jesus. And everybody in America seems to be selling you really. It's part of the intrapreneurship of the culture. There's a good side of it. Now you probably, even as students, have already 100 convictions. If you went on my team and traveled with me, it's all right to listen to me. You travel with me, you'd flip out. Because we wouldn't agree. My wife and I, when we met here, we thought we were so like-minded. We're both from Conn. We got married. You know, we're so like-minded. God had blessed her, God had blessed me. What else? I don't even want to watch these marriage films, they intimidate me. But I'll tell you, we had learned something of the spiritual warfare, and we read Calvary Road on our honeymoon. Well, we didn't have a honeymoon, we just got in a truck and headed for Mexico City. But when we got there, we read this book, Calvary Road, the chapter Revival in the Home, and God has kept our marriage together through revival, through the reality and the power of the Holy Spirit. We love one another, but the emotion isn't always the same. I've been away from my wife 50% of my entire life. I was in prison in the Soviet Union. You don't have your wife with you, generally, when you're in prison there. There's only a couple days, don't worry. But we discovered, as we got going, that we differed in many issues, especially money. I wasn't planning to give her any money. I didn't read anything about that in the New Testament. How do you give your wife any money? And she went along with it until the marriage. And we sold most of the marriage presents, and she had quite a lot of money from the death of her father, and she gave that all into OM, in good traditional OM style, and we went off to Mexico, and I didn't believe in spending much money for food, and pretty soon I'll tell you, we had problems. No wonder I started speaking and preaching about balance. I gave her a dollar, I said, praise the Lord, use it however you want. But my wife and I discovered that when we were at Moody and left Moody, we were naive, immature, and we had so much more to learn, and I was considered already a student leader. Young person, please be patient with what God teaches you, and please pray through significantly and talk through significantly the whole marriage thing. It's not just the first little bunny that walks by and sends your blood pressure up, even if she's a gospel bunny, because I'll tell you, there's a fair number of people, even from my class, and I know them that have already passed through divorce, and I don't point any fingers. The world is too wild, it's too rough. I'm a person of compassion. We've had dynamic divorce people in our work from the earliest days. We were a pacesetter in that area of missions. Everyone counseled and screened and dealt with on an individual basis. But I believe prevention is better than cure, and young student, what you do now with the Word of God, what you do now concerning some of your extremist convictions, what you do now concerning Ephesians chapter 6, what you do now concerning prayer, what you do now concerning discipline, because if you're not going to learn a disciplined life, you'll never serve God and your minds will never get married. No matter what crisis experience you may have, that must be followed by God's program of spiritual growth, and it was Jesus who said, if any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up the cross, and follow me. Discipline of the mind, discipline of the body, discipline in the Word, with balance, with freedom, accepting yourself, refusing intimidation, standing on the promises of God, rather than the traditions of men, even O.M. traditions, and we created some of them, and they brought some of our early people into confusion and bondage, but slowly, slowly God set us free, and we got more grounded in the Word, and found commitment with balance, and we found that in our marriage, and went through renewal, just at our 25th wedding anniversary, 26 last week, and in many ways, the marriage is more exciting than ever, because you see, as people committed to God, and committed to one another, our philosophy is that as soldiers of Christ on the mission field, divorce is not an option. We are committed to one another, because we are called of God to labor together, and though our marriage bond is strong, our bond with Jesus Christ is stronger, and daily revival is the oil that keeps the whole thing moving. God is calling us to commitment with balance, reality with honesty, Holy Ghost revival together with facing the fact and the reality of the human factor. It's possible. We've got a lot more books for on this subject than ever before. There's a lot more balance of teaching with men like Charles Swindoll and others who have such a practical ministry, and so many of the men that God brings here to Founders Week, and there's tremendous hope, tremendous hope, and if God can keep his hand on such a character as me, with all my struggles and weaknesses, failures, then I know there's hope for every one of you. Erwin Lutzer has a brilliant book, it's called Failure is the Back Door to Success. I never even read it, just the cover brought me into revival. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Failure is the back door to success, and aim at plan A with all your life. Aim at plan A, but if you miss it by some subtle trick of Satan or providence in this out-of-control world, sometimes it seems that way. With God's providence and mercy, plan B can be just as good, and if somehow you get wiped out or bottomed out or flip out, then get on to plan C. You say, Mr. Verwer, please call me George, by the way. What about if plan D goes bad? I'm in plan D and things are falling apart. Hallelujah for that big alphabet. I'm going to pray in a minute, but I just hope that through my feeble sharing from the Word of God, from what I've seen around the world, I wanted to say much more about some of these unreached people's groups. Could you get a set of these cards? I wanted to mention more of these countries, but today is not missions day, really. Luis Palau is going to bring that, though no one has told me anything what I could or could not speak, and I tried to bring in that missions emphasis, but I never quite get to it the way I want, because my first burden is just to see people, whether they're in Chicago or Calcutta, just walking with Jesus. That's the main thing. Simplify your Christian life. Some of those convictions can be put on the back burner for a while. You'll last longer. Your marriage will go longer. Don't lose them altogether. Just get them in the right priority, because I'll tell you, any conviction you have that's now rooted and grounded and surrounded in love will become bitterness, and I fear sometimes we're becoming a nation of bitter Christians, taking the sword of the Spirit to carve one another up, instead of launching out in a mighty offensive to take the of Jesus Christ to the loss and the ends of the earth. I still have many, many convictions, too many, but I'm getting them in the right order, and my first burden is love, to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love my neighbor as myself, and to just daily in simplicity just walk with Jesus, just walk with Jesus, accepting Him, accepting what He's doing through me in the midst of struggle, doubt, questions, tears, fears, the whole works. He's there. He's there. And only a deep work of grace, deep in your heart, will ever prepare you for missionary service. Let it go deep in forgiveness, in mercy. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your grace. We thank You for Your mercy. We thank You that You not only forgave us the day we repented and came to You, but You are constantly forgiving us, renewing us, bringing us back into balance. Father, I know there are more people here that You want to thrust out to the ends of the earth. I know there are also some that probably will have their life ministry in the States, but You're wanting to take them overseas for intensive exposure and training. And I know some, as I discovered, will find that they're a bit of an ugly American, but that's not too big a problem for You because You love us still, and You're going to change us, and we're going to live what we talk, and we're going to walk what we talk, and by Your grace, the fire that's in our hearts is going to spread because we know Christianity is caught as much as it is taught. And so we look to You for a new work in our hearts as daily we meet You at the foot of the cross and experience fullness and the reality and the forgiveness and the grace that You can give. Father, we decide by Your grace to put our hands on the plow, and we shall not turn back. We shall not turn back. Come what may, though all hell and every diabolical conspiracy come against us, we will stand steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in Your work, knowing that our labor is not in vain in You. We pray this in faith, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. This is the end of this message. For a catalog listing more than 500 additional messages, please write the Moody Tape Ministry, Moody Bible Institute, 820 North LaSalle Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60610.