The video mentioned in the sermon transcript is a film that has been shown in some areas of India and has had a profound impact on millions of Hindus, causing many of them to come out of the cinema weeping. The speaker believes that God has raised up this film and now they have their own prints and film teams showing it in villages. The sermon also discusses the church's lag in utilizing video cassettes as a means of communication, despite its rapid growth in the subcontinent. The speaker emphasizes the importance of spreading the gospel to every person in the world, highlighting the barriers that exist such as population explosion, political barriers, illiteracy, poverty, and health.

It's good to be back with you again. I'm not in very good voice. This is the end of my little tour, really. Except it's been extended to include Kuwait, Jordan, and Cyprus. But at least as far as here in the subcontinent, this is really our last set of meetings. The Lord has been very gracious, as you know. I've suffered for many years with voice difficulty. I used to preach 900 times a year, and I've been operated on twice, the last time in the summer of 1984. And I've been trying to cut back on speaking, but that's not been so easy for various reasons. But the Lord has been good, especially on this trip. What an encouragement to meet so many people working for the Lord Jesus. And we want to put the emphasis, thank you, on the Lord Jesus, because he has saved those people, and he has sent them out into the harvest field. And in the second meeting, I probably will be sharing some prayer requests about Nepal. When I lived in Nepal in 69 and 70, we used to have maybe a couple thousand believers. It's illegal to become a Christian in Nepal. People are in prison right now, and yet the church has grown to over 25,000. Many people believe. That's quite a miracle. Of course, there's a long way to go, 15 million people perhaps there now, maybe a few more. But it was a blessing to be there. I was mainly there to meet with our leaders of OM, about 300 nationals and internationals committed to evangelism in India. I figured out that in an article I was reading this morning on the train, that since I was converted to Christ in 1955, the world population has doubled. I don't know if any of you were born around 1955. I was born again in 1955. But if you were born around 55, 54, 53, the world population has doubled since you were born. Quite staggering, isn't it? From 2.4 or 5 billion to 5 billion. In fact, it was around 1838 that world population, and the statisticians of that day were just astounding. It was stunning. World population hit 1 billion. And people thought places were starting to get crowded. And now I have 5 billion people. Many people who lived in the whole world around 1838, 1 billion. I know out here you have to say crows, and I don't know how many crows that is, but mainly I'm speaking about people. But most of you I think understand the terminology of 1 billion, 1,000 million we say in England. And now just here in the subcontinent area we have that many people. So it's quite overwhelming. Now we're all of different temperaments, we all have different visions. And maybe your vision is just to see a few people come to Christ right here, and that's your whole life thrust. And that's wonderful. I admire you. Press on, don't be discouraged. But the vision that God brought to my heart at 17, 18 years of age, that has burned in my heart I can say almost every day ever since, is that everybody in the entire world be given the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just once, but at least once. Hudson Taylor said it, to give the gospel only once is not enough. And what do we say of not giving it to Him at all? And we know that because of population explosion, because of political barriers, because of illiteracy, because of poverty, because of health, many, many people in this world have never heard the gospel. At the same time, in the last 50 years there have been many triumphs. The triumph of literature, in which hundreds of millions have received the word of God through literature. I know in India alone, just O.M. India, and we are only one of a number of groups committed to literature evangelism, but I know our distribution figure in India is over 300 million. And that includes some wastage, and that does not mean 10 people reading one piece of literature. That's just 300 million pieces of literature. On top of that, radio has done a phenomenal work. And you know, sometimes we find people involved in one ministry. Now, I don't always speak so highly of other ministries, but I'm not involved much in radio work, but I just thank God for what's happening in the area of radio, even here in Pakistan. Two mornings ago I spoke to a lot of the staff members from all over Islamabad and Rawalpindi, in different missionary agencies. A number of them connected with radio studios. And I was speaking actually in the correspondence studio for office. And it really is exciting the number of people responding to radio ministry. And we ought to pray especially for those programs that come in now to the Afghans, that the Lord would use them. And I know in India also many, many millions have been reached to some degree through radio. So we thank God for the triumph of radio. We thank God for the triumph of the cassette and film that is also reaching literally millions of people. In India we have an Indian film about the life of Jesus, Bhakta Hindustan. And it's an amazing film. Many people believe it is the most significant film about Jesus Christ presenting the gospel ever made in history. One American is so excited about this, started a whole organization. It all comes out of the Indian film world. It has nothing to do with foreigners in its production. It comes out of the Indian film world. But this American is so excited about it, he's got some kind of rights. It's already gone through the cinema in India in some areas. Not every area. Millions and millions of Hindus seeing this film. Many of them come out of the cinema just weeping. Not a film you would probably enjoy unless you're very Asian in your thinking. You would find it overdramatic. But just amazing. God has raised up that film. We now have a number of our own prints. And we have a number of film teams out in the villages showing that film. And now we're in the era of the videocassette. And as usual the church is limping only 10 years behind. Not too bad, considering in some things we're 25 years behind. We want to try to be optimistic. But how sad it is that the church has yet to do very much with the videocassette. Which is rapidly in the subcontinent, becoming a major means of communication. Especially for Satan. Blue movies, pornography are in the subcontinent. Even in places like Bangladesh, where you would think that things being a little bit backward. The videocassette is everywhere. I found out from a missionary there, when you go into Bangladesh you can take 7 videocassettes free. And many, many upper class people in that country are watching Christian videocassette. Of course we need them in the language of the people. And that's going to be a long road. An expensive road. But the audio cassette is certainly launched. And it's just one more of many, many ways that millions are being reached with the word of God. Illiterate people. All kinds of people. That may sound a little bit optimistic. And maybe it's always good for me to start that way, because I have a very deep pessimistic streak. That I inherited from my grandfather, who was an atheist. But the fact is that when I come out here now, I've been visiting, used to live out here. But either living or visiting this part of the world for 24 years. When I come out here, it really is overwhelming. And if you are a very phlegmatic temperament, and you have perhaps just a smaller vision, and it just needs to see what's just near around you, and if you're seeing some breakthroughs there, then you're highly motivated. I mean, I have tremendous admiration of you. I can't understand you, but I have a great admiration. But I come as a man of much sorrow. So many lost people. And I've tried to run away. I desperately tried to run back to agnosticism. I'm not a normal, natural Christian. I'm a natural backslider. I've struggled all my life with Christians and with Christianity. I don't believe things easily. I wrestled with the doctrine of hell every year since my conversion. Trying to sell it off. I've studied under unbelievers, agnostics, atheists. I've talked to many intellectual Muslims, who I know can sometimes take a Christian