In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of discipline and perseverance in the work of the Lord. He encourages the audience to be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because their labor is not in vain. The speaker also highlights the need to not give up or be a quitter, but to keep pressing forward and not look back. He emphasizes the importance of discipline in everyday life and the need to learn from mistakes. Additionally, the speaker discusses the importance of obedience to the word of God and the need to trust and obey.

This message on the subject of discipline was given at the Chigwell London Conference of O.M. in early 1963 by Jonathan McCrosty. Being a disciple we think about discipline. I remember when I used to work in a camp out in Colorado and every time I would mention or someone else would mention self-discipline I would hear groans. Nobody likes self-discipline and I'm becoming convinced that it's completely contrary to our human nature. We just don't like to be disciplined. We just don't like to do what we're told. We just don't like to pick up paper. We don't like to clean up things. It just goes against us. We just want to go as we feel. If we feel good, we'll do something. If we don't feel good, we won't do it. We like to be controlled just by our emotions and our feelings. But discipline is just the opposite. Discipline is simply doing what's right whether we feel like it or not. A disciple is one who is trained or taught. And after I read that definition I begin to wonder, am I a disciple? Am I very well trained? Am I very well taught? Maybe we should say we're in the process of becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. We are in the process of learning. We are in the process of learning what it is to have not just self-control but spirit control. Because it's not by might or by power but by my spirit, sayeth the Lord. And certainly discipline is way above us. It's above me. And probably I'm going to speak to myself more than anyone else this morning. And if it hits you, well, praise God. Join the crowd. It's learning, isn't it? It's learning what God has for us. And we learn in so many different ways. We learn from the Word of God. God teaches us. And he expects us not only to learn it in the mind but to apply it to the heart and life and to live it. Otherwise it's just knowledge which profits little. We learn by experience. We say experience is the best teacher or it's a hard teacher. It is for me. But I tell you, it's a convincing teacher. Experience. And I believe that God teaches us by one another too. As the Spirit of God brings us in contact with different people. And I remember many times in my own life how perhaps God was beginning to speak to my heart along a certain area. And just in the next few days I would meet someone else that perhaps was thinking along the same lines. And God would just kind of double and treble the lesson that he was trying to teach me. And so we learn from one another. In fact, I'm not sure just how much I would know this morning if it hadn't been for other people who had taught me. Some of us, you know, are a lot more privileged than others. Some of us have had Christian training right from the cradle upward. Some of us have had parents, and I'm speaking for myself, who pray daily and who want just God's best for your life. Some of us have had more training. We've had more opportunities to learn of Jesus Christ. And therefore I believe our responsibility is far greater than one who has had little. But we learn from others. And oh, what a joyous thing this is that we can have Christian fellowship where we can learn from one another. And so we need to take every way in which God teaches us and learn all we can from it and apply it. I'd like to be as practical as possible this morning. I'd like to just take discipline in various realms of our lives. I'd like to look into the Scripture and see what the Scripture says about it, mention some of the principles. And then if at all possible, I'd like to apply this to our everyday living, that we might truly be a disciplined one, a real disciple of Jesus Christ. The first area that hits me is discipline in thought, because this is the whole basis. Our thought life. And I was amazed as I began to look at Scripture. First I was going to look at all the Scriptures on thought and on imagination and on discipline. And I started to look at the concordance and I gave up. And I said, well, Lord, just lead me to some that will be a blessing. I'll never get through all these. It'll take me a couple of weeks. The Scripture is full of talking about the mind, the heart, the soul, remembrance, not forgetting, thought. Imagination, desire, meditation. All these words which describe some aspect of our thinking. And I feel that this is basic, because if our thoughts are disciplined, our actions will be disciplined. Our words will be disciplined. Perhaps we say, well, we speak without thinking. But somewhere in the past you have thought what you said. And so it's discipline in the thought that affects the rest of our lives. Sometimes there's an unpleasant picture given of the thought life in Scripture. I think of a passage in Genesis chapter 6, verse 5. And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. This is the natural man. This is the usual course. That the imagination of our thought and of our heart is evil continually. This is the way we go. This is the whole pull of our nature, is down. Is to be thinking that which we know is wrong. Is to be thinking that which we know is evil and is displeasing to God. But then God steps in and he renews the mind. And so the mind is a great potential for good or evil. And let's face it, we're all faced with it, aren't we? We have it every day. Satan comes in with temptations to think evil. It may be just plain immoral thoughts. It may be bitterness. It may be jealousy. It may be discouragement. It may be self-pity. My problems are bigger than everybody else's. Surely God knows this. The other people can't have the problems I do. And so we feed on it, and we feed on it. And we feel sorry for ourselves. And then we want to tell everybody about our problems so they'll sympathize. My, you are going through a rough time. You know how it does our hearts good when we hear about people praying for us because they know we have a lot of problems. And we just know that, see, we're getting more and more attention. Self-pity. This is the thought life. And the disciplined thought life says, cut it out. Tempted to think about our problems and to think we have the worst? Cut it out and think of what Christ went through for us. Think about what other people are really going through. And consider them before ourselves. Discipline in the thought life. Another passage, perhaps, that we could mention as the remedy to this evil thought is 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5. Perhaps we could start with verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds. Casting down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. This, it seems to me, is the remedy. Instead of evil thoughts, bringing every thought into captivity to Christ. Because if the thought is controlled by Christ, it can't be evil. And if the thought of jealousy comes up, if it's brought into captivity to Christ, then