In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of following the example of Jesus Christ in maintaining commitment to character and unity. The speaker also mentions the goals of Love Europe and the decade of Muslim emphasis, expressing the belief that staying together as a movement will help reach the unreached Orthodox Hindus. The speaker highlights the significance of relationships and the impact of conferences in sorting out relationships, encouraging people, and rebuilding broken lives. The sermon concludes with a reminder to go the extra mile in reaching the unconverted and to disciple others by taking them along in the journey rather than just teaching or talking to them.

Turn with me now to the Sermon on the Mount. I might just say that people say, just one other thing, people say that Operation World doesn't sell well anymore. A lot of people don't sell any copies in their meetings. Anybody that says that does not know how to sell. Sometimes with Operation World you need to add a premium, you need to add an extra book. In most countries you can do that. It is an expensive book. Ralph Winter has been selling it for a dollar or two, much cheaper than we can get it through the OM system. So we need to learn. I tell you, I can learn a lot from Ralph Winter. There is so much about Ralph that I love. There are things I don't understand. We didn't have a lot of time for book pushes at Love Europe. We had enough. It was an ongoing struggle, Peter and I, but compared to other places it was fantastic. But one of the books that we really emphasized was Operation World. I tell you, if you weren't into Operation World, after going to Love Europe you could actually feel guilty. Nobody will die of that. And that was the number one book they sold, three to four hundred copies, and that's in a movement where a lot of people already had them. And I hope that you are still reading and using Operation World. We think we have distributed so many copies. Ninety-eight percent of all the Christians have never had Operation World. Maybe 97, maybe 95. We live in a remnant. We live in a remnant ghetto at times, even the people we associate with. And I would pray that we could somehow expand out. Let's read from the Word of God these great thoughts from the Sermon on the Mount. I want to start in chapter 5, verse 21. I want to just read the Scripture. I cannot expound this whole passage, but I want us to get something from the reading. I am reading the old authorized version, but I'm sure you can receive it and follow in whatever modern translation you have. The authority of God's Word. Let's allow that to sink into our hearts. You have heard that it was said by them of old, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of judgment. But I say unto you, Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of judgment. Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the council. Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in the danger of hell fire. That is strong, strong. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest thy brother has anything against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer the gift. And maybe some of you are thinking, Oh, this is where he's going to hit us. Going to try to get us to repent. And go to brothers that have sinned against us, and we have sinned against them, and try to get us all repenting and apologizing. It wasn't even on my mind until I read those verses, and I'm not going to speak on it. But it may be that that's one of the things that needs to take place here. I can't overemphasize the importance of these conferences in OM's thrust. OM is still a movement. It's still a movement. The longer we can stay a movement, if you know the definitions, the better. And as a movement, we need time together. We need commitment to each other. We need to be broken together. We need to pray together, to weep together. We need to get sorted out. And in these conferences, historically, often more has happened behind the scenes in sorting out relationships, encouraging people, rebuilding broken lives, rebuilding loyalty than we can ever measure. And how we need that. Let's read on. Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Try, by the way, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' two volumes on the Sermon on the Mount, if you want to get the impact of some of this. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out from there till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto you, Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. If thou write, I offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife except for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery. Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery. Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old, Thou shalt not perjure thyself. Thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, It is the authoritative word of Christ. Swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatever is more than these cometh of evil. Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil. But whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him too. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you. That ye may be the sons of your father, who is in heaven, for he maketh his son to rise on the evil, and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just, and on the unjust. For if ye love them who love you, what reward of you? Do not even the tax collectors the same? And if ye greet the brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the heathen so? Be ye therefore perfect or mature, even as your father who is in heaven is perfect. Wow, that's heavy stuff. I feel so unworthy, so inadequate to continue even in part of the leadership of this movement, and I don't say that lightly. It would be very easy, I can assure you, to get my resignation. Very easy. And as I think of the direction we're going in, as I think of all that we're attempting, the Muslim world, and the communist world, and Europe, and Latin America, and Africa, it's just easier now to keep track of the few places we're not involved in. And lo and behold, I have to end up fellowshiping this week before coming here with Rick Hibner. I'm already almost depressed to my toenails thinking about the Muslim challenge, though I battle back every day. Don't go to bed with this depression. And I have to have fellowship with Rick Hibner. Now, some of you don't know Rick. You don't know his vision for the Hindu world and his statistics. I will tell you, if he had shared those statistics at Lausanne II, people would have screamed out and crawled under the tables and torn up some of their documents about all that we're going to do by the year 2000. Praise God for Patrick, for Patrick Johnson's brilliant article in the Lausanne magazine, which I subscribe to. And I'm sure this was brought out at Lausanne II, the enormous price that's going to have to be paid if we're going to fulfill these goals by the year 2000. And if this is just a lot of rhetoric, I can tell you it depresses people out on the field. It depresses the people who actually know what some of this is about, who have lost loved ones in the Muslim world, who have been out there 15, 20, 30 years. I remember an American studying at Oxford, challenging, I think it was last year, someone who was working with me and coming up with some little, two little reasons why souls aren't coming to Christ in the Muslim world by the hundreds of thousands. And my friend who was working with me, who knew just a little bit more, challenged him back. Have you read this? Have you read that? Have you heard of Zwemer? Have you heard of Borden et al.? Have you heard of this mission? He didn't know anything. All he knew was a little bit of theory that he picked up from a couple of books and he thought, if we just put this into practice, surely the Muslim world will collapse. Now, don't be overjudgmental when you meet such people. That's also a mistake. We've got to listen to them. We need their thinking. We need their energy. We need them. And at the moment, some red hot live wire out of some missiological training course comes for his interview and he says some things that you feel are over the top. You immediately throw cold water on him. That's just folly. You've got to listen to him just as God has listened to us all these years. And you've got to say, well, that sounds really good. You know, I'd like to read this book. I seldom tell people, I'm not going to read your book. Why do we have to specialize in being obnoxious? Don't you know how many books I have to read? I have said at times things like that and felt miserable. Generally, you know, I say, look, I'll give it a try. I'm supposedly writing a foreword for a new book on Latin America. It's that thick. And now Vera tells me it's already too late anyway. It's published. But I've decided I'm going to finish reading this book. It's incredibly boring. And then I have to repent because I feel that's bad if the Latin Americans hear that I think this book about Latin America is boring. But maybe it's because it's written by an American. Actually, it did get exciting yesterday when I was reading another chapter. If a book is boring, just read one chapter at a time. Just plodding, plodding through. It might get exciting in the last chapter. I tend to think there are too many books and we need a higher quality of book. Who am I to say that? Yeah, right. Thank you. Next time you ask for a blurb on your brochure, we will remind you that. Repent down on the ground. Down on the ground. What is the greatest need? As we think of the Muslim world, we think of the Hindu world, we think of all the different visions we're trying to incorporate. All the different policies we're trying to stuff into our manual. We are idealistic. That's good. And you younger ones are more idealistic than most of us older ones. Good. And that's the way it's supposed to be. And we need the right blend of realism and idealism and somehow for the Holy Spirit to keep it all together. But I believe the greatest need is for us to grow in our character. That's the thrust of the message. The greatest need is for us to become more in tune with the Sermon on the Mount. More in tune with what Gordon McDonald brings out in his books. What so many men of God have brought out in their books, whether you take Andrew Murray or Bill Heimer, whether you take A.W. Tozer, and I've been going through his tapes lately, even more unusual sometimes than his books. We know all these men have their faults, but it's a plea for holiness. It's a plea for godliness. It's to make character building a priority. But I guess one of the most encouraging letters came from Mike Evans. I was thinking that after Tony Campala and after Brother Andrew, all these strong