and reduce them to powder. Because intellectual Muslims, like one of our men, is facing in Berlin right now. They have arguments against the Bible that the average person hasn't even studied in seminary. This fellow wrote to me. No, he saw me personally. He said, I've got to have some books. I can't answer the questions that these Muslims are asking, pointing out all the contradictions in the Bible. And I've looked at many of those things myself. I've studied higher criticism. So I'm not a person who has found faith easy. I've tried to run away, so that I wouldn't have to believe that all these people were lost. That would relieve a lot of pain, to believe that somehow all these Muslims will make it some other way, there's some other chance. If you and I blow it, and we seem to be doing that, speaking of the church as a whole, then maybe there's some other way. That would relieve a lot of pain, a lot of pressure, because people are suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ. People are in prison. People are being killed. One of our men was shot on the doorstep in Turkey. Another one in a truck in the southern part of the Sudan, where there are no medical doctors, flipped over in the truck and died on the road. Not an easy thing to watch, as his co-workers had to watch. Four of our other people returning from one of the biggest campaigns we ever had in this part of the world, were all killed, hit by a drunken driver in Yugoslavia. So, personally, if these people aren't lost, I'm not sure how much more of the pain and the pressure some of us want to endure. Now, I know the other side of the coin. I know the humanist side. And they say, look, it's worth all this effort, because we are relieving suffering. This is why work like we're involved with here, is esteemed very highly, even by unconverted people. The general work of OM, people spit on. They spit on it. They think it's the biggest waste of time. Even a high percentage of evangelical Christians believe that if you're just winning men to Christ, giving literature, showing Christian films, talking to people about their souls, that is bigotry, that is the biggest waste of time you could ever throw your life into. Sometimes we wonder why it's difficult getting recruits from the world today. Now, sure, your church may not believe that. When I preach at Oswald James Smith People's Church in a few weeks, they don't believe that. But the overall picture today is not really still in favor of just evangelizing people. And, of course, there's an element of truth in that. And so we know that there are actually unconverted people who are actually humanists, committed especially to refugee work. In fact, a person on the cutting edge of refugee work in Africa said they can't get Christian recruits. They have to depend really on non-Christian recruits to carry out some of the heavy stuff in the starvation zones and difficult areas of Africa. Perhaps that needs a little bit of research. It was only stated to me by a refugee person. And I don't know if that's true. We do know it was unconverted humanists and agnostics with men like Bob Doldorf who really spearheaded one of the biggest fundraising programs in all of history. I heard recently, by the way, they gave a lot of that money even to a Christian group because it seems on the other side of the coin they're acknowledging that oftentimes the Christian groups are able to carry on this work more effectively. But that seems to be a contradiction from what this other man said. Well, this is just in way of introduction that I come to you 25 years later since I first visited Kabul, a wounded person. I come to you a person of great sorrow. I know some people don't fit any sorrow into their theology. And those kind of people make me even more ill. But I try to love them anyway because I believe there is a place of sorrow. The Lord Jesus was a man of sorrow. And when we see suffering, I don't think we should just praise the Lord verbally. My heart is a heart of continual praise because He has written His law in my heart. The Psalms are in my heart. But I think of those words in Corinthians that say we're sorrowful yet always rejoicing. And one time after my visit to Asia and I arrived back to England, one of my closest friends had died, a man named Norman Alexander, one of the Englishmen who urged me to start OM in the first place, at least make it a legal organization in Europe. And he had just died suddenly of a heart attack. And I went to his funeral in a great British canon. I don't know if you know much about Anglican terminology. But one of the exciting things about the Anglican church is they have canons. And that always, you know, stimulates me. And anyway, this canon was firing at this funeral of my friend Norman Alexander. And he spoke of a place of sorrow at the time of death. That the loved ones should not be ashamed if there was sorrow. Even if that sorrow was somewhat linked with their own needs. The one who died is in heaven. We all know that. But there's elements of struggle for the loved ones. I'm involved in counseling and writing to many people, fighting bereavement. Some of you know Irma Emter, who married Ingemar, who was an OMer, and then the Swedish diplomatic corps, and then the United Nations, and then he came back to OM. I was never really that happy about it, but he was so committed to come back to OM, he dealt with the United Nations. He was wasting his time. He wanted to get where the action was, and he came back to OM. Married where a senior leader on the ship, Irma. And shortly after they were married a year or two, he was killed the day after Christmas in that terrible accident on an icy road in Sweden. And I think that's over two years ago. And from what I understand, this dear woman is still finding this extremely difficult. She was there to see him crushed to death next to him in a car. I've been thinking a lot about this whole area of suffering. I seem to be exposed to so much of it. I guess it's because I correspond with a lot of people. I know a lot of people. I love a lot of people. I pray for a lot of people. And so many of them seem to have facing suffering. In North Africa, one of the best Islamic experts, one of the men we needed the most with GMU, Gospel Missionary Union, suddenly was just hit with cancer. Six months ago, he's gone. Gone. Bit of a mystery. He worked so hard to find so few willing to work in North Africa. Another young man married an ex-OMer, went off to North Africa and died of hepatitis B within his first year on the field. So maybe I'm overexposed. I picked up a book by E. Stanley Jones, sometimes criticized by the super fundies, about a man of God I had the privilege of meeting him when we ministered together at the Maryland Convention. A man with a tremendous heart for this part of the world. A man who loved Christ and won many, many, many hundreds of Hindus to Jesus Christ. He wrote a book on human suffering. I just saw it in this library in the International Church in Rawalpindi where I was speaking two nights ago. I wanted to just sit down and read it on the spot. And in traditional E. Stanley Jones style, he had a quote from Buddha. That sort of spoke to me because it reminds me of a quote by Billy Graham. Billy Graham, my spiritual father, said, life at its best is filled with sorrow. And that's quite amazing coming from a southern optimist like Billy. And Stanley Jones mentioned in the beginning of this book, just in the first chapter, that Buddha taught, and I would reject a lot that Buddha taught. You can be encouraged about that. But he taught that existence and suffering are synonymous. Existence and suffering are synonymous. Maybe that would make you sad, but it ministered to me because I see so much suffering. These two weeks in Pakistan to me are just so overwhelming. I work among the poor. Like the famous cricketer David Shepard, I have a bias toward the poor. And I go from busty to busty. Nothing like any of you who live here. And it just explodes your mind. You start to come unglued if you're a character like me. Too emotional. Too many things. Can't handle it. There's so much suffering in Pakistan right now. In this meeting I can be a little more free than other meetings and talk even about Bangladesh. A land of terrific suffering, more than even Pakistan. And I've been told by reliable sources, and I want to be careful what I say about Pakistan. It's a country I very much love. And I love Bangladesh as well, and I've been told by reliable sources. By the way, I lived in these countries when they divided in two. I flew on that flight with PIA, taking all soldiers. I was the only civilian on the plane from Karachi to Dhaka. Men who were sent there to murder and to rape and to kill. Many of them were from the villages. They didn't even know what they were doing. Couldn't even fly over India. We had to fly to Sri Lanka. 