In this sermon, the speaker shares the story of how Jesus moved the heart of a woman, leading to the birth of a movement called Operation Mobilization. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having a spirit of faith and expectation, as well as a life of prayer and being filled with the Holy Spirit. They also highlight the need for discipline and being willing to take risks in evangelism. Lastly, the speaker emphasizes the importance of knowing how to handle failure and not getting caught up in striving for a perfect "Plan A" in life.

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person. That is happening. More people are coming to Christ today in the world than ever before in history. I was in Korea around this time last summer. Just bizarre. 20% of the nation have come to Christ. Huge churches. They're trying to send out 10,000 missionaries. It's not that big a country. I think they've got 5,000 on the road. I spoke at a student convention for five days. Serious stuff. 1,500 made a commitment to world mission. Longer term world mission. This past Christmas I was back in the States. I live in London, England. I in fact was born here in New Jersey. Interesting state outside New York City. Known for the rudest people in America. My home state. I was among them. I'll tell you a little later what happened to me. But I was back in the United States this Christmas. 19,000 students came for five day intensive missions conference. Missions conference. 19,000. 9,000 signed on the line. Said they're willing to go. 200,000 are already out there across the globe. But as we've seen on that video, one of my prayers is that that musician who I believe has got the mantle of Keith Green on him, Bill Drake, someday may come to New Zealand. He's actually written 250 songs that we just saw. One of them about the 1040 window. But God is just doing amazing things among young people. A couple of weeks ago I was ministering to 400 leaders. All leaders from the universities in Great Britain. All going back to a specific Operation Jerusalem kind of campaign. Loaded with literature on their own University of Kansas. Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, Newcastle. Students in Britain are on the move. We're living in exciting days. Argentina. I was down there a couple of years ago. Well, less than two years ago. I was on an airplane. Here's Argentina down here. You can see it better on my globe. Argentina. They all speak Spanish. That's the only other language I know. Where is it? Doc, there goes my water. Better than spilling it on somebody's head. Sorry. Argentina. Get me a Coke this time, please. God is working in Argentina. Huge churches have sprung up in the last five years. I was on this airplane and God gave me this vision that we could see 200,000 new workers. We don't expect them all to be on the field by the year 2000. But we'd like to see them in some kind of training. Even if it was Operation Jerusalem. If you think 200,000 workers, we're not talking about OM or any one group here. We're talking about the whole body of Christ. If you think 200,000 is too many, just pick up that little tape and you'll realize in the world today of six billion people, 200,000, as many workers are going to heaven, many are going home. You'll realize, wow, she did it. See if you know how to open it. Wonderful. Let's put it in the glass. I'll try not to spill it. I'll go over here. That's only if my voice starts getting really wild. At the same time, and we are battling the clock, I'm sure, tonight. Some of you are probably tired. Nothing like that kind of music to get you going. I go, by the way, I'm one of the main speakers at the biggest Christian rock festival in the world with Rez Band. You know how many bands we have there? 125 bands. So if you're ever in Chicago, just pop on down to the Cornerstone Music Festival. You'll probably find me in one of the tents with my famous seminar on sex. And unfortunately, I don't have a band, but I wear my little t-shirt, hard rock for hard heads. And that always seems to get quite a response. That's a positive side of the picture. The negative side is that 90% of the missionaries are working where the church already exists. 90%. Places like Fiji, great holiday place. And Tonga, just talking about these islands. I'm not saying we don't need missionaries to those places. Kiwis have been great for Papua New Guinea and Tonga, and all those people are now coming down here. And it's exciting. It's just a tiny, tiny, tiny little part of God's harvest season. I'm not going to be talking about this a lot tonight, but in the land of India, where my wife and I lived for a number of years, perhaps the number one country on my heart, in the land of India, I was just on the phone with them a lot from your pocket lot out here on my mobile phone, there are 900 million people. Every couple of months, we have another New Zealand in population. Every couple of months. And hundreds of millions have not yet had the gospel. The Indian church is large, but they do in India what we do in the rest of the world. They stick to their own state. Telugu stay in Telugu land. Tamil people stay in Tamil Nadu. That's where there's a lot of Christians. And the masses of North India have not received the gospel. Quite a few have now had a little bit. They might have had a Jesus film and seen it. They may have got a gospel track. But to see churches planted, which is the object of the Great Commission, to see people saved and churches planted among Orthodox Hindus and Muslims, it takes individual missionaries willing to live incarnationally among the people and to see them come to Jesus. And the door is open in India for people from New Zealand. After I lived in Bombay for a while here, I lived in Kathmandu up in Nepal. Praise God, the church is finally in the last 10 years really growing in Nepal. Thousands of Nepalese have come to Christ. But north of Nepal, you have the land of Tibet. The church doesn't exist in Tibet. I'm going to share more about this tomorrow and maybe on Monday morning. But I praise God for the privilege of being here. I praise God for the opportunity to share about some of these countries that have burned on my heart for about 40 years. This is the 40th anniversary of Operation Mobilization. I've just this summer been in Mexico. I speak Spanish. And we were celebrating 40 years since three of us as teenagers had our little Operation Jerusalem, only we headed for Mexico and worked with Mexicans and learned the language and worked in the garbage tip. And we saw things, especially poverty, we had never even dreamed hardly existed in this world. And our lives were radically changed. And a movement was born that later exploded in Europe and became known as Operation Mobilization. We hope that