messages that perhaps I should give a plea for love and balance, just the other side of the coin. But I didn't have much choice. Conlon and Maiden took me aside in a corner. No, it wasn't in a corner. They don't need corners. These guys can corner you in the middle of the room. And try to deny this. Try to deny this. And they said, look, after last night with Campala, we need, you know, what are you thinking about giving? And I said, okay, the Lord's already spoken, you guys. Leave me alone. Balance. The other side of the coin. My dear, dear, dear black friend from Little Rock, I could have lost that relationship because he is strong and I'm being an overcomer. I'm in his six-series tape. I'm being a six-tape series, being an overcomer. And I tell you, that message of George Verwer, the last message of my struggles and failings, really, really bothered him. I thank God he had the courage to come to me just before he went back. We had some time, basically mega-motivated about his time, and he got the courage to get this out. You know, was I really an overcomer? I tell you, I gave him both shots right between the eyes. He'll never doubt that again. The truth is, I'm trying to figure out what the word means. But Mike Evans wrote me this letter, and he said he believes that the message I shared on the last day is as radical as anything else that was shared. I love you. I'm not saying it's better. We're not comparing. But it was as radical as anything else that was shared. Sometimes, and I think I fell into that camp at times, we think to be radical it must be upsetting. To be radical it must be off the wall. To be radical, everybody must feel absolutely miserable afterward and never be able to drive their own car again. To be radical, it has to be loud. Of course, naturally I believe that. But there is something radical about love. There is something radical about biblical balance. There is something radical about that side of the OM message which maybe comes out stronger today than it did 20 years ago. Hallelujah. Or probably people like Peter Maiden so level-headed wouldn't even stay in the movement. I mean, imagine a person living in the same town his entire life. I mean, can you even relate to that? Can you even try to just try to get that into your mind? Talk about a missionary. This man is about as missionary as you know. No, he is a missionary. You're either a missionary or a mission field. This other letter that encouraged me to share and just give this plea tonight came from a leader in Campus Crusade for Christ. He compared OM with the movement, the Donover Fellowship and with that woman who Elizabeth Elliot wrote that book about Amy Carmichael. Amy Carmichael, her writings overwhelm me. You know, that Calvary love poem. I've given up reading it for a while. It's just so devastating. And we fed upon that in the early days and we want to keep reading it but it's not the whole side of the picture and it may be a particular figure of speech, a particular way of saying something. You have some of that in the Bible. But anyway, I was encouraged as he said, that movement, I don't know that much about it, that movement majored in emphasizing character rather than qualifications. Many movements today emphasize qualifications. That's where our society is. Not completely. Nothing is that way anymore. It's dangerous to generalize more than ever. But there is a terrific emphasis especially in certain countries on qualifications. We're not putting that down. But I believe if we took a vote, we could agree in this movement that character, godliness, honesty, integrity, justice, purity, the ability to speak the truth, the ability to give the right change, all of that side of us to treat our wives properly and lovingly, to be truthful with one another, to not exaggerate the whole challenge of holiness, of righteousness, of character. I believe we would agree and vote that character is higher and more important than qualifications. That has been, without us knowing it, without us realizing it, one of the distinctives of the movement, and obviously not distinct. Many had the same thing. But if you do go back a hundred years in the missions in Great Britain, pre-WECC, pre-CT study, he was a man of high qualifications. If you go back before that and to a large degree after that, in many streams, there was a huge emphasis on qualifications. And people were, you know, when even they were introduced, they were, all of their past qualifications, whether it was cricket or whatever, was lifted up. Borden of Yale, it's emphasized how brilliant Borden of Yale was. It is a great story and it's a moving book. We should all read it. But in it comes the idea that missions is for a very select, highly educated group of people who really forsake a lot. They really forsake a lot. And a lot of mission books play up what men have left in order to become missionaries. I'm not saying that's totally wrong. But what about the person who didn't leave that much, who grew up in a Christian home, I think of Jonathan, maybe that's embarrassing to him, who grew up in a Christian home and who through the word of God, through godly parents, eventually through conversion and all of the means of grace, become men of character, of strong Christian character. Maybe they never forsook anything. Maybe they never had high credentials or high qualifications. Surely in OM we have always believed in both. In