1970-71. But somebody, a reliable source in Bangladesh said the entire country is completely corrupt. Everything is corrupt. Nothing moves. Nothing happens without bribery. And the problems that that country faces are staggering. And as I went out to that Bihari refugee camp, right next to our own base there in Dhaka. And just, every year I go, I go to the Bihari refugee camp. I don't know if the same people are there. I don't think they are. As you know, in the crisis in Karachi just a few weeks ago, maybe the newspaper said 100 were killed. Everybody in Karachi knows it was 2,000-3,000 were slaughtered in those riots. India doesn't want the Biharis. Pakistan doesn't want the Biharis. And you can be sure Bangladesh doesn't want the Biharis. In the petition in 1947, they fled out of Bihar into a Bengal area with their Urdu and their language, I don't know if some of you know Hindi. They sided with Pakistan in the civil war. And yet at the end of the war, Pakistan could not, would not, could not, would not absorb them. They are slowly trying to absorb them. It's incredibly complex. And I have great sympathy with government leaders and the problems they wrestle with. I guess Ronald Reagan is just about being stoned to death at this point through his blunders. And I don't excuse blunders and I don't excuse hypocrisy. But I believe the Word of God teaches that as a Christian I should pray for these leaders. And I will tell you they have an impossible job. Even if they are, even if there were one that were righteous when they started, I'm not sure if they could continue being righteous. When I think of a man I know, Pat Robertson running for President of the United States, my brain almost seizes up in the upper levels. Because I just can't believe that he understands what politics and government really must involve. Pray for the Christian students of Rawalpindi. I spoke to them just yesterday. And some of them have an official meeting to meet with the President of Pakistan in the coming days. It's very interesting because last minute the principal of Gordon College canceled my meeting. Because the Muslims were having a meeting upstairs. And the Christian students ran a protest. And he reinstated the meeting providing we wouldn't sell any literature. Interesting that Gordon College founded as a missionary institution, Christian institution by missionaries, by Andrew Gordon, who today is a stronghold of Islam. Incredible. There may be 50 Christian students there. A few of them would be witnessing. Pray for them. But basically the school is, of course, nationalized. And of course, in some ways, therefore, a stronghold of Islam. Quite an interesting emotional experience to go through that school yesterday. I hope you study the history of mission in Pakistan. I know most of you are here because of your burden for the Afghans. So you can study that history as well. Church history in Afghanistan is a short history. Perhaps Gordon could write it. But it's good since you're living in Pakistan to read church history, to get something of the feeling of this great nation where God has worked. Where there are now 100 million people. Now you can help me with my scripture reading because I couldn't find it. I don't always get a super fresh message when I come to share. But lying on the bed trying to rest my voice praying, I just got a message that I've never preached before. I'm touched on the subject. But I've never preached this message under this title. It's a call to be big-hearted in the work of the kingdom. Now have you ever had that title before? A plea, a call to be big-hearted in the work of the kingdom. Raise your hand. You've had a message on that. Well, maybe it's going to be original. And I was thinking, you know, when you get a message from God, you need to get a text. Otherwise you always get some little thing unhappy that feels that things circulate around. Bible text. I'm sure I believe the Bible as much as anyone here. But I believe that when we live in the Spirit for 32 years, that the Word of God is so saturated us when we pray, when we walk in the Spirit, things come to our mind from God that are not necessarily text. Now if it is in disagreement with the text, of course then you've got to throw it out. But if what I share with you is in basic line with what you see in the Word of God, then it's worth showing over. Anyway, as I was praying, I remembered this text where the disciples were a little upset because they met some other people who were healing somebody and they weren't part of the discipleship. They weren't part of Jesus' group, apostles. And I wonder who is a Bible scholar that can come up with that passage of Scripture because I only had a few minutes to look and I couldn't find it. Who can find that? Any other similar, one or two other similar passages I was thinking of where Jesus was asking the disciples to be a little bit more broad-minded and to just realize those that weren't against Him were for Him. That's almost an exact quote. Now who's going to come up with a Scripture reading? Well, we've got some hints, like a quiz game. Mark or John, this brother suggests. In Mark, chapter 9. Someone read it to us. By the way, while you're looking for that, let me just mention, we've had some exciting book sales on this little team. I want to introduce Benjamin. My son's name is Benjamin, so that's really encouraging. Benjamin is one of our full-time Pakistani brothers. The greatest change in all of Pakistan is that we're becoming registered as a Pakistani organization and we are taking on many more slowly, slowly full-time Pakistanis. In fact, we have our first Pakistani family. And we're just getting a little more prepared in case this visa thing doesn't go as good as it is going right now. Many of us laboring have these wonderful missionary visas and that's good and we need to be very thankful and very sensitive and very wise in all that we do. But we're glad many Pakistanis are joining O.M. Pakistan. And of all the nations that O.M. works in in the world, credibility for O.M. in Pakistan is as high as any nation I know of. It's quite amazing the way the Church has given us such a right arm of fellowship. Church of Pakistan, Presbyterian Church, Brethren. I could spend my whole year just fulfilling invitations to preach in Pakistan. And we thank God for Mike Wakely and the gifts God has given him to work and to be an encouragement to the Church. In Karachi, a hundred came out to our Christian Leaders Seminar. In Lahore, way over a hundred came to the O.M. base for just a reception. They traveled from Lujanwala, from Sayyidullahabad, just for a one-hour challenge. Anyway, we brought some books with us. I don't know where they're displayed. Right behind Gordon. Including the newest edition of Operation World, which is like an absolute gold nugget in this part of the world. 500 pages of prayer material that will keep you busy for a long time. And we are especially featuring the writing of A.W. Tozer. My friend, Ken Stan Jones, said to me that this trip would be worthwhile. Forgive me if this is a misquote, but I think you said this trip would have been worthwhile if the only thing that happened was you discovering the writings of A.W. Tozer. That's correct. Isn't that exciting? I know that if you haven't discovered this man's writings, you'll be happy that you came this afternoon. Knowledge of the Holy, whatever happened to worship, the pursuit of God, and a few others. And then there are things of lesser density, like Verwer cassette tapes, which sell so cheap that I know that O.M. is losing money. But I guess by the time they get out here, somehow they get devalued. And they're available with a lot of other material. I also fanatically believe in music as a ministry to the heart. And these are all contemporary music cassettes. I'm in no way trying to sell them. It's just a service. And they're not cheap. So don't even feel you have to look at them. Contemporary Christian praise, worship, music. Now who has found the passage? 938. Read it, please, Gordon. We saw a man driving out demons in your name, and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us. We're not stopping, Jesus says. No one who has a miracle in my name can be sent in the next moment to say anything bad about me. So whoever is not against this is for it. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward. Praise the Lord. Let's just pray. Father, this message is just so burning on my heart. And I know, Lord, you've helped me to touch on these things in passing and other messages. And I don't know why it's taken me 32 years to come forth with this series of thoughts that you've given me from your words. But I believe it is important. We know a lot of people are probably going to eventually listen to this cassette. And we pray for them, wherever they are, that you would enlarge their vision, enlarge their heart, and use them for the kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. A plea to be a big heart and a big mind in the work of the kingdom. It's really linked with 1 Corinthians 13. My little booklet, Revolution of Love, published, what, 23 years ago, has just been published in Urdu. That's Hindustani, but you can even get away with that in the streets of Pakistan, and you'll be amazed how they line up to buy the book. My greatest regret when I went to live in Bombay in 1964 was I didn't learn the language. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't have learned Urdu. I am now a recruiter of people to study Urdu. And we have quite a few people, a number of people in the OM pipeline here in Pakistan, whose one single goal right now is to learn fluent Urdu. One of them is Craig Shugart. I've more or less told him I will not speak to him unless in a year or two he's preaching, because he's a gifted teacher and preacher, unless he's preaching and teaching in Urdu. So pray for him. Don Maxwell is another one, the grandson of L.E. Maxwell, the founder of Prairie Bible Institute. You know, it's an encouragement when I meet MKs. God is working among MKs and PKs, missionary kids and preacher's kids. I'm in the middle of reading a massive research paper on the subject right now. I was reading it on the train. How many of you are MKs or PKs, preacher's kids or missionary kids? Raise your hands. Just in this room. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's an army of them in Raul Pindy. And that's so exciting when we see the second generation going on. But when we see the third generation, I tell you, like Don Maxwell, that really, this really challenges me. He's living in a hospital among people from all different countries and is having a fantastic opportunity to share. He would be here now, but he has UDU exams. All of you know what language exams are about. But I, still as I look back my days living in India, wish I had put a little more time into the language. So it was exciting to see my book, Revolution of Love and Balance, or just Revolution of Love, in UDU. And I guess the foundation for this series of thoughts I want to share with you this afternoon really is similar to what I brought out in that book or in my other book, Revolution of Love and Balance. But I hope I can put it in a way that's clear. Because I still feel that even within our own work of OM, that sometimes we're a little bit too narrow-minded, a little bit too rigid, and we're not big-hearted enough. Now I know some of you English isn't your first language, and please forgive me if I go too fast. And be brave in just raging in if I'm talking too fast. Because I know the struggle you may be facing as someone who speaks Spanish. If a Spanish speaker goes too fast, then I don't know what he's saying. If he goes slow, I can understand. But I want to continue with you, and I know in some ways I'm probably bringing cricket to Karachi in bringing this message, because I know many of you are big of heart. And you're big of mind. You're not a narrow-minded triple-B Baptist who doesn't fellowship with anything but triple-B Baptists. But there may be some who are struggling. That's a normal struggle. And as a young Christian, through the books I read, through input I received, I became narrow-minded. Now the Word of God teaches, narrow is the way. And that's why it is easy, if we're not careful, if we don't major on love, if we don't develop spiritual balance, and big-heartedness, it's easy to become narrow-minded. Now the way is narrow, but brothers and sisters, it is not as narrow as some of us are trying to make it. Even in the area of witnessing to the majority group, there is now tremendous contention. Tremendous contention. There are missionaries openly attacking one another, openly writing books against each other. Even in the big conference we had recently, back in Europe where 10,000 came together, KEMA, sponsored by KEMA, I had the privilege of sharing with those 10,000 young people, but I understand that the session on Islam, people were raging. People were so upset, because the speaker took a particularly narrow line, and other people don't particularly follow that narrow line. So even those of us who are wanting to work among the majority people who surround us here, we will find, if we are not careful, that we will be in great contention, and great disunity, and great disarray. And it is already mounting a little bit in Pakistan. It is not quite as fever pitch in Bangladesh, though for a while the Bible Society banned the Muslimani Bengali Bible, which was written so that the majority people there could understand the vocabulary. And we are dealing with a lot of hot issues, even in focusing on these people who now represent one of every seven people in the world. By the way, we have eight to nine hundred thousand of these people in England right now. In case any of you have these or these in here, you are wondering where to go. We have eight to nine hundred thousand Muslims. We have three hundred Muslims. And this is one of the reasons that we, in our PR work with governments, need to be able to say, look, it is only right that there is freedom in your country, because you have complete freedom in our country. So let's just have mutual freedom. I will defend in England the right to build a mosque. I believe that Muslims need religious freedom in the British Isles. It is a free country. I know a little about the Magna Carta, and British law. And I will be happy to work on the defense of minority people who are persecuting in a country that still has a high degree of racism, through most countries. So we also pray that some of these very special countries would grant freedom for the Church of Jesus Christ. Now that didn't quite happen in Kabul when that church was built. Somehow they decided that they can't be mutual. And so some of you know that famous story of the church that was bulldozed into the ground. The rumor went around the marketplace at that time. Okay, we pulled the cord out. Okay, it is going a little bit. You keep an eye on it. And just keep praying a little. Anyway, the rumor went around Kabul around that time that, you know, if they struck at the church in Kabul, they might find God striking at them that particular government. I won't make comments on that, but you can imagine what some people have thought in regards to all that. So this is just a plea, really, to be really simple. It's a plea for more love. If you can possibly get a copy, read Bill Heimer's book, Love Covers. You know, up until now, and I hope it will continue, this work here on the frontier has been a real testimony. Different groups, different missions, different agencies, working together in love and harmony. I'm not talking about perfection. I'm not saying we never had disunity. I'm not saying no one's ever been hurt or mistreated in this work or whatever. But you know, if you've seen as much disunity as I have and sectarianism and divisions and all that kind of thing, you really get encouraged when you come and people are dwelling together in love and unity. I was even quite amazed coming to this house today. Gordon Magnus talked about, you know, M.S. Simon having one of the biggest houses in the whole work. But let the ones who saw come in and see how many people are living in here. I personally would much rather have a nice little small house. And just for my wife and I and my little tribe. And this big place with all the living people. And as I came here, you know, I met people from peer funds. I met people from lap funds. No, I didn't eat them. I met people from peer funds. I met people from YWAM. I met someone from DMMS. Now it's changed to some other beautiful name. I met people, of course, from OM. Just, you know, just living. That's all. Serving together. And so I am sure that probably you are already a demonstration here of being big hearted. Probably some of you don't agree with everything that's going on. But you're big hearted just to believe that, you know, God is