everybody is going to go from this weekend, a global world-class Christian. That doesn't mean you have to go. So I believe God is putting the vision to go on many hearts. I've just come from the OJ event in Christchurch. Just before I left my last meeting there, I gave a strong message about the need to go for at least a couple of years. One false cult has 50,000 in a two-year program. They see tens of thousands reach for those two-year missionaries. They then go back, take up their careers. Many of them become millionaires and they finance another bigger trust. And so there's always 40 or 50,000 on the field at any one time. It's exciting. I'm excited about being here in New Zealand. I believe you're one of the greatest countries in the world. You're one of the highest sending per capita missionary countries in the world. You're way ahead of the United States. You make them look like they're asleep going downhill on a rusty skateboard per capita because they got 260 million there. And I just know God wants to send more. About 50% raised their hand in Christchurch that are willing to go for two years. They're going to seriously start pursuing that. I so appreciated the gift. You're very generous people, New Zealand people. Wherever I go, they give me gifts. And a guy gave me this hat. I think it was you. He didn't know. I love hats. I'm one of the few persons in the whole United States ever preached with my hat on. It's considered, you know, it's not revered. I actually like to turn it around, but that might have been. Let me tell you a story. I took the missions conference at Wheaton College. This is where Billy Graham studied. Pretty conservative place. The students are beginning to loosen up, you know, a little better music, beginning to loosen up. So some of the students wear their hats in chapel. Wheaton College Chapel. A hat on? So they got a new president. Came up there, you know, a couple of years ago, you know, students high and real organized. And he gave a message on why they should not wear their hats in chapel. How do you think this generation, you know, handled that one? I'll tell you how they handled that. Wheaton College. The next chapel, 1,000 paint hats free for everybody. It was great. And praise God that dear president backed down. It's always great to see a college president back down. And we saw the work, the Lord worked there in many hundreds, made commitments to world mission. I'd like to just pray together with you and then share these thoughts that are on my heart. Let's pray. Lord, you have told us to pray that you would send forth workers into the harvest, and we want to pray that right now. We don't believe, oh God, we're here by accident tonight. And we're believing and praying on the basis of Matthew 9, that you would send forth workers into the harvest field. And especially, oh God, the forgotten places, the neglected places. Those places like Libya and Saudi Arabia and Morocco and Algeria. Those places like Tibet and Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Those places like Bangladesh and Pakistan and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and Turkey and Bosnia. We're believing that Kiwis are going to be headed out to the airport in the next couple of years. We believe some of them are going to get so spirit filled they'll even fly there without an airplane. But oh God, we know that you are doing something new and something great in this country. And we're excited about it. And we're believing you for the greatest army of missionaries ever to go out into the harvest field and help finish the task in obedience to you, Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we pray. Amen. Amen. There's many, many scriptures on my heart tonight. One of them I just mentioned in my prayer. It's found in Matthew 9 where Jesus said, you can look it up if you have your Bible, 35th verse of chapter 9, we find Jesus Christ going into all the towns and villages. The next verse says, verse 36, he was moved with compassion. God is concerned about our motivation. One of the reasons I'm here is because this is not just another talk session. Because O.J. is not just into talk, O.J. is into walk. And you're going to be walking along the beaches this summer, your summer, our winter. We'll be dreaming about being with you. I live in London in a great climate. And you're going to be walking through campsites. You're going to be talking to people about Jesus. One of the reasons I was a 17-year-old new baby Christian rebel is because to me, so much was just a lot of talk. Not only was it just a lot of talk, what I saw as a young convert, it seemed to be also a lot of hypocrisy. People sitting around talking about other people going to hell and not doing anything about it, beating each other on the head with different translations of the Bible, arguing over every possible thing you could ever imagine, from whether you should wear a tie in church to whether Christians could have lipstick or long hair or all this kind of stuff Christians were fighting about. And I tell you, as a baby Christian, I got really sick. I got really sick. And I became a rebel. And I became a radical. And I decided that I wanted to blow up churches. But as I read the scriptures, I got to 1 Corinthians 13 and got hit with this love business. That's a hard one for a guy like me. A lot of hatred, a lot of anger, a lot of hostility, way too much energy. Appreciate prayer for my wife, 37 years. She looked at me years ago and she said, looking at you makes me really tired. I was taught in a business course, delegation. So I delegated tiredness to my wife and I took energy. I don't think that was a very fair move. How many of you have ever thought, by the way, about marriage? Any of you have given an occasional thought? Well, that's good. You're fairly normal. Are there any married people here? Any married people here? Whoa, more than I expected. Yeah, I thought a lot of your marriage sort of had that little sort of washed out look. But, uh, praise God for marriage. And let me just say this. I believe the training you are giving for world missions is just as important for marriage. In fact, my testimony is, and I helped start a mission that has trained 90,000 people, that has given the gospel to 900 million people face to face, that has these two ships, that has 2,700 staff around the globe right now, 3,000 or 4,000 extras different times of the year in OJ type events. And I will tell you, my biggest challenge was not founding and leading this movement, and I still lead. My biggest challenge was being the kind of father God wanted me to be, the kind of husband God wanted me to be. That was a bigger challenge than everything else put together. I may get back to that on some other occasion. Jesus said, after verse 35 and 