it goes away. It has to. Because Christ and evil don't mix. And Jesus Christ and a rotten mind don't mix. They can't. And so, Paul says, bring every thought into the obedience of Christ. Thinking the way he would have us think. It's so easy to have a worldly mind. Or perhaps not worldly in the usual fundamental sense, but worldly because it's just the human way of looking at things. We don't look at things by faith, we look at them by sight, don't we? That's worldly. We look at things, what are other people going to think, instead of what will God think about it. I find it so easy just to begin regarding all my work just in a very human way. Instead of, well now, how does God want this done? But you see, if it's human in the sense, it's actually worldly. It's not of God, it's not of the Spirit, therefore it must be fleshly. It's of the whole human nature. And so we need to cast down every imagination. And this is where I feel discipline comes in. It's an act of the will that says, no! And it tears it out. And it comes to Jesus Christ for cleansing. And for purifying. And that he might control our thoughts. He says, casting down the imagination. It's not so bad if they just start to come. But it's that deep thinking about them, that's what hurts. That's where the sin comes in. Just the first thought, we're all tempted, aren't we? But it's the second and third and fourth and fifth. For several days, perhaps, or even for several moments, this is where the sin comes in. Even the root of anger that comes up. The temptation may come to be angry. But if you feed on it, it becomes bitterness. It becomes hatred. And that's the same as being a murderer. And that's where the sin comes in. And so the very first sign of it, it needs to be cast down. Every imagination, that which exalts itself against God. And it can be anything. It can be a job. It can be eating. It can be sport. It doesn't matter what it is, but it can begin to take too much place from God. And we need to cast down every imagination, everything that exalts itself against God. And of course this is the basic sin, isn't it? Lucifer, I want to be like the Most High God. He was cast out of heaven. All these kind of imaginations are from Satan. And even as Satan was cast out of heaven, so they need to be cast out of our minds. In the power of the Spirit of God. Isaiah 26.3 We have a great promise of peace. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace. Note the condition. Whose mind is stayed on thee. Because he trusteth in thee. And this is the condition. Unless the mind is stayed on the Lord Jesus Christ, it is not at peace. It's being tossed to and fro. Conflicts. Doubts. All kinds of temptations. But if it's stayed on Christ. It's just another way of saying looking unto Jesus. Which causes a person to run a race that is steadfast. And to run it with endurance. And to lay aside every weight and every sin. Stay your mind on Jesus Christ. Look unto Jesus. This is what we need to do with our minds. Discipline. Disciplining our thoughts to be stayed on him. I think meditation comes in here. I found that memorizing scripture is a great way of keeping the mind disciplined. And I have to confess that in recent weeks I haven't been doing so much memorizing of scripture. In all how we need to discipline ourselves to memorize. Even if it is hard to memorize. I remember Krista Fisher. When we worked back at 30 Middleton Road. She sat at the typewriter and above her typewriter she'd put a new scripture text every day. Or maybe one or two or three of them. And every spare moment she had she'd look up and she'd be reading and meditating on that verse until she memorized. But usually we get a spare moment and we just kind of let it slide idly by. While we're waiting at the bus stop for a bus. Maybe nobody else is there so you can't talk to anybody. You can't give out a crack. But then to pull out a New Testament and memorize a word of scripture. To fill our mind, to occupy our mind with that which is good. It's not enough just to have a clean mind that's still empty. Because if you clean out the mind and it's empty then pretty soon all sorts of other things will come in and you'll have seven devils instead of one. It's got to be filled up with that which is truth, with that which is good, with that which is pure. Whatever things are pure, lovely, of good report, honest, think on these things. And if it doesn't measure up to that standard that Paul laid down in Philippians 4, don't think on these things. Meditate. And it's a discipline. It's a discipline because I find that my mind just likes to do nothing. I don't like to think. I don't like to plan. I get going for a while and then about the middle of the day when I get sleepy and tired, I don't want to think of what I should say in the next letter. I just don't like to. It's lazy. And it's a discipline to say, think. Or maybe in that time, pray. And ask God to discipline you to think. But in the idle moment to let the thoughts wander. You know, another thing that's come to me is being very sentimental. I think this is what homesickness is. Sometimes I go for four years without seeing my parents and every once in a while I get a hand cream from my old life out in West Africa. Especially when it was a cold winter and I thought of the 90 degree weather out there. And the beautiful sunshine and getting that nicely baked feeling when you get out in the sun. And so my mind begins to wander and I just go back to boyhood days and I think of, oh, I didn't have any problems then hardly. And I just get carried away. And yet, how foolish is it? It's unrealistic. I can't go back there. It doesn't do me a bit of good. About five or ten or maybe minutes later or maybe an hour later I come back to reality and have to face up to it all again. And it's just a waste of time, isn't it? To have all these little fluffy, airy feelings about the past or wanting to be somewhere where we aren't. Or sometimes I'm thinking here in England, well, I wonder what it would be like to be slugging it out with those there in the Muslim world. What it would be like just to be with some of those brothers. And I begin to think of some brother and, oh, I have a great love and I just love to be with them in fellowship again. And it's good to have that bond of unison. But sometimes it becomes just vain imagination. And it's a waste of time. Instead of seeing things as God does. And oh, how we need to discipline our minds so that they don't just wander all over the place. Doing nothing. Going nowhere. But rather that we might discipline our thoughts and discipline our whole lives towards one purpose. To know the Lord Jesus Christ and to do His will. Of course we could talk about worry too. A good passage is Matthew 6. In case you've never read it before. I think it'd be good to read it again anyway. Because worry is in the mind, isn't it? It may affect the body. It may affect how you feel. But worry is all in the mind. And most of the time worry isn't even... It's not even reality. You're worrying about something that's in the future that you're not sure how it's going to turn out. And it doesn't help a bit. It doesn't do one thing for you. As we've heard before. But let's remind ourselves what the Lord Jesus Christ said. Verse 25. Therefore I say unto you... Read 