working. Romans 8.28 is one of those big hearted mega God verses. Put that back in there. Can you do that? It says, you know, all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purposes. So the challenge of love, the challenge of the Word of God concerning the fact that there is one body. All believers are one body. The challenge concerning unity. When I was a student at college, before I went to Bible college, I did a lot of Bible studies. One of the things I did was go through all the New Testament on the Spirit of the Spirit. And then I made a list of all the students. I probably told it two years ago. But Jack Penempe was going to be the substitute for Billy Graham. Shortly after I was converted to Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham, a large percentage of American separatist Christians sometimes thought of as fundamentalist Christians, but the fundamentalist camp is very divided. There are many very moderate people who would be called moderate fundamentalists. People like Moody Bible Institute. But the more extreme group of fundamentalists, mainly led by the Bob Jones University people, if you're from that background, I'm not saying anything against you personally, just explaining a bit of history. They turned against Billy Graham and felt that he was part of the Antichrist. In fact, I have a letter from Bob Jones III, just looked at it the other day on my desk, explaining why OM could in no way be allowed to step on their campus, because we are also part of the ecumenical movement, which is part of the Antichrist movement. It's interesting because they never asked us, they never did any research as far as we know. And Paul Troper, our USA director, actually studied at Bob Jones, so they could have at least interviewed him. But anyway, somehow we got on that hit list. You can't be on everybody's good list. And Jack Penempe became one of the most outspoken voices of this particular brand of Christianity. And he went across and he spoke openly against Billy, against I mean so many things. He was a converted Catholic out of Detroit. He was a brilliant student of the Word of God. He probably memorized more of the Word of God than anybody in America today. And he had city-wide campaigns. But he would only have these campaigns among double-separated Christians. That is, people who believe in secondary separation. I believe in separation from the world, from apostasy, from heresy, from sin. But secondary separation means that if I, even though I may not agree fully with Billy Graham, if I am in contact with Billy Graham, he in turn has shaken hands with somebody who maybe, maybe denied the virgin birth, then I am also tarnished, so you cannot have fellowship with me. Now some of you are new to these things. You may think I'm talking about something small. I'm talking about one of the biggest things in the American church, without any question. And if you don't understand what's happening in organizations like Jerry Falwell's and the influence of Bob Jones, the influence of Jack Hiles out of Michigan, then you probably don't just understand too much about the church, which is no great problem out here, but it may be when you get back there. Like me showing my little set of slides once, years ago when I was very ignorant. I showed a little set of slides in a very strong church of holiness persuasion, and I showed a slide of my aunt who had a pair of shorts on. And I said, oh, on the way to Mexico we stopped at these dear Christian people. I didn't want to say my aunt. We stopped at the home of these dear Christian people and we had rich fellowship. That was the end of my fellowship with that church. That pastor took me into the corner afterward and he said, I have been fighting shorts for over five years and you have come in here in 20 minutes undone what I have tried to do in five years. You know, I was just a young Christian. I didn't know shorts were of the devil. They certainly are out in this part of the world. So, I don't think any of your sisters are having a big problem with that here. Jack van Empey went to city after city in these meetings and then he wrote an article. The article was, Why I Am Leaving Citywide Evangelism. And this article hit the fundamentalist world in America like someone had dropped an atomic bomb. Because in this article he exposed that in all of these cities there was so much bickering. Among them, these were all the super-separated ones, there was so much bickering, there was so much criticism, that he could not bear it. He could not bear it any longer. And then he wrote a book. It's a rather unique book. Not probably written in the style you would enjoy, especially if you're from England. Hardly following in the steps of Shakespeare. But he's written a book called Heart Disease in the Body of Christ. And he's pointed out that there is almost a KGB operation going on by Christians in which people and organizations are listed and blacklisted. A man named John R. Rice, who I met when I was a young Christian. Gordon knew him as a young Christian. Went into the anti-Billy Graham school which divided the church in America right down the middle. Jack Wursten. I was converted into Jack Wursten meeting. Billy Graham was the speaker. Two years later, Jack Wursten turned against Billy Graham. So it has been a lot of hurt and a lot of pain. And that has been felt out on the mission field. If you want to understand something of the problem of Pakistan, study the history of the Presbyterian church in the last 30 years. And just do a little research on the name of Carl MacIntyre. You will be amazed beyond calculation. That comes out of this very narrow, rigid approach to the Bible and to Christian things. And I thank God that the Holy Spirit enlarged the heart of Jack Van Anty. A very strong-minded character. He still would call himself a fundamentalist. He calls all these other people and of course he is reacting but who are we to say when we haven't been through that. But he now calls them pseudo-fundamentalists. That of course really warms their hearts. He obviously has been moving, he has been moved to a very high place on the list. You can be sure. But God just enlarged his heart. He wrote letters of apology to Billy Graham. To Moody Bible Institute. He and I began to correspond. And I finally had the privilege of just sitting down and talking with this brother. He was very busy that afternoon in a very hyper-pragmatic way. He says, why don't you sit here and watch this video? So I watched the Jack Van Anty video. Any of you ever think that I'm a little wound up and intensive? Ought to try this Detroit converted Roman Catholic. But amazing enough, the whole video he was mainly quoting verses on love. He has so much of the Word of God in his mind. And you know I believe that's why and how God brought him out of that cul-de-sac of rigidness. The Word of God teaches that love covers. The Word of God teaches that different Christians can and should fellowship together. That we should let love cover. This means that we should know how to compassionately disagree. Some of you who are not in OM through the work here and serve are brought very closely in contact with OM. And probably you will see things in OM that you don't like. Don't let that hinder you. I see a lot of things in OM that I don't like. And I'm still fellowshiping with the organization. My wife sees a lot of things in me that she doesn't like. And she hasn't cut me off. And I'm so grateful as we just had our 27th wedding anniversary. The work of God is bigger than any fellowship or organization. To get a job done, we need organization. You have an eye hospital here. Why should they have an eye hospital? This is a little narrow. A bit of narrow thinking. What about people with kidney problems? What about guys like me? Vocal cords. My eyes are fine. Vocal cords. Why don't you have a vocal cord hospital? I'm sure you may do other things in your hospital. Maybe my information is wrong. But you have specialized in eyes. I just ministered to all the staff at Taksila. They're also in the same narrow mindedness up there. Very much eyes, eyes, eyes. I mean, I don't know what you do if you're going in with a hernia. I guess they just send you down the road. I think they do, of course, have other things in that hospital. But you are responding to a need. A specific need. An organization has been brought into being to meet a specific need. We don't worship the organization. We don't get uptight because we don't agree with everything in that particular organization. Can they, you know, when I think of that scripture, can the ears say