36, where we see him move with compassion, the harvest is plenteous, the workers are few. Then he says, pray the law of the harvest, then he'll send forth workers into the harvest. There's no reason why every Christian can't get at least involved in that level. You don't have to go to the airport for that. You don't have to raise the poor or learn a language. Just start praying. Prayer is God's great weapon. In Acts 13, and there's a tape about Acts 13 you can pick up for any donation you want to leave, even a dollar. We go to that chapter in the book of Acts, chapter 13, where five people are worshiping God and praying, and what happens? The Holy Spirit speaks. Do you believe the Holy Spirit can speak here this weekend? I certainly do. I don't even want to be here if he doesn't do some speaking. The Holy Spirit spoke, and what happened? The Holy Spirit said, you, Paul and Barnabas, are going to go. Imagine that. That's like having a prayer meeting in the number one church in New Zealand, and the senior pastor and the number two pastor, the Holy Spirit said, you're out of here. You're out of here, and as you go, it's not going to be all blessing, prosperity, and a new car. It's going to be suffering. Look at Hebrews chapter 11. Look at 1 Corinthians 4. Look at 2 Corinthians 6. I tell you, Paul launched out into a life of hardship and suffering and difficulty and shook the known world of that day, and I believe tonight God is looking. God is looking for men. God is looking for women who will listen to the Holy Spirit. A dear old lady near my high school when I was a young kid listened to the Holy Spirit and put my name on her hit list, Holy Ghost hit list. She not only prayed that I would be a Christian, she prayed that I would become a missionary. You imagine? She didn't even discuss this with me. I told you, New Jersey's rude. It's a bit like Australia. She didn't even discuss this with me, and she then sent me a Gospel of John through the post and urged me to read it, and let me just give you a little bit of my religious pedigree. My grandfather from the Netherlands, that's over here near my heart, was a drunk, an atheist. He was an atheist, didn't even believe in God. My other grandfather was Scottish, Irish, and English, but you know, combined. It's basically toxic. He was an alcoholic. He was a drunk. I only met him three times in my life, and somehow some of those genes, you know, I don't understand all that. They were flowing through my life, and at 16, I was not only on the highway to hell, I was making it broader. My big thing, just being real honest, was women. Not just interested in women, 32 girlfriends starting age five, I worshipped women. I had a big picture of Meryl Monroe on the bottom of my bed, and I tell you, did that give me some very amazing vibrations. No wonder this lady put me on her prayer list. But my passion for money was almost equal to my passion for women, and so at about eight, seven, or eight, I learned how to finagle and make money. By 16, I owned three businesses outside New York City. I had 300 people working for me, selling firefighting equipment, part-time, most of them. And my dream was to lay on the New Jersey beach, and just put my feet up with my girlfriend, and have other suckers work for me around America. The American capitalist. And this lady kept praying. Trouble with the police, trouble with the headmaster at the school. Put on the black list, though I had fairly good grades, I was put on the black list for bad conduct, so that I couldn't get this particular award connected with the grades. And then something else happened. A character named Billy Grahams blew into New York City. I don't know if you've ever met this heavy dude. He's a combination of Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Madonna, and a whole bunch of things, all rolled into one. By the way, the internet just reported that Madonna just gave her life to Jesus. I mean, that's, not only her temperament, if that lasts a week, it'll be a miracle, but it was very interesting reading on the internet. I'm a Madonna fan, by the way, because of a number of reasons, especially that she works so unbelievably hard to make the average, even jellyfish, look lazy. And when she did that film, Evita, when she was pregnant, believe me, that was no small thing. And I believe she is changing, and maybe she has accepted the Lord, I don't know. But it is interesting how people in the world, in the arts, in sports, in business, in politics, I can name 20 other areas where I'm involved with people in the world, they are often disciplined, they're focused, and they are successful. And yet, so often, as Christians, we are not focused, we are not disciplined, and we certainly generally are not successful. We have produced a generation of wimps, we have produced a generation of nerds, some of you may have already won the award three months in a row, I hope you will not win it again. And I thank God for Billy Graham, who was disciplined, who was spirit-filled, who was pure, who could be a model, and who has run the race until the age of 78, where he's just opened up a campaign in the tough, unbelievable city of San Francisco. Billy Graham came to New York City for one night, he was just a young man, I was just a teenager at 16, and a business person gave me a free seat on a bus, on a coach in New York City, that's probably one of the reasons I went. Another guy in my high school who I couldn't stand somehow invited me to go, and I had a lot of different girls I was interested in, there's one little, we used to call them proxide blondes back in the 50s, I thought she could use a little of this hot religion, and so I said, hey Nancy, how about going to hear Billy Graham? So we went, I heard he was a hypnotist, so I sat as far away as I could, and I watched Billy Graham, he was not a hypnotist, he's a very simple, plain man, he spoke what the Bible says, and he called people to repent and believe in Jesus. And thanks for the prayers of that woman, that visionary woman who prayed for me, when Billy Graham gave that invitation, I got out of my seat, so many years ago yet it's so vivid, and went forward and believed on Jesus Christ and was born from above. I have never had a single day in 42 years where I've not experienced the reality of what God did in my life that night. I've had miserable minutes, I failed the Lord many times, but I discovered as a baby Christian when you sin or when you fail, you can confess your sin, and he's faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. I had a lot of struggles in my Christian life, I don't know if any of you, you're a Christian, you love Jesus, you've been born again, but you have a lot of struggles. I still struggle with the whole thing of lust. By 16, I was hooked on