24. No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to one and despise the other. He cannot serve God and mammon. Mammon is worry. Therefore I say unto you... Be not anxious for your life. What ye shall eat or what ye shall drink. Nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heavens that they stole not. Neither do they reap nor gather into barns. And your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? I suppose all you fellows were like me. At one time or another you were shorter than everybody else. Well, I still am. But I used to... My brother is about five, six inches taller than I am. And every couple of weeks when we measured against the bedroom wall of my mother's I was here and his mark was up here. Always above me. And I wanted to be tall like my brother. But all the thinking about it didn't do a bit of good. And even exercise, I don't think that helped any either. It just doesn't help. It doesn't do anything. And why are you anxious concerning raiment? You know, I found a real problem. When I used to have a lot of clothes it took me five or ten minutes in the morning trying to make up my mind which shirt to put on. It's so much simpler when you just have one or two changes. It simplifies life. It's bad here in England, but it's even worse in the States. I remember working in a camp and for one week I remember a girl coming, they had twenty blouses for one week. She changed three times a day. Of course she was catering to the fellows, but think of it. The decisions that would have to be made they changed twenty times in one week. And decisions are what's hard to make. Well, raiment. Consider the lilies of the field. How they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast in the oven shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? An anxiety about dress and what we're going to wear is not a faith. And if it's not a faith, it's sin. Now we've been told we're to be neat. But one can be neat without spending half the day trying to get a wardrobe to get. Some people just when they go to pass it takes them a week to get prepared. Even some of the girls here. I'm used to just telling them, well, you're going for this weekend. But they want to know in advance by two or three days so they can plan what they have to be ironed and what has to be washed and so forth. In some ways this is good, but it shows how occupied we get with what we wear and how much time we can spend just on ordinary living which could be the minimum. And of course we could say the same for food. Now, I enjoy good food. But I don't see that it makes much difference if the radish is poor or if it's peeled in a nice little tulip type thing. And yet I know some ladies that will spend hours. I've been in their homes. They spend hours preparing a meal that's gulped down in a half hour. And that's it. Well, we need to be realistic, don't we? About our time and about just plain ordinary living. 31. Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat or what shall we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed? We serve tea and coffee, and you have to make up your mind whether it's going to be tea or coffee you're going to drink. For me, I just like plain old cold water. But most people don't go for that quite so much. I'm still trying to convince the Britishers that cold water is good for them. But I'm having a hard time. They like their tea and coffee or something else. 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles be. For your Heavenly Father knoweth Well, that came in, didn't it? For your Heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. And so what does it matter if I can't get my cold water? I'll drink whatever's available. But seek ye first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Now, this is a promise from the Word of God that if we seek Him first, the food, our raiment, whatever we really need, will be added unto us. And if we don't rest on that, then we're just disregarding what He said. Don't worry. Be anxious for nothing. And I tell you, sometimes there are things that, humanly speaking, there's something to be anxious about. But God tells us, be anxious for nothing. And I found that most of the time we're worried about something that's coming in the future and we're not sure how it's going to come out. We don't worry too much about the past. It's already happened. And the present, well, we're actually in that. But it's something in the future. And many times there's something that's come up in my life and I know that it's going to be hard to do it. Maybe it's a situation and I know that I have to tell that person to do something that I know they aren't going to like. And this is difficult. And I can begin to worry, well, just how are they going to react? Will I lose their friendship? But God says, don't worry about it. Because you can't change it anyway. And we're always worried about something that we can have no influence over, really. And usually when we get to it, it's not nearly as bad. For instance, when I think of chopping my finger off, I don't like the thought of it. And I could worry about it if I knew that five minutes from now I was going to have to take a hatchet and chop my finger off. I would get disturbed. And sometimes when I think of martyrdom, I think of different ways people torture you. I can get bothered by it. And I think, what if I had to go through this certain physical torture? But then when the moment comes and you do chop your finger off, it's just over like that. And then you go about getting it repaired. But it's usually not nearly as bad as your mind imagines, there's that word again, imagination, imagines it to be. Usually the real thing is not nearly so bad as the real thing is. Of course, sometimes we can imagine something is going to be very wonderful too. And we can get so wrapped up in how wonderful something is going to be and then when we get there it falls flat. Maybe that's happened to you at this conference. Maybe your hopes were so built up that God was going to take one or two people and they were going to give such wonderful messages that you just had to get blessed. And therefore you depended on some great speaker coming along and you've been disappointed. Because if we're going to receive a real blessing, it's got to be God who gives it. He uses men, yeah. But it's amazing what kind of men he does use. Don't worry. I guess we'd save ourselves a lot of anxiety. We'd save ourselves perhaps some ulcers. We'd relieve the situation in our mental institutions and a lot of other places if we could learn this lesson not to worry. I sometimes find myself doing it. I praise God I have some friends that they can come along and they see if I'm worrying or not and they say, are you worried? Get back to reality. And it's good. It's good to have brothers and sisters that are honest enough with you and they tell you when something's wrong. We know how we need to do this, to exhort one another. Because God says don't worry about something, that doesn't mean you're not to ever think about it. Because in the same breath that Jesus would say don't worry, don't be anxious about these things, he also tells us to take care. And he says, I put you in remembrance of these things. For instance, over in 1 Timothy 4.15, after exhorting Timothy along certain lines to let no man despise his youth but rather be an example and to be a learner and to really give heed to reading and exhortation. Notice he says in verse 15, You can't be diligent without thinking. Be diligent in these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy progress may be manifest unto all. And in other places we read about study or be diligent to show yourself approved unto God. And give all diligence to add to your faith, virtue, brotherly kindness, love, and so this scripture talks about actually giving thought to something. And many times we are reminded to remember something. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth. And Peter mentions in his first epistle, I believe, I put you in remembrance of these things. I remind you of them. And so over and over again we have the same thing stated. In the Old Testament we were commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. And our neighbor as ourselves. It's recorded another three or four times in Scripture to remind us. And we are to remember. We're not to worry about something but we're to remember the things that God has taught us. And we're to give thought to something. Not in a worrying sense but thinking with God. Depending on Him to give us wisdom. If we lack wisdom ask of God in faith and He will give. Perhaps I could give this illustration. I don't want you to worry about dirty plates left all over the campground. But it would certainly be nice if you would remember them to take them where they're to be washed. Don't worry about it but just remember it. And then get on with the more important things. Don't worry about if the line's getting too long outside the washroom or outside the dining hall. But remember to redeem the time while you're there in line. And use it to really fellowship with one another. And to make the time profitable. And of course to be sensible and don't all crowd into the doorway so that all the lines get muddled. Don't worry but remember the things God wants to teach us and has taught us. One more thought along this matter of the mind. In Romans 12, 1 and 2 we read about the presenting of our bodies a living sacrifice. But he goes on in the second verse to mention another aspect. And he says and be not fashioned according to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And this is what we need. We need our minds renewed. We need our whole attitude toward life renewed. We need our thinking renewed. And Ephesians 4 tells the same thing that we should be renewed in the spirit of our mind. And this is the answer to it all. This is the answer to a disciplined mind get a new one. Instead of ours get the Lord Jesus Christ mind. Instead of I Christ. Renewed in our mind. I remember when I was in Montana I keep mentioning different places you probably know that I traveled around a little bit. The Lord keeps shifting me here and there. But when I was out in Montana a couple of summers the Lord taught me this lesson about the thought and how basic it is. If you sow a thought you reap an action. And if you sow an action you reap a habit. If you sow a habit you reap a life. If you sow a life you reap an eternity. And it starts with the thought. And unless God comes in and arrests that whole order He can't stop it at the habit. He can't even stop it at the life and change the life. We praise God that He can stop it anywhere. Except in eternity. And then it's too late. But remember it starts with the thought. Another area that's very important and very closely linked together with this is the tongue. James chapter 3. Discipline of the tongue. Americans seem to have a great desire to talk a lot. I find it easy to talk. If I'm not careful I get carried away. You know how we need to be disciplined in what we say. It's not wrong to talk a lot. But it is wrong to talk a lot about nothing. For in many things we all stumble. Sure enough if any stumbles not in words but the same is a perfect man. Able to bridle the whole body also. Now if we put the horse's bridles into their mouths that they may obey us we turn about their whole body also. Behold the ships also though they are so great and are driven by rough winds are yet turned about by a very small rudder whether the impulse of the steersman will it. So the tongue also is a little member. Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire. And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue which defiles the whole body and sets on fire the wheel of nature and is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird or creeping things and things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed by mankind but the tongue can no man tame. It is a restless evil. It is full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we the Lord and Father and therewith curse we men who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Yes, the unregenerate man may curse God but not many of us would dare to curse God, really. But instead we'll just talk behind everybody else's back and just run him into the ground. And yet from the same tongue we praise God one moment and we tear our fellow brother down behind his back. Now if you tear him down to his face at least it's a different thing. If you're saying to his face perhaps pointing out something you feel is wrong in his life that's scriptural. It's done in the spirit of love to exhort one another. But when you say something behind their back if you wouldn't say to his face or at least you wouldn't say unless you absolutely forced to then it's wrong. The tongue. It's bad enough to complain inwardly, isn't it? It's bad enough to to murmur and complain within ourselves so that nobody else knows about it. But if you start voicing your complaint then it influences someone else and they voice their complaint and that's joined together with your complaint and they get greater. And your complaints are far worse by the time you finish discussing them than they were to start voicing them. And this works in a crowd because we influence one another. And this is what happens usually in a mob when some mob action is started off. One person says, Go get them! And off they are to lynch someone. But just one person saying that it stirs everybody else up. If he had said that just to one other person sitting down in their living room it would have lasted on. But in a crowd, you see, it influences them. And perhaps you're standing over there by the dining hall and you may make just one little word about the food. Maybe it isn't quite as good as you expected or what you would like. But this will influence someone else and they say, Boy, that's right. I hadn't thought about that. Those beans are a little burnt after all. What have we been eating? Beans? Tomatoes? And so we, our complaints add to each other and they get worse. That's why if we have a complaint, voice it to God and not to one another. Or if it is something that can be corrected, voice it to the person in charge. And then if he doesn't take it, then perhaps you can voice it to everybody. But how easy it is just to talk behind a person's back. And I find this. Sometimes we're thinking about people who have applied. This, of course, applies to some of you. And we receive their applications. And we're looking at them. And to be quite honest, I look through them with the sole, well, more than one purpose, but one of the purposes is to try and