to the eye, I don't need you. And God has brought more people and movements into being like OM, responding to a particular need. A planet of 5 billion people. Huge churches around America and Europe with young people, a high percentage of them when we began our work, a high percentage, sitting doing nothing. And God said, these people need to move. And in His providence, He raised up a fellowship that had expertise and gift in mobilizing and training and recruiting people. And those people, over 40,000 who have had training in OM, are working with over every, almost every mission society in the world today. The plea to be big-hearted is based on a lot of scriptures, even in the Old Testament. Now, I am aware, of course, that you can also take certain scriptures and promote a narrow viewpoint. But to do that, you have to take certain scriptures and you have to leave out other scriptures. Now, maybe you had an easy time with the Bible. I think it's an area where people become phony. You know, forgive me, I may be wrong. Their attitude toward the Bible. Nobody feels, nobody wants to admit they ever have any trouble with this book. It's God's Word, so wonderful, ministers to me. You always hear so many positive things among God's people about God's Word. Good, I'm glad you're in the optimist league. But I have had a life-long struggle with this book. Especially many passages in the Old Testament. And I came very, very close to not believing it was God's Word, at least the way I was taught at Moody Bible Institute. You know, inerrancy, the Word of God, and all that great teaching. Well, I still hold to that. I have a very, very conservative view of the Bible. And in O.M. we have a fairly conservative doctrinal statement. But I can't say that I've arrived at that without struggle. Nor can I say that, you know, I studied through Leviticus and I studied through various books and, you know, never have a question, never have a doubt. Even in the New Testament. I was greatly helped in this through Dr. Francis Schaeffer. I had a brilliant letter yesterday from Edith, his wife. Amazing, it was my spiritual birthday two days ago, on March 4th. I was born again in 1955 and I got this letter from Edith Schaeffer. I thought she was talking about my birthday and I couldn't believe that. Unless I had mentioned it to her in my last letter. But it wasn't. She was just referring back to one of the biggest crises in their ministry. 1955. And she's saying it's 32 years. Apparently she's now writing a new book, The Whole History of Labrice. And it was in 1955. Two of her children were extremely ill. They just had word from the Swiss government, get out of your house. Not always the most encouraging word to get. Some of you have probably been through that. And she was just sharing something of what those 32 years meant. I can honestly say that one of the key figures in God's plan to take a somewhat narrow-minded George Verwer and make him more broad-minded was Dr. Francis Schaeffer. The only one of the things of a greater influence than Dr. Francis Schaeffer to make me bigger hearted and bigger minded was coming and having the privilege of living in Europe. For example, one of my areas of very great dogmatism was concerning touching as a believer any alcoholic beverage. I had a message when I was only 16 against alcohol that was considered, you know, right out of the Prohibition era. And people compared me with Billy Sunday who used to smash bottles of whiskey and carry on on the pulpit making anything I did look quite undramatic. And I was convinced that a dedicated Christian and a teetotaler were the same. And I came to Europe. And, of course, one of my greatest burdens as I came to Europe was to disciple some Spanish brothers and I was just so excited. God gave first one full-time worker and then another, then four or five, soon we had ten full-time workers. And I remember the day that one of my full-time dynamic Spanish disciples came to me and invited me over to his house for lunch. And there they were pouring out on the table in glasses, of course, wine. And it confirmed what I thought. Because one day, as we used to hug, Spain is a hugging nation, in Europe you got a hugging nation, kissing nations, tripping nations, all kinds of nations. And one day this brother hugged me and I thought, I detected a little alcohol. And, of course, I soon discovered that the most committed Spanish believers drank wine at their table. Seems like a minor thing. I wrestled with this to the point of torture. I was reading this book and that book. And, you know, it's interesting, I just got sent to my office, it hasn't been forwarded, I just got sent a letter by someone I just met in Canada, a whole tape against this thing of Christians ever touching alcohol. And the letter I was reading on the train this morning. So this issue is not over yet. Now that is just one of 30 or 40 different issues. Not such a problem in Pakistan, by the way, except that Christians, as you know, are legally allowed to get liquor, whereas Muslims are not allowed to get liquor legally. And so in many towns there is a black market operation by the Christians selling the booze to the Muslims. I'm sure you already knew about that. But not something we are expecting Serbs or any other ministries to get into. So I am indebted, I am so indebted to God sending me to Mexico when I was 19, beginning to broaden my horizons, partly through my mistakes, then sending me to Spain, and then exposing me to men like John Stott, Dr. Schaeffer. In connection with the Bible, I was listening to this series of tapes by Dr. Schaeffer. Actually I was traveling on a ship through the Suez Canal out to Bombay. And the series of tapes is called 5 Problems of the Man Who Does Not Believe the Bible. And I tell you, my faith was so strengthened. There are problems for those of us who believe that this is God's Word, God's inerrant Word, referring back to the original manuscripts. But I believe the problems are much greater for the man who does not believe that this is God's Word. And I have been encouraged again and again in my faith. And what I was trying to say when I just brought that in, in terms of definition, was that if you take the whole of the Word of God, let one verse balance out another verse, then I believe you will end up in the land of the big hearted. Now let's face it, as Bible believing Christians, no matter how big hearted we are, no matter how much love we have, we are still on a narrow road. Our basic doctrinal principles are still quite narrow. And as far as I know, most of the people working here have fairly conservative doctrinal positions in terms of their faith, in terms of God. And I could not say, would not say, that someday in the future we will have some struggles on doctrine. That is normal. They had it in the New Testament. So I'm not saying, I need some more of this. I'm not saying we never separate from someone in terms of the work. I'm not saying that we can just all work together with everyone. We need to have our principles. We need to have our standards. In O.M. we've taken quite a strong stand against extremism. Different kinds of extremism. We've seen so many people hurt, that we've become quite vocal in that area. But that doesn't mean that we reject someone that we feel is extreme. It doesn't mean we reject him from the body. It doesn't mean we get arrogant with those people. It doesn't mean we become unloving. It means that we compassionately disagree. Some of you have your roots back in Christ is the answer, which I don't think exists in this area anymore. But if you know the history of Christ and the answer in O.M., it's quite a little unique chapter. We had a big meeting in London once. Phil Lowry. You think I'm choleric and a little forward, just had some fellowship with Bill. It was like two laser beams coming together for donuts. But, you know, we came out of that meeting in London. I don't know if there was any brother that was here at that meeting. We came out of that meeting and we had to make the decision in O.M. that we would not work together. Until they changed their position on a number of areas, the biggest one being at that time they taught to be a disciple, you had to leave secular work. Nobody was a true disciple unless they left secular work. Though that's not seemingly a doctrinal thing, you know, like the Trinity. For us, that was a basic, basic divergence because one of our strongest messages in O.M. is that you can be a disciple back in your hometown working in the office or working in the factory or working in the school. And we've been teaching