pornography, because in my culture, in that place, we weren't all jumping in bed with each other in those days, it was more the heavy kissing, necking era. Elvis Presley and Hayley and the Comet and a few other wild things. So a lot of us, a lot of us young men, we got into fantasy. We got into things I'd rather not talk about, mainly connected with fantasy and magazines. And when I was born again that night, I knew that had to go and I burned those magazines, but somehow it wasn't so easy to burn the memories, it wasn't so easy to get that total victory in the mind. And I remember as a baby Christian, one time giving out tracts in the streets. I remember it so well. I hitchhiked to this city to see a particular girl and she didn't have time to see me, sure I had a date, I don't think I even told her I was coming anyway. I was a bit discouraged by that, so I went out in the street, I was giving out tracts, and suddenly all the advertisements, the striptease places, and the magazines, it just got to me. And I went into one of these places that I'd never even gone into as a non-Christian. I didn't last very long because when you're a Christian and you sin, the conviction is there, the disciplining, the chastening of the Lord as it talks about in Hebrews 11. And I quickly after about five minutes ran out of that place, threw the ticket at the ticket collector and ran into the street. And I felt really miserable. Have you ever feel the Lord really bad? And the old devil comes up to you and says, you know, you're not a Christian, you're a slob. Has he ever told you you're a slob? I mean that was very offensive. And then he sort of invites you to come back where you were before you met Jesus. He sort of insinuates you've never really changed. He sort of insinuates you'll never really fit in with this Christian crowd anyway. They're all straight. You're weird or oversexed. Oh, that was the favorite line the devil gave to me. You're oversexed. I thought maybe for a while I was a sexaholic. What hope is there? What hope is there? But instead I went to God's word as a baby Christian. I could have been wiped out that very week. I went to God's word and I saw the message of grace, the message of forgiveness. I ran into a telephone booth. I'm not exaggerating this story even an inch. And I grabbed the phone and I said, God, are you there? And I began to pour out my heart, forgive me for my lust, my stupidity, my turning my back against you. And I didn't feel forgiven, but I walked out of the phone booth in the Indianapolis bus station standing on God's promises. I believed, I believed. Before I knew what happened, a man walked up to me. Apparently he was having trouble with his wife. He ran up to me and within a few sentences he said, I want to know how I can be saved from my sin. You ever had anybody ask you that in a bus station? You know, usually in a bus station people ask, you know, where's the bus? They don't usually say, how can I be saved from my sin? I will tell you, within an hour I knelt with that man and he gave his life to Jesus Christ. I could have been stuck in that slimy lust pit, or I could have been stuck in the phone booth troubling in my own sin and my own failure, but somehow by God's grace I got up and got back in the battle. My message to you this whole weekend is the greatest thing in all the world is the grace of God that saves us and that keeps us motivated. And it's because I learned about forgiveness and grace and how to bounce back and how to walk in the light and such great principles as personal revival, which is mentioned by the way in one of these books. If you get five for five dollars, read that book on personal revival. It's about God's grace. It'll revolutionize your life. It's for that reason that I have this, what some people think is an interesting testimony. I've been excited about Jesus every day for 42 years. Now if you're not excited about Jesus, by the way, I have the cure. All you have to do right now, quietly, you don't have to be noisy like me. My noise has nothing to do with spirituality. It has to do with being the son of a Dutch immigrant, has to do with coming from New Jersey, has to do with having too much energy, has to do with sometimes preaching over loud music in the background and other problems, but it's not necessarily spirituality. A lot of the most spiritual people I know, and I know a lot of people, they're very quiet, laid-back people. How many of you categorize yourself not as my type? Loud, extrovert, aggressive, let's get them. You're more laid-back, quiet, shy. How many of you feel you're in that camp, at least maybe before the Lord saved you? Raise your hand. Vast, vast majority. Let me tell you, you make the best missionaries. We make the best cheerleaders. So as you go out to give your life in some desert in the middle of Saudi Arabia, where we can cheer you on to be the first Kiwi martyr in Saudi Arabia, we will be cheering for you, I can assure you. I mention this because I think it's so important to understand God works in different people in different ways. We're not here this weekend to get you all to become missionary. We believe to be in marketplace ministry in Auckland can be as strategic as being in missionary work in the middle of Bombay. God leads different people in different ways, but we want you to be filled with the Spirit. We want you to have Christ as your Lord. We want you to understand the reality of being a world-class Christian, taking ownership of the vision, and starting to take at least some baby steps. I went back to my high school right out of the Billy Graham meeting, and I will tell you, we saw absolutely amazing things. This was my jurisdiction, and I felt the first place I needed to witness was my high school. I was just about being elected as sort of the school radical leader by 1,200 students, as they put posters all over the school with my big nose and pictures. Let George do it! We wanted more schools, better sports, and we were raising money to sell a magazine to buy another athletic field, and all kinds of crazy things, which weren't really that crazy. But because of that position, the door opened to share Jesus with my fellow students. One after another came to Christ. I went off to university. They continued the prayer meeting. We were one of the most drunken schools outside New York City. We sometimes, on a weekend, one-third were plastered, were drunk, whatever word you want to use. Some of them killed, racing their cars down Route 17 out of New York State, completely drunk, and bending their car around a telephone pole. They'd pull out the bodies the next morning. But in that drunken school that that lady had prayed for for over 15 years, the Spirit of God began to work. And I'll tell you, there's nothing as exciting as