find anything that kind of flashes a red light and I want to know more about that person. Now maybe all of you are really, you really mean business, but some people can write in and they want to apply and, well, it's hard telling what their background's been. And we need to find this out. Because all we have is one little sheet of paper with a few questions at the first part and a little testimony on the back. Have you ever tried to figure out what a person's like from that much? It's pretty difficult. But I find that perhaps we see the picture there. Now sometimes the picture doesn't always glorify the person. Or perhaps we see something else. And I can find myself beginning to talk about someone else. Oh, look at this. I kind of question about that. And pretty soon, we're still talking about what we think might be wrong, that we overlook the whole other part. And instead of taking that and writing to the person and trying to get it straightened out, we can just talk about it. Or we can talk about one another. And in running the camp here, I've found myself, I've got to think of, well, where would these people fit in the best? Because I must evaluate the kind of work they're doing and where I feel, by God's grace, they could be used the most. But I can find I'm tempted to talk about their failures and their weak points and end up where they don't have any strong points and I don't know where to use them. And begin talking to someone else about this. And saying, can you give me some help on this? I can't figure out just where to use so-and-so. And bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Here's so many things wrong with them. This is how Satan gets in. Just with the comments. Step. But I think there's another area that's even greater, and that's foolish talk. And worthless talk. Talking about so many things that mean so little in the light of eternity. And I think every one of us stands condemned this morning. I certainly do. For the many times that I've said words that have had no power. It hasn't edified someone else. It hasn't been a loving encouragement to another brother. It hasn't been, perhaps, an exhortation or rebuke in the spirit of love to another person. But it's just been about nothing. We mention it, and then we mention it 15 more times. When once would have been enough. Oh, how easy it is just to get occupied with triviality. While we can find ourselves talking all day long just about the food and planning menus. Instead about the Lord. And we get to meal time. And we joke, and we banter, and we do everything else but really talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is it it's so difficult? Oh, yes, in a service we talk about the Lord. But why is it that when we eat it's so hard to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ? Why is it when we're out working we don't seem to want to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ so much? And I knew this back in Bible school. I talked with some fellows and they said, we're afraid to talk about spiritual things because they'll blame us as a Holy Joe and a hypocrite. In a Bible school in the United States, I heard them say this. How tragic it is when we as Christians can't get together and talk about the thing that is to mean the most in our lives. Oh, yes, we can get together and especially around here we can talk vehicles. Why, we can talk about vans and motors and problems that come up with vehicles. We can talk about that all day long. But it's another thing just to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ instead of just vehicles. Or we can talk about the tent and think of how we praise God for the way He supplied it. But then we can spend the next half hour talking about this tent and just how it should be when it's already up. And it should be done and over with. In other words, things which really don't count for eternity. Oh, may God search our hearts. May God control our tongues. This is discipline. A tongue that speaks to the praise of His love. A tongue that edifies. God, let your speech be seasoned with salt. Does your speech edify one another? Tell me. Or rather, let's tell God. Or ask ourselves. Has everything we've said in the last two days really been to the glory of God? Every word we've uttered, has it really been for some real purpose? Or has it been foolish talking or senseless chatter? James says that if you control the tongue, you control the body. And if you can control your tongue by God's power, you're doing something that mankind cannot do. You're doing something that's far greater. Because mankind can control in so many ways nature. Man has taken the powers of nature. They've taken the atomic power. And they can. They don't always do it, but they can use it for good purposes. And they can take it and harness it and control it. But they can't control the tongue. Therefore, let us yield our tongues as members of righteousness unto God. As we are commanded to do so in Romans 6. Well, there are other areas too. We talk about the body. The natural desires of our body. And oh, how we need to have this under the control of the Spirit of God. The desire for food. It's a good one, isn't it? But how we need to have it controlled so that we try to eat what's good for us. So we try to drink what's good for us. So that we eat and drink to the glory of God. So that our bodies might be the strongest tongues. Some of us, especially those of us that sit behind a desk need to exercise. I'll be frank. I don't like doing push-ups. I don't like doing sit-ups. But it's good for me. And oh, how I need to discipline myself to exercise my body. I went out for a bicycle ride about a week ago. I came back. Boop. My legs are weak. Of course, I was cycling with someone that used to be a cyclist. That didn't help matters. But he set a pretty good pace. Well, maybe it wasn't too fast. It was for me. When I hadn't been on a bicycle for some time. But oh, how we let our bodies just get out of sync. We let our bodies just sort of pop. And yet they're the temple of the Holy Spirit of God. And we are not our own. This body isn't ours. That means my little finger needs to be docked. It means my hair needs to be docked. It needs to be treated as such. Of course, we could talk about our sexual desires too. And probably this is one of the realms where Satan hits Christians harder than any other. We all know it don't. The desire for a wife or the desire for a husband. It's in us all. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. I've said this sometimes in a joking way and yet I think there's a lot of people. Fellas are good and girls are good but when you get them together unless they're brought together by God and only then does it become something that's really of glory to God. When God brings two together and unites them in Jesus Christ and they're meant for each other then it becomes a great thing and a wonderful thing. I'm speaking not from personal experience but from observations of other Christians. And I've lived in enough homes with married couples to know that unless God gives me a wife who has only one passion and that's for Jesus Christ well I don't want to be married. Because it isn't too happy a scene in a lot of homes. It's just heartache and grief. And I've met too many people that have come from broken homes or unhappy homes and I see the problems it's caused. And I tell you just to show you what it's like here in Britain of the 30 or so people who have been working here at Tigwell I don't think there's more than three or four that have a full Christian home of both the mother and dad who are Christians. All the rest, either one is dead or they're divorced or they don't even know where they are or they're not Christians or they hate them. Chaos. And oh, we can't afford it. And if you read the history of missions and if you read about Christian workers you know how many times whole works of God have just been plowed under because of sex. Because of lust. And I'm speaking because I believe this is a real danger in each one of our lives. Take thee, let ye fall. That's why God says not only pray but watch and pray. And I'd like to give an illustration from Scripture and the man is Joseph. I was really struck by this. If you remember the story of Joseph when he was working for Potiphar you remember how he was tempted by Potiphar's wife to commit immorality. And you remember how he didn't fall but he fled from her presence. But before that she had tried to tempt Joseph before and she had tried to woo him to commit fornication and he refused. And we read a little phrase over in, let me read it for you. It's in Genesis chapter 39 verse 10. Now notice this. And it came to pass as she that's Potiphar's wife spake to Joseph day by day that he hearken not unto her and to hearken means to hear and do. He hearken not unto her to lie by her or to be with her. And he refused even to be in her presence. And I believe that's the reason he had the victory of a while later when he was caught unawares and it was something he couldn't help. He was in her presence and he couldn't help it but then was the time that he fled. But you see if you give in a little bit if you give in a little bit in the realm of thought you're going to fall sooner or later in action. And that's the way it works. Satan gets you to do it first in your mind and then you do it in action. But you see Joseph took the step before and he refused to be caught in her presence. And then when the great crisis came he was able to get out of there. There are some times when the Bible says we're to stand and resist the devil but boy there's a lot of times when it says to just get running and get out of it. And I don't mean as some people have said some men run from temptation hoping it's going to catch up with them. And you know that happens a lot. We run but we still have that secret desire hurry up and catch up with me. No. But to flee. Oh if we would have that same zeal that Dave Crosser had for planting corn and getting those crops if we would have that same zeal for a holy life and for a pure mind and to be utterly rid of sin in our life and to flee temptation. We have the promise that no temptation has taken us but such as is common to everybody else. But God is faithful. He'll first not stop you to be tempted above that you're able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape. And you know I found that sometimes I just don't want to take the way of escape. And that's why I may fall. Simply I know the way of escape is there but it's because I don't want to take it. You see we actually do like to stand up. It's our nature to desire. That's why the mind and the attitude needs to be renewed and changed from ourselves to God. From the world to Jesus Christ. And so we need to have bodies that are disciplined. Another thing I found that discipline in one area helps to discipline in another area. I haven't talked much about time. This is probably the greatest killer. Disciplining our time. Using it. Redeeming the time for the days are evil. We've heard a lot about it but we do so little really to put it into practice. But I found that if I'm disciplined and do some exercises it helps me discipline myself to use my time better. And if I discipline my time it helps me to be more disciplined in prayer. More disciplined in the study of the word. And if I discipline myself to study the word it helps me to be more disciplined in prayer. It helps me to be more disciplined in time. More disciplined in my own bodily desires and natural appetites. And I think we'll find that if we're disciplined in the realm of food it'll help us be disciplined in the realm of sex. And if we're disciplined in the realm of sex it'll help us be disciplined in other realms. You see they all get tied in together. And so even if it's a little thing. I suggested to our group here one day last week something that came to me. That during this day do something that you know is good but you don't want to do it and do it. Something that perhaps you don't ordinarily do but you know it's a good thing. But do it just for the sake of discipline. Not something that's just kind of neutral but something that you know is good. And on the other hand don't do something that you know really isn't the best for you even though you like to do it. And I think it helps to be disciplined. A whole lot. Wholly disciplined or controlled by God himself. Then there's the discipline of action. And of course this could be amplified. I've mentioned this. Now I mentioned study. Study to show thyself approved unto God. Give all diligence were to meditate upon the word of God day and night. And it's a discipline. If you wait until you have just a great desire to go and study the word of God you probably won't get in it too much. Praise God he does give us that hunger and thirst doesn't he? But sometimes you know we have to go because we know it's good for us. And as we study then our thirst and our hunger is built up. It's that way with eating. Sometimes perhaps you don't feel like eating. Probably not very often. But yet you eat anyway because you know you need it. It's good for you. There's the discipline of prayer. And this is a lot of it. A lot of times we don't pray because of an undisciplined life. We know we should pray. We know we should get alone with God. But somehow well there's people to see there's decisions to be made there's little items to take care of. And people have told me that instead of staying in my office I should go off and feel where people can't reach me. But I insist on staying in the office and therefore I get a lot of interruptions. This is our common strength. Not discipline. Sometimes you have to just walk out of everything and get clear away. Then people can't call you. And then if the phone rings and it's the Queen of England you can't answer it because they don't know where you are. And it's a help to get clear away from it. This is what I need. This is perhaps what you need. You just have to walk completely out of it and discipline your life to get alone with God. Denial of self. This is another thing. We have some desire. We realize it's selfish. Deny it. Cut it out. Even though perhaps it's not really so bad after all. There's a lot of things that I wish I could get kind of a group of men together. I'd like to call I really would like to have Tiny Snell and Dave Hunt come up here for all the drivers. And boy I'd love to give them turn them loose for about two hours and tell you how you should be disciplined as a driver on OM. I'd love for us to take a long time just to discuss how we can be practical. After all what good is a great time of worship with God