and preaching that. There were, of course, many other issues. That was just one. But, you know, we came out of that meeting I believe with love for one another. Bill and I became friends and correspondents. We had a major confrontation a couple of years ago again. And we just agreed to disagree and to go our separate ways. As you know, that movement split in two. It was a sad thing. In fact, the last time I was here people came to me and asked if I could try to bring the two together. Bill Lowry was here with the camera crew. Some of you remember that? They wanted me to perform a miracle. I had enough brains to know it was too late. I knew Doug Layton. I knew some of the problems. And, you know, I think now, especially here, any of you working with Douglas Layton in that project, we need to let that just go and be past history. Not hold anything against anybody. Continue to pray and love Bill. Continue to press on in the work. These things happen among God's people. They happen in the best places. I just read the transcripts of what happened in the Bill Gothard basic unit. Conflicts headquarters. When in 1980 major immorality came into the operation. Actually been there for two years without being dealt with. Through that division 75% of all the staff left. Hurt and pain that you would not measure. And personally, after going through the recent transcripts of all that, I am convinced that if all the way around there had been a little bit of bigger heart of this, a lot of that would have never happened. But Christians, they dig in. Especially if they're criticized. Especially if they feel under attack. Especially if they feel threatened. They dig in. They get a foxhole. And from their foxhole, they will launch their missiles. And maybe in the form of memos, maybe in the form of gossip, maybe in the form of loose talk or something else. And I could give you, and I don't want to take so much longer, I could give you just so many stories, literally hundreds of stories accumulating these 32 years of serving the Lord, of things that have caused me as a fairly narrow minded Bible believing Christian still to become more big hearted. You say, in what way? Let me give you some specifics. Number one, I've been dealing with people of different denominations. Different churches. Holiness people. Old time Pentecost. New Charismatics. Charismatics in the main line. Charismatics in the house churches. I've just been invited to one of the most significant meetings coming up in England in 1987. I will be meeting together with maybe 70 or 80 by invitation only of the leaders of the Charismatic House Fellowship Movement in Britain, which is the largest single sector of the church, growing church in Britain today. And I'm so excited about that. And I made some mistakes in my first year. My first year, I was so young, I didn't know what was going on. I said one or two things that were perhaps less than best and some of those people have remembered those things for 20 years. I just had fellowship in the home of the Dutch Pentecostal group that turned against O.M. in 1964. And we weren't Pentecostal enough for the Dutch. And we had two girls go to Italy and lay hands on an engine in the name of Jesus. And that got into the Dutch press. And I was just with the mother of that young woman and preached in that church. At that time some people left O.M. and a movement was born called Operation Pentecostal Fire. This was to counter O.M. which they believed was a fleshly movement and didn't know the anointing of God's Spirit. That movement within a few years died. Other movements in the Netherlands continued. A great division took place among the Pentecostals in the Netherlands. Half of them became mildly in favor of O.M. Half continued against us. Today, 1987, that is pretty well healed. And we have acknowledged that we are one. And I just believe God wants to bring healing in the body. Wilhimer talks about the tremendous division between the holiness people and the new charismatic people. It blew his circuits as an old holiness man. The way they dressed. Even the makeup. The new charismatics were heavy into makeup. Many of them. And the old holiness people believed that the makeup was from Satan. And I tell you, families were divided. Families were divided. Churches were split down the middle. And to this day, back in America and England, churches are splitting. Best of friends are turning on each other. One of the big things right now is the music issue. One Christian leader has declared all this contemporary music, especially that has a beat. I don't know where you decide what has a beat and doesn't have a beat. But all of it is of the pit. Another Christian leader decided all televisions are idols. Just as idols in the Old Testament. These are actual idols. If you have one in your home. I saw one here when I walked in. It is an idol. They took their idols into the backyard and they unloaded their guns. I don't know what they're doing. Christians carrying guns. But that in America seems to be quite acceptable. And they blew up their televisions. Militant Christianity. Strange, isn't it? There are so many things we can fight about. So many things we can disagree on. Maybe I read too much. I hope you don't read as much as I do. Christian magazines. Theology. I minister in a lot of seminaries. I go to a lot of seminars where you actually have two speakers actually going at each other quite strongly on some sometimes on an important issue but other times on trivia. And you know as we thrust ourselves into reaching these special people who historically have never responded to the gospel in any large way. We know of individuals. We know of small groups. We're encouraged by that. But who historically have been the great war against the gospel. I believe we're gonna need one another. We're gonna need unity. Isn't there a scripture reference that says united we stand and divided we fall. Certainly that's a paraphrase of an important reference. And I believe as we're united that enables us to pray together in spiritual power. As we pray together in spiritual power that enables us to tear down the strongholds of the enemy. Let's not allow division to get into the body. I wanted to mention a few other specific areas. Firstly I mentioned denominations. But secondly I want to just say a word about the Holy Spirit. Not because anybody has gemmed me up for this meeting. No one has told me anything hardly what's going on here. I'm in one place and another place so quick I wake up in the morning and have to ask the Lord where I am. Nobody has said oh there's disunity here speak on this subject in no way. But I know in general God's people are fighting over the Holy Spirit. And often we are very ignorant of what other people believe. I fellowship quite in depth with a lot of people who are fairly negative about the charismatic movement. I can say that most of those people in my view are often a little bit ignorant of the broadness and the depth and the wideness of what is called the charismatic movement. In Germany recently the fight has become greater than ever. The whole block of Christians were not going to support the Thema Conference in Utrecht because there was a leading charismatic on the platform together with me. Supposedly I represent the non-charismatic. My goal is actually to out charismatic to charismatic but sometimes because of my historical background which is a bit hysterical I am classified in a certain way. You can't get into the Keswick Convention any other way and I'm there as well as Spring Harvest in the same year almost unheard of in history. I thank God they sent a delegation to Germany and they prayed and they worked on this and they came out with a degree of unity and that's why the largest delegation to Thema was the German speaking delegation. If they hadn't sorted out this problem that would not have taken place. And so in Thema we had leading men who represented the so called non-charismatic camp. We know that all believers have the Holy Spirit and are moving in some way in the realm of the Holy Spirit so in a non-technical way we're all charismatic but for the sake of definition at Thema we had men of that one particular view of the Holy Spirit and we had a good solid block of people who represented the other view about the Holy Spirit. And I would just use the title of a book written some time ago by Pete Gilchrist that was a little group that broke away from Campus Crusade in the early days and aligned themselves with the Eastern Orthodox Church what is it called? Orthodox Evangelical Church of California. The latest news in