to see God work in your Jerusalem, your high school, your streets, your cities, your marketplaces, yes, even your church. They invited me back for this one meeting six months after I went off to university. Six hundred people came to the meeting, students, and this isn't even legal in America anymore under the new laws. And among them was my own dad. He was 91 years of age, but that night, around 1957, when 125 students stood up to believe on Jesus Christ, my father was among them. Never give up praying for your parents. How many of you have parents that don't yet know the Lord Jesus? Raise your hand. That's a lot of people. That's about a third of you. Don't give up. I'd love to tell you the story of my wife's stepfather. He was anti-Christian. He opposed her. He threw her out of the house. In God's providence, that's how I met her. She left Milwaukee and came to Chicago, and we met. Later, we're married. But we prayed for him for 25 years. He opposed. He persecuted his own wife because she was somewhat of a committed Christian. We just kept praying. I even took up golf to play golf with him because he was, you know, golf was everything. And that was not necessarily a very good move because he believed in golf etiquette. And I was not good at golf etiquette. But somehow, I arranged for him to sit on a golf cart one day with a friend of mine who had an amazing conversion. My friend's father sort of freaked out, blew his wife's brains out, blew his brother's brains out, turned around there in good old six-gun California, shot at my friend, missed. My friend fell. Then the guy took the gun and blew his own brains out. And this friend of mine grew up as bitter as anybody could be. He was a pilot in the war. And then Jesus met him. And he was born again and changed by the power of God. So I put him next to my father-in-law on a golf cart. And they went around the golf cart. And my friend shared his testimony. And I saw my father-in-law's heart break. And eventually, he came to Jesus. Don't give up on your parents. Amen. Don't give up on loved ones. I'm still praying for people I went to primary school with. I got their pictures. I went to my class reunion last year almost to the day today. 40-year class reunion in my high school. And I discovered more and more of them had come to Jesus. Don't give up. George Mueller prayed and prayed and prayed. This amazing man that had all those orphanages and prayed in so much money. And some of the people he prayed for only came to Jesus after he died. We shall reap if we faint. Not the word of God said. So Jesus moved into action. Jesus said the harvest is plenteous. The labors are few. Jesus moved on the heart of a dear woman near my high school from that passage of scripture and other passages of scripture. And it led to the birth of a movement named Operation Mobilization. Incredible story. We don't have time to tell. And my burden is just to share very, very quickly as I try to wind this down some of the most basic principles we need to know to make OJ a dynamic event with many people not just making decisions, but going on for God. Let me give you five ingredients that I feel after being in this kind of OJ ministry for 40 years, five basic ingredients every participant needs to have. There are more, but we don't want to keep you here all night. So I'll give you five. Number one, a spirit of faith and expectation. William Carey said, let's expect great things from God and let's attempt great things for God. Isn't that tremendous? That's not copyrighted, by the way, you can write that down. You can practice your evangelism on your little sister before you try it in the street. You know, we need to practice some of these things. Some are shy. You can practice on your cat, but I hope you will get some practice and learn how to share your faith. But together with that, together with that, we need a spirit of expectation, not unrealistic expectation. Like in one of our first trips to Mexico, a girl was praying, Oh Lord, we asked you for 1000 souls this week. You know, we hadn't seen five yet. And one of the words that you'll find if you read any of my books or listen to my tapes will run right through is the word balance. Balance is not compromise because we're into no compromise. I just love that theme because one of my close friends was a man named Keith Green. And I was with him about 40 days before God took him through an airplane accident. And I preached at many of his memorial services. And now his book is distributed all over the world. And the title of the book, Keith Green's mega biography is no compromise. I love it. Balance is not compromise. Balance is letting one major truth bring another major truth into the right cutting edge perspective. It's like Concord, fastest plane in the world, I saw it take off the other day. It is beautiful. Perfect balance. Breaking the speed of sound. You think that's exciting? Did you just read about that guy in the racing car? He just broke, that turkey just broke the speed of sound in a, in a car. You know, it's a little bit supersonic. How I would love to get one of those cars in O.M., I'll tell you. I've always felt everything is going too slow. And maybe, maybe another year. Breaking the speed of sound in a car. Who would have ever, do you think Henry Ford ever thought of that poor old guy? I tell you we live in exciting days. I'm so glad that the Lord has left me behind for a few more years. Otherwise I wouldn't have met you. And some of you look really excited. Either that or you're drunk. I hope it's only new wine. Jesus is alive. We need to have a spirit of expectation. He wants to save people this summer. We're not going out on a dry run. This is not some kind of practice run. We're going out to real spiritual warfare, real evangelism. And we're believing God that men and women will be saved. Some people attack this kind of evangelism these days. They say, well, we believe in relational evangelism. I'll tell you, when you go out in the street and you start to talk to somebody about Jesus, you're about to start the most hot, red hot, Holy Ghost relationship anybody can ever get in. And if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you can have almost instant bonding with people. I've walked down the street, talked to people, shared my struggles, had instant bonding, and seen them come to Jesus Christ and had a lifetime relationship. I'll give you one example. A woman came into Madrid, Spain. She was wild. Her name was Krista. East German. Escaped East Germany under communism. Went to West Germany. Lived it up. Booze, dance, the nightlife, then London, learned English, then France, learned French. Pretty clever chick. Then Italy. Then she came rolling into Madrid shortly after my wife and I moved to Spain. She came to my