if it isn't evidenced in our daily lives? What good is meeting together before God and having a great sense of his presence if it never makes any difference in the way we live? And so we need to be disciplined. We need to every morning before you go out and drive a van you need to check the water and the oil and I'm so ignorant I don't know what all you're supposed to check. That's why I need to be disciplined. That's why I get other people to drive because I know I'm not that good a driver myself. How we need to use our head in these little things. Let me just quote some examples. We have a car over in Jakku. We hope that it might be repaired but somebody left the water in it over the winter. It's got a cracked block and needs a new engine now. Let's cite another example here. There's a comer down there now. We're hoping that we can get it fixed but somebody left water there and it cracked the block slightly. There are other times when engines get blown up because somebody doesn't think and they aren't disciplined in the way they drive. Other times perhaps an accident occurs. Now I had one last summer and it was simply because I was careless. I came out of the road Avenue Daligre you that were in Jakku and I thought the fellow was going to go straight but he turned and I didn't wait to see far enough and so I smacked up his front door. See, it's just a little thing like that. Another time I remember I'll tell you all my accidents you never want me to drive again. When I was on the way to Montana and I was driving it was about midnight I'd had about 2 hours sleep the night before and about 4 the night before that and I went to sleep. It cost me $100, about 30 pounds because I knocked the windshield out hit a mailbox. Don't know where the mailbox went. If I had been sensible I would have turned it over a lot sooner than that to someone who was awake. And I remember driving up from Spain you see, God's been teaching me this lesson that don't drive when you're sleepy it's worse than driving when you're drunk and I was sleepy so I said I can't drive. Someone else drove a little bit and they were sleepy and all of us were sleepy and so we went to sleep stayed by the side of the road and then when we were awake enough then we went on. And it's a lot smarter than having about 6 dead bodies in the ditch. And I was telling some people just think, just think of what people would think of O.M. and all our transport system if one of those vans cracked up and you had about 15 people who were wounded and dying along a highway. I can't think of any faster way to see O.M. rule right out the window than to see a van cracked up like that. Now fortunately if you hit a little car with a van the van doesn't get hurt quite so much but you can get into real trouble with whoever's in the other little car. But it's actually just discipline. Always obeying the orders given to you. If you're told not to drive over 40 miles per hour don't drive over 40 miles per hour and obeying the speed limits. If it says 20 miles per hour then go 20 miles per hour. If it says don't pass, don't pass. And if it's raining, again extra precautions. Discipline in driving. Now for you that ride in the back of the van of course you need to be disciplined too. And not always keep bothering the driver. Now it's good to have one person to keep the driver awake. But if everybody's scattering and you know another thing it's good not to jump around in the back of a van. Somebody shared with me that one of the vans down there... What all's wrong with it, Lou? Give us the word. This is important. It's inside? Oh. In other words, the whole inside is quite a mess. And I think it's not only on the seats that we put in, not only the top part, not only the top boards are broken but some of the 2x2 inch beams that we put in to hold up the seats were broken. I don't know what somebody was doing. I haven't seen any people that heavy here yet. But discipline. It's so easy to treat God's property as nobody's property and so we don't take care of it. Oh, that's an OM van. So what? And so we don't take care of it. And we waste God's money. We probably spend more money in OM on correcting mistakes that have been made than we do feeding the whole lot. Sometimes I wonder, I think we pay more money on vans just correcting careless mistakes that have been made than we paid for the vans to begin with because we're not disciplined. We don't know how to do as we're told. There's so many little things. I would say just learn to be neat, learn to pick up after yourself and learn to pick up after other people too. You know, if everybody took it upon their responsibility to pick up stray paper that was around, you'd have a clean campground instead of walking down and seeing everything in a big mess. If everybody took it upon themselves not only to take their own plates but any other plates they saw laying around, you wouldn't see any laying around the campground. But you'd go in the registration office and see three cups of coffee. You'd go another place and you'd see a plate. You'd see rubbish here and rubbish there. Unfortunately, most people put it in the boxes now. But it's so easy just to think, well, it doesn't matter. These things aren't important. But it is. I tell you, you live in a van for a month and you live sloppily and you just see what it's like to live in that. Some of these vans, after one night, it's like a pig's den. Now, we're trying to take some steps to correct this and some good healthy reminders but all how we need to be disciplined just in the everyday realm of these things. Little things. Well, there's other things that we'll be learning as we go along. But if we've been told once, let's learn it. Let's not have to learn the same lesson 50 dozen times. That's the tragedy. If you make one mistake and confess it and learn from it, that shows wisdom. But boy, if you make the same mistake another five times, then we begin to wonder what's happened. And we begin to wonder what's happened to us. Either the teacher's bad or the pupil's bad. One of the two. Speaking about the mind, maybe we should say it's good to have a mind to work. You know, the scripture's full of this, this discipline of working. Some of you have never done door-to-door work. I want to tell you it's hard. I have to confess that it wasn't much fun going door-to-door in Mexico with only 20 phrases. And in my broken Spanish, and they gave me some argument, all I could do was come out and repeat my few phrases again. And it was hard. It got hot. And the book bag got heavy, as George mentioned yesterday. Very heavy. And a lot of times people didn't sell, didn't buy. And many times, oh, they just weren't too friendly. Sometimes they tore a crack right up in your face. It wasn't a pleasant experience. It wasn't pleasant at all. It was just plain old hard work. Boy, I tell you, that's when you begin to find out if you're steadfast or not. Then you find out whether you've been blessed with the gift of perseverance or not. After 50 doors turn you down, they go to the 51st one and keep going. We read about the people, the children of Israel in Moses' day when they built the tabernacle, that they had a mind to work. In Nehemiah's day, the people had a mind to work and tremendous things were accomplished. They had more than enough. It's the first time I've