Christianity Today one magazine you should read is that they have been accepted into the Eastern Orthodox hierarchy and denomination. An amazing move for a bunch of ex-Campus Crusade for Christ's people. It's interesting to mention them because they are highly energized against parachurch organization. Don't want to get into that subject but that is one of the toughest things we are facing as missionaries today. Terrific anti-parachurch feeling. What is that? You may ask. It means anything like SERV anything like OM anything like YWAM this is not really what is on the heart of God. God works through the church and God works through local churches. And so there is a lot of teaching today that you cannot support parachurch agencies and thousands of churches believe that. Thousands. In fact, this meeting I will have in December that will be the biggest issue that we will deal with and there are some very very good signs that some of these strong local churches that are anti-parachurch are seeing the biblical basis of mission societies of overseas outreach agencies to carry on the work. But back to that point let's as Pete Gilchrist says in his book let's stop fighting over the Holy Spirit. I think you have been an example in this right here in the frontier. I know you are from many different backgrounds. Some of you are from Bethany. Bethany is going to be the strongest force in the frontier and Bethany has its own totally unique teaching on sanctification. I have worked for 25 years just trying to understand it but it is unique and you know they probably know that I don't fully understand it and I am a main speaker at Bethany's conferences and our relationship with Bethany is probably one of the best relationships we have anywhere in the world. Let's not fight over the Holy Spirit. Let's all be filled with the Spirit. Let's realize that God is working in different people in different ways. God is giving different gifts to different people even at different times in their lives. He is sovereign and as we think of the work here we need the power of the Holy Spirit. We need the directorship of the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter 13. And if unloving things come in and judgmentalism comes in and small-mindedness comes in and evangelical Rambo-ism comes in then somehow I believe it is going to grieve it is going to grieve the Spirit of God. And it is an amazing sight to see someone who claims to be Spirit-filled red in the face all angry shouting at another brother declaring that he does not have the Holy Spirit. I remember once it happened in Bombay. One of the least he thought most Spirit-filled persons in India arrived and Ray Eicher a dear brother who just likes to be big hearted about everybody. That is by the way one of the dangers of being big hearted. The next step is being naive. The next step is being deceived. That is another whole message. I will have to give that next year. But somehow this brother arrived in Bombay and he deceived Ray Eicher and things began to go out of control and somehow they got in a meeting in Bombay and this brother began to move in what he felt was the realm of the Holy Spirit and one of the most Spirit-filled pastors in all of Bombay stood up right in the same meeting and said this Spirit that you have is not from God and that fellow jumped up and said the Spirit you have is not from God and I will tell you that was one of the most interesting meetings in the history of Bombay for OM. The pastor proved to be true maybe not completely. I don't think this fellow had an evil spirit. He may have been deceived. We certainly eased him out of OM and we still pray for him and we love him. But let's be big hearted as we meet people of different backgrounds. I remember in the early days of OM we had a Quaker who wanted to join OM. Quakers? Do we have any Quakers here? What do they believe? Nixon was a Quaker and that doesn't prove too much. And if some of you have seen that brilliant film The Witness you get a little idea about the Quakers. Have you got that video here? That would really be exciting. The Witness? But anyway, this brother who came to us from the Quakers was one of the most outgoing outspoken outspoken street preaching loud praying brothers and he's been with us 23 years. That's Ray Lynch. Comes from Granada Heights Evangelical Quaker Church. You know it's so easy to make a mistake when you generalize about a denomination. Or when you generalize about somebody's label. Because to be honest today things are pretty mixed up. That doesn't sound right. But it's true. There are Evangelical people and Bible believing people in many different denominations. There are charismatic people who are often also Evangelical and just everywhere you can go. Even in the Roman Catholic Church. When I was in Karachi I fellowshiped with Bishops in Pakistan more than any other country. This is my big Bishop connection. Pakistan. And this time when I arrived in Karachi I found once again the Bishop would like to have tea with me. I mean after suffering all your life it's good to get some acceptance. But this was the Roman Catholic Bishop. Anthony Lobo. Pray for him. And he wants all the Bible believing Evangelicals he can get to teach him in school. He's already got one Exo Emer. Teaching Scriptural Knowledge. And he's got another one teaching English Lit. Which is interesting because I didn't know the brother ever studied English Lit. But pray for him. He got a Visa and a salary. So we live, we live in complicated days. The church is big. A lot of things are happening. And I don't believe the answer is just hard line on different issues. Hard line on the music issues. Hard line on the television issues. Hard line on the drinking issues. Sure there are things we should hard line on. The Ten Commandments. I think we ought to hard line on all of them. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. I mean, we're not going to get up here and say, well, you know, we need a little stealing, a little balance. You know, if I come to you next year and talk to you about balance in the area of fornication, you know, four days without it and four days with it, then don't let me in anymore. You hard line me. But most issues, or should I say many issues in life, we shouldn't hard line. If you don't agree, and we have the television, the anti- and the pro- television crowd, the anti's have pretty well died out, but for years it was really, really a heavy thing within operation mobilization. Prairie Bible Institute, the leader of the conservative pack when I arrived had just voted in television. Some people thought the second crisis was going to come the next day. People were really upset by this. Only a small number. They lost in the vote. You know one of the reasons they decided to get television at Prairie? Because too many of the faculty were renting motel rooms during the hockey matches in order to watch the match. So I just thank God for that decision at Prairie, and I told them so when I preached there. My last series at Prairie is just electric. I mean, because God just set me free to speak about a lot of interesting things. And I just praise the Lord that even a lot of the groups that perhaps ten years ago were a little bit hyper-narrow, a little bit hyper-conservative are becoming bigger of heart. I praise God that walls are coming down between the charismatic and the non-charismatic camp. I know in some places they're going up. The world is so big, everything is so mega-pluralistic. I guess between now and Christ comes we'll have a little bit of everything. But I want to plead with you on the basis of 1 Corinthians 13, on the basis of that passage Gordon read, on the basis of a couple of hundred other verses on the subject of love, dozens of verses on the subject of forgiveness to be big of heart. Fellowship with all of God's people. Learn to love them. And when someone initially turns you off, you go back to your room and you say, Jesus, I believe you're going to do a work in my heart toward that person. And sometimes the greatest fellowship you have will be with people who are very, very different from you. And you may even be surprised and end up marrying one. It's nothing like discovering as a hardline fundamentalist several years after your marriage that your wife is praying privately in tongues under the bed. And I'm convinced, the way you're responding, it sounds like some of you are into that. I'm convinced that through unity and through love, we don't have to sacrifice basic truth. We don't have to compromise our basic truth. 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