door, I don't know how, and asked for a job. I said, we don't have any jobs here. We have Jesus. Cool. I gave her a book. Within one week, she became a dynamic radical follower of Jesus Christ. She has been with our fellowship for 36 years, mainly in India, reaching thousands with the gospel. We have seen people saved and sent in the same week. That would be exciting for this summer, wouldn't it? You know, you meet some wild, way off the charts Kiwi. You know, hair down, down to his toenails, and you know, high on whatever drugs you're into these days, and he's got six girls hanging on his arms, and boom, he gets saved, and next week he's signing up to go to Mongolia. I mean, if he does, you know, send him with you to the mission. But we'd like to have at least a year before you send him on OM. I'm just kidding. Praise God, people can be saved and sent. This is an exciting thing you're going into. Allow God to fill your heart with faith. Allow God to fill your heart tonight with expectation, and yet be aware of unrealistic expectations. Keep your feet on the ground. A.W. Tozer, one of the greatest writers whose books I've studied quite a lot, said to survive the present Christian scene, we need a little bit of reverent skepticism. Don't believe everything you read, everything you hear. Somebody on your team runs up to the prayer meeting in the evening after a day in evangelism and says he's just witnessed to a tree, and the tree is saved, got baptized in the Spirit, and speaking in tongues. You know, we don't want to be unbelieving. We don't want to put any cold water on anybody, but we might have a little bit of reverent skepticism. The second principle that I believe we must have as we go into this kind of work, we must be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, maybe you've already dealt with that today. I only came here this afternoon, but I want to reemphasize Acts 4.31. When they prayed, the place where they were gathered together was shaken, and they went forth and spoke the Word of God in boldness. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they went forth and spoke the Word of God with boldness. We need boldness for this kind of work. I am a natural coward streak. I may appear bold because I'm loud. No, it's not that way. I praise God for this book I picked up years ago, Handbook for Evangelism for Cowards. It was a real encouragement, just a cover, a picture of me on the cover. Sometimes, even today, all these years later, I don't want to talk to somebody cold turkey about Jesus, and I'm on the plane. I have so many ways to justify it. I don't want to talk to a real snazzy woman, you know, six foot two, business executive type, sits down next to you, gets into her briefcase, takes out her laptop. You know, you're sitting there, you got your hat on, you look a bit like a nerd. You're going to tell her about Jesus? I always say, Lord, I sense you're leading me to the ministry of prayer. It takes boldness to witness. There are many ways we can be creative in our witness. We can use indirect witness. It doesn't have to always be, you know, right in their face, like the guy that got saved, and then he walked down the high street, and he's down with a giant poster. Turn or burn! Turn or burn! You might want, you know, a little more diplomatic, especially in New Zealand. But God wants you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The fullness of the Spirit is for every believer. Some people think, oh, the fullness of the Spirit, that's just for Pentecostals! The fullness of the Spirit is for every believer. Why are churches fighting over the Holy Spirit? We all agree, as far as I know, the Holy Spirit indwells every believer. So if you're a believer here right now, the Holy Spirit is already in you. So you're 80% of the way there. You need to just repent, turn the key, and receive, and let that Spirit of the living God move through you, cutting through the lust, cutting through the arrogance, cutting through anything that's hindering you from running the race. We may look at Hebrews 12 tomorrow. I want to ask you, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? God works in different people in different ways. Some people have a major crisis. You know, they're on the floor, they're on the ceiling, they're caught in a fence. All kinds of things are happening in the church these days. It scares me a little bit, you know. You can tell how conservative I am. But other people have experienced tremendous works of the Holy Spirit in a very quiet way, in their own home, walking down the street. And in any case, what may have happened to you five years ago, or six years ago, or two years ago, is not the main thing today. The main thing today is, where are you today? Are you filled with the Spirit today? The fruit, the gifts, the reality, the love, for that's the heart of it all. And that's why I like to emphasize what D.L. Moody used to emphasize, the need to be filled again and again. You ever heard of D.L. Moody? Not quite as popular as Billy Graham. How many ever heard of D.L. Moody? Whoa, that's encouraging! Overweight American evangelist, who depopulated hell. About two million souls. Hallelujah. Can you imagine D.L. Moody in one of these global jackets? I mean, this looks so lousy on me, and it just sort of hangs. You get a fat person on global. I mean, it's great. Yeah. D.L. Moody would often emphasize the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit again and again. And one day, apparently a lady in the front row looked Moody in the eye, almost fearlessly, and she said, Mr. Moody, why do you keep talking about being filled again and again? And he looked her in the eye, and he said, Madam, because I leak. Can any of you relate to that? I will tell you, you're looking at one leaky Christian leader. Because sometimes I just feel so great, and the Spirit of God is working, and someone's just come to Christ, and by noon the next day, this thing's got wrong, that thing's gone wrong, and by noon the next day, I feel I've sort of sprung some major leaks, and I need to be refilled. I'm so glad here in New Zealand, on at least one point, you copied America, not Great Britain. Free refills. I went to a couple of your restaurants. You think in Great Britain they give you any free refills? You ever sit down for a cup of coffee in Britain, and ask them for a free refill? Fill it up! You ever get a Coca-Cola? You pay for each one. And I just love these places where you get these free refills. I don't think it's a major doctrine. I want to ask you tonight, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? If not, why not before you go to bed tonight, say, Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and then just believe that he has done that. Some people feel they're not