ever heard of an offering being given where they had to give it back to the people. But when the people gave for the tabernacle, because they had such a mind to work and a mind to give, they had too much and they had to give it back. Have you ever heard of that today? No. A mind to work. Yes. This is what we need. God says let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands. Why? That he may give to those that don't have. And this is the whole purpose of working. Whether it's in a secular job or a so-called sacred job, is that we might give to others. Either maybe we're giving directly of our work or we work and we give directly of what we make from our work. But that's how we need to do it. It's for a purpose to do it. This brings me to another point that I feel is so important is discipline and purpose. Because if there's no overall purpose, how can you have discipline? If we have this great purpose of glorifying Christ, then this affects everything we do and we can be disciplined. But why be disciplined if life doesn't matter? If I have nothing to live for, well, why should I mess around exercising my body? Let me sit in a chair and die there. It doesn't make any difference. Unless there's a real purpose, there's no point for discipline. But when we've got a purpose such as we have in Jesus Christ, there's all, every reason in eternity to live disciplined. And this is what we need. Discipline and purpose. Think of Jesus Christ. We read in Isaiah that he set his face like a face. We read that he set his face steadfastly towards Jerusalem. Now don't tell me that he really felt by going to the cross. We don't go by feelings. But he went because he loved, because he knew this was right. And he had this great purpose and he accomplished it. And we too have a great purpose in how we need to discipline our bodies, our minds, our thoughts, every imagination, all that we have. We need to discipline towards this great purpose of first knowing Christ himself in our own lives. Pleasing him and making him known to the ends of the earth as he's commanded us. You see, there's a purpose for discipline. Not just to go around saying I'm a disciplined one. No. But it's that we might accomplish the purpose. And if we aren't disciplined, we're not going to see the purpose accomplished this summer. If we aren't disciplined in the back of vans, we're going to have chaos. And you won't get the job done. Instead of seeing 250 tons of literature be given forth, you'll see 100 tons of it wrecked in the back of vans, tramped on and torn up and gotten dirty and thrown in mud puddles and hundreds of pounds worth of literature just thrown down the drain because we don't know how to take care of literature. It wasn't quite so bad last year. It was just trash. But when you come to book, they cost a little more money. Oh, how we need to be disciplined in the way we treat literature. Instead of taking a book and just jumping it up like this on a table, we fold it and take good care of it. Now you're looking at my Bible. It's a poor binding and used for two or three years now. So it's beginning to wear out. But how we need to treat with respect books. In my family, I was brought up right from the ground up to treat a book with great respect. Not to worship it, but to treat it as something valuable. My parents didn't have enough money to just go out and buy me a new copy of the book every time. And we were to take care of it and take good care of it. And oh, I pray that God will give you a real vision for learning how to take care of literature this summer. Because it's the word of God. It's the message of God. And it needs to be treated right and preserved so that it might reach hungry hearts. If we have a real discipline and purpose, we'll have a discipline and perseverance then that we might reach that purpose. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Why? Because you know your labor is not in vain in the Lord. See, there's your purpose. Therefore, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding. Discipline and perseverance. Oh, this is so important. I tell you, this is, I think of all the truths, maybe I shouldn't say of all, but one of the greatest truths that keeps me going is this matter of don't give up. Don't be a quitter. Put your hand to the plow and don't look back. But keep on, whether you feel like it or not. When the problems come and you wonder, well, how everything's going to work out, don't give up. Let's keep going on. And I believe that God wants us to be persevering saints. Yes, we have all the promises of God at our disposal, but we need to act upon it and trust Him. But we need to take heed and watch at the same time lest we fall. I'd like to close with five vows that were written by A.W. Tozer. I don't know if they tie in exactly with discipline, but I think they do. He says these are five vows that will really make your spiritual life something in the practical realm. I'd like to read them. The first one, he says, is deal thoroughly with sin. For undisciplined, it's sin. Deal thoroughly with sin. Confess it and forsake it. The next one is never own anything. If all that we have is God's and we don't own it, and if something happens to it, how can we get upset? It's not ours. It's God's. And how can we take care of what we wear better than we take care of someone else's because it's not ours? Never own anything. Number three, never defend yourself. Never defend yourself. Oh, never defend yourself. It would really help a lot, wouldn't it? The fourth one, never pass anything on about anybody else that would hurt them. Never pass anything on about anybody else that would hurt them. And the last one, never accept any glory. It all belongs to God. Never accept one ounce of glory. It belongs only to God. And if we take it, we're robbing God. If we take too much time, we're robbing God. If we misuse what God has given us, we're robbing God. And one of the great commandments is thou shalt not steal. And so it really boils down again. Discipline is simply obedience to the word of God. Yes, we need the faith. Oh, how we need it. We need believing heart. And at the same time, we need heart that will obey. They go together. Trust and obey. You've got to have both. And discipline is simply obedience to the word of God. Oh, that God will enable us. For it's not by might, it's not by power, it's not by our feelings, it's not by our emotions, it's not just by our desire, it's not by our striving, but it's by my spirit, saith the Lord. God is the one who has to discipline our lives. It may take rebuking. It may take chastising. But oh, I pray that in my own life, God will bring whatever it takes to make me disciplined. For him, that the world might hear. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we have to confess our undisciplined lives. Lord, we lay them before thee and we realize that we cannot, we cannot remember what you taught us. We cannot do the things you've told us to do. But we're glad that you've said it's not by might or by power, but it's by thy holy spirit who indwells us. And so, Lord, we believe thee that you'll enable us to obey thee in everything you tell us to do. Oh, God, discipline our lives, not for our sake, but for your sake, because you died that we might be disciplined for Jesus Christ. We ask it in your name. Amen.