filled with the Spirit because they don't behave a particular way after. We have little people we sort of copy. And I just want to say this with all my heart, no matter how filled we are with the Holy Spirit, we're still incredibly human. We're not going to suddenly appear like a combination of Billy Graham, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, and whoever else you want to put in there. We're still us. I had a lot of hang-ups about my personality and temperament. I'm just being honest. When I was 16, before I was converted, I wanted to be tall and handsome. My big thing was women. I wanted to be able to zap them at 20 feet. You know, one look. It wasn't working. Then I read this, I saw this ad in a magazine. I'll never forget it. I was traumatized. Picture of a real skinny guy on the beach with his girlfriend. And along came a big, strong, good-looking guy, and he just knocked this little skinny guy away. He took the chick. I thought, this is going to happen to me. This is the story of my life. On the bottom of the page, this is the truth right in today. Charles Atlas, muscle building, weight gaining. You, too, can be a man. I wrote in. I got this formula. I was lifting weights for weeks, months. I was eating extra food. I gained about half a kilo. And I will tell you, in absolute honesty, when Jesus saved me, I began to accept myself, my strengths and my weaknesses. My nose was bothering me. My nose ever looked... Our kind of noses, those of us who are Western, I know we have people here from many cultures, but our kind of Anglo-Saxon, Caucasian noses, in places like Thailand, they step back, they're afraid they might be cut. I was giving out tracks once in Thailand. You know, God's ambassador reaching Thailand, giving out tracks. I hope you don't have this experience this summer. A man came over, he didn't reach out for the track. By the way, in Thailand, if they don't like you, they call you a long-nose foreigner. Very pleasant. Instead of reaching for my track, this man reached out and began stroking my nose. I tell you, if I'd ever had a missionary call, I would have lost it. I never had a missionary call, by the way. I just went one step at a time by the guidance of the Spirit of God, confirmed by other brothers and sisters and churches. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. The third principle we must have is we must have a life. We must have a life of discipline. We're not going to talk about this long. It's probably one of the more unpleasant words in the Christian vocabulary, but I believe whatever else you may have, great experience with the Holy Spirit, great blessing, great worship. If you don't develop a disciplined life, you'll never, in the long run, amount to much for God. Discipline in food, discipline in what you watch, discipline in the use of time. The Bible says redeem the time. Discipline is liberating, it is not bondage. And because I learned discipline as a young Christian, I had more time, even free time, for some of the recreational things that I enjoyed doing. I want to repeat what I said a few moments ago. That no matter how filled you are with the Holy Spirit, you're incredibly human. Some people, especially in the States, phenomenally criticize this kind of music. A man who was very popular in this country for a while, I was surprised, believes it's all completely from Satan. A lot of people believe that. I just had someone write me a letter, and he cut me off. After 30 years of loving this brother, he's had a lot of problems, he's been divorced, I had unselfish love for him. He cut me off because he heard that I promote Christian rock music. It's a huge issue. And I will tell you, God is using all kinds of contemporary music. But when we all get excited, and some of us run up to the front, and I've done every kind of bizarre thing at some of these places I've been, and I'm very laid back and shy here because I'm new to New Zealand. But then when people run up to the front, and they throw a few people up in the air, we don't have to argue whether this is from God, or this is from the devil. Is this in the spirit, or is this in the flesh? This is part of our humanity. We're young, we got a lot of energy, it's good music, it also had good words, we get carried away. It's no big deal. If you do it, okay. If you don't do it, it's no big deal. And yet somehow, because the church is on such a legalistic mode, we tend to get into judgmentalism on everything from translations in the Bible, to whether music has too much of a beat. There's now people signing pledge cards that they will never listen to any music with a beat. That really, really encourages our African brothers and sisters, doesn't it? And I want to be honest and try to bring this to a close, I am in favor of a grace awakening. I am in favor of people becoming less judgmental. I'm in favor of people accepting others more quickly. I'm in favor of stopping some of this controversy, as is over 100 minor things that churches are fighting about. One church split because they couldn't figure out what size the kitchen should be. Another church split because they fought over whether the pulpit is in the middle or is it in the side. Other churches split because somebody gossiped against the new dress that the pastor's wife wore on Easter. You cannot believe the nonsense that goes on when people are not grace awakened, they're not experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit, they're not willing to deny self, take up the cross and follow Jesus. It's just religion. It's just religion. And it'll never get you to heaven. We need, I believe, a revolution of love. We need, of course, to back it up with disciplined living. That's why Paul said, I bring my body into subjection, lest after preaching to others, I become a castaway. That is a powerful verse. And as you get into evangelism and ministry and preaching and teaching, it is a risky road. Count the cost, and if you don't feel ready, I'm sure the leaders of OJ would be happy to counsel with you and pray with you, and let them decide whether you're ready or not. But this is not some kind of little game we're going into. There may be some fun because as human beings, that's part of our humanity, but it's a serious business to be involved in evangelism. And so we need to have that life of prayer, that faith and that spirit of expectation. We need to have that disciplined life. And then the final thing I share with you, which I've already touched on, is that we need to know what to do when we fail. Ever get these heavy messages on holiness that give the idea, you've got to get on plan A, man, plan A. You make sure you marry the right girl, plan A, totally sanctified, visionary, loving, submissive, dynamic girl. Or you've got to marry them right. You can get really uptight trying to make sure you're on plan A. Has the lot of people, they are not on plan A. They blew it. They made a wrong turn in the backslid. All you have to do is backslide for a few hours, you can miss plan A. So I believe a lot of people are on plan B. I don't know what plan I'm on. I know with a sovereign, wonderful, glorious God, plan B can be greater than plan A. You can marry the wrong woman, get sorted out, repent, get into God's grace and have a great marriage. You can marry the right woman, both be fulfilled with the Holy Spirit at the time of the wedding, go off, get away from Jesus, and the whole thing will go balundo, bungo, dungo, bungo. I get some people, they say, look, my life has been pretty messed up. I've got my third wife. That's exhausting. And you know, I made this mistake. I've been backslidden for years. I've been through two or three different churches. I beat up this pastor down the road. I killed my dog. Oh, dear me. I, my life, I'm on plan, plan, I'm on plan H. Pretty negative, isn't it? You know what I say? I look him in the eye and I say, praise God for a big alphabet. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Press on. Press on. And today, as we get involved in mission work, people come with every kind of problem, every kind of mistake in their background, child abuse, immorality, homosexuality, everything you can imagine. People, as they come, yes, even into world mission, are carrying guilt or problems or difficulties. And we have seen God using weak people, God using all kinds of people to forward his work. Failure is the backdoor to success. Have you ever heard of Brother Andrew, God's smuggler? Has he come down here or up here? It's actually upside down, my jacket. Notice that? New Zealand is right on the top where it belongs. Somebody said it was a mistake. I said, no, I'm going to wear it to New Zealand. Brother Andrew is known as God's smuggler. I'm known, not nearly as much, but I'm known around Europe as Brother George. God's bungler. Because I tried the same thing as Brother Andrew. I was living in Madrid. I had spoke, I was speaking Spanish. I was learning Russian. That summer, I went into, I worked by the, by the way, at that time was called Send the Light. And all we wanted was closed countries, Muslim countries, and communist countries. We had no interest in Western Europe, much less New Zealand, I can assure you. But I went into the Soviet Union that summer due to my own stupidity. I got arrested by the KGB. I got accused of being an American spy, a lot of publicity, by the way, promised all expenses paid vacation holiday in Siberia. I blew it. After two more days of interrogation, imagine they decided I was a religious fanatic. I see all the heads. We got thrown out of Russia, submachine gun escort back to Austria, and we went for a day of prayer to search our hearts about this failure. I was worshipping God on the top of a tree. I always like to climb things. It really bothers my wife. But, and I was on the top of this tree, and God gave me the vision as it's known today. He gave me two words, operation, mobilization. That led me to leave Spain and move to Great Britain and emphasize the local church, and emphasize places where the church existed to see a mobilization, a renewal, and the thrusting out of workers to the other parts of the world. By the next summer, there were 200 of us, 90 from Britain. By the next summer, there were 2,000 on OM, Summer Campaign, and similar to OJ, 900 of them from Britain, many from the British University. Failure is can be the backdoor to success. Do not be afraid to fail this summer, or you'll never open your mouth and do what God wants you to do. I picked up a book some time ago. It was called Failure, the Backdoor to Success by a great pastor out of Chicago. What a tremendous book. I recommend it. I actually never read it. It's just a cover. Touched my heart in such a powerful way. I leave you with these great principles. Let's have a spirit of expectation and a spirit of faith. Let's be sure we have a life of prayer, a prayer ministry. Let us make sure that we're filled with the Holy Spirit. Let us work to develop discipline on every level and be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Let us not be afraid to fail. Let's be willing to take a risk. This old C.P. Stud, the founder of WETS, said, someone will live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within one yard of hell. When I read that, it stabbed my conscience. Brother Andrew once said, it's easier to cool down a fanatic than warm up a corpse. So don't be afraid of a little enthusiasm. Is this the biggest problem in Auckland? Too much enthusiasm for Christ. Too much love. Too much prayer. Too much sharing. Too much sacrifice and generous giving away of all their money. A.W. Tozer said, to think this was the greatest problem in the average church was like sending a squadron of policemen to the nearby cemetery to guard against a major demonstration by the residents at midnight. This is not the biggest problem in Auckland. This is not the biggest problem in the average church. So let us believe God for greater things. Let us take some greater steps of faith. Let us deal with the ugly aspects of the self-life. Let us make sure our relationships in the sexual area, in the romance area, in every other area, somehow are sorted out by the Holy Spirit of God. And I can assure you, if we are willing to do that, then hundreds from this weekend will end up long-term marathon runners for the kingdom of God. Let's face it, if God can take a needy, struggling character like me from New Jersey and use me to help start a mission, and keep me going every day for 42 years, then I know you don't have any excuse. So you can put that on the top of your notebook. I have no excuse. I'm going to be a radical, outspoken, spirit-filled, disciplined disciple of Jesus Christ, whether it's Auckland or the ends of the earth. God bless you. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Amen. Lord Jesus, you have brought us together this weekend. You are preparing us for a spiritual invasion of various parts of New Zealand and other parts of the world. And Lord, we've seen again your grace, how you take weak, struggling, ordinary people, even a young convert, and send them out and accomplish great things. We thank you that failure is the backdoor to success. We thank you, God, that you know everything about us and still love us so very, very much. And by your grace, as we surrender to you tonight and experience a fresh refill of your Holy Spirit, we will be your men, we will be your women. We'll go where you want us to go and do what you want us to do. For we pray this with all of our hearts in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.