the early days when a few started to come into the work out of Cambridge and Oxford, it was very motivating to us. We needed people with those gifts. Abilities to learn languages. Phil Bushel out in Bangladesh. You don't just go out and learn that kind of language, anybody. You've got to have something to start with. And praise the Lord, I feel so unworthy when I go to Bangladesh. And when I read Phil Bushel's letters, and he wouldn't like me to say this, because I know that I don't have up here, probably here, what it takes to do what he's doing. I don't have what it takes to do what Julian is doing in Ankara. I can barely even relate to Ankara. I get depressed the moment I get out of the plane in Turkey. They wonder why I haven't been there lately. I used to go twice a year for many years. It was always difficult for me. So slow. So much plotting. So much suffering. I'm not seemingly built for that. And you know, there's a lot of intimidation coming today. And some of you, there's a possibility you're going to mess up your ministry, you're going to mess up your family, if you get intimidated into doing something that you're not necessarily built for. I always remember Dave Brown's testimony. There's Anne. There's Dave. Anyway, it's better if he's not here, but I always remember his testimony of coming to the conclusion that pioneering in Iran, in the Muslim world, was not what God was leading him into. God was leading him into something behind the scenes to get other people to do that, to stand with him. Now, I know we always hear the messages about how few are going, but the truth is that in the history of the church, it does seem to be. Now, if revival came, it might change, but in the history of the church, it does seem that we have a small number of people who are cut out for this kind of thing, cracking Bengali, cracking Arabic. Mickey had enough guts to admit that he wouldn't learn a language. I punched him a couple of times about that, old Mickey Walker. Eventually, he settles in Dublin, and from Dublin, God, they speak English there, and from Dublin, he's had a worldwide ministry. He's just come back from Taiwan. I don't want to over-labor the point, but I believe there's a place in O.M. for people of every kind of giftedness. It was something this summer to see people who were cripples. Naturally, we can't take everybody. We need wisdom, but I believe as we interview people, as we counsel people, as we look at people, what can they offer for world missions, the priority is character. Do they have patience? Do they have purity? Are they working in a consistent way toward greater purity? Are they committed to learning how to speak the truth in every situation? Lying is easier and easier in our culture. Maybe Gordon can say a word about that from New York City, but Time or Newsweek featured lying, and that was an unusual title some years ago. They featured lying. And that this is just the ordinary thing. When we have things like Watergate and Iran Gate and all these different scandals, that's the tip of the iceberg. That's just the tip. Beneath it is a world in which truth is no longer important. If we don't think this is affecting the church, if we don't think this is affecting the kind of person that comes to love Europe, then I think we're deceived. Character, Christ-likeness. And I would like to encourage you this year in your desire for study to study more of the Sermon on the Mount. Now, these passages are actually very controversial. For a while, a group influenced me, tried to influence me, that this isn't even for our day. This isn't for our day. This is a Schofield Bible. Can you imagine George R. R. was still reading a Schofield Bible? I like the way it's put together. In most things, I'm changed. I'm very committed to change. You know, every year I got something new, right? It wasn't last year roller coasters. It's still roller coasters, but it takes a while for some of these things to go. But for a lot of people in the church taught for a long time, leading seminaries, this is not for today. I believe most of us, we may not have full unity on this. I don't know, all of you. But I believe most of us believe here the Sermon on the Mount is highly relevant for today. You might want to try Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones' two volumes on it. And in fact, if you read some of the notes, even in this Schofield Bible, you'll discover that down under whatever he's talking about in the area of dispensations, he believes that these passages cause a lot of reality and a lot of action on the part of the people of God. I say that because as you study theology and as you read commentaries and as you listen to different voices, I personally feel that today the Christian scene is more confusing than ever. I have a book that thick by Dave Hunt about the importance of heaven. Maybe I'll say it. I have another book that thick against Dave Hunt's book about heaven. And when am I going to get the time? I believe it's a relevant issue. Reconstructionism is a very relevant, important issue. When am I going to get the time to read just those two books on that one issue? There is so much controversy. Now maybe you can't relate to this. If any of you can relate to this, maybe you can write to me. Because I find so much controversy among God's people as I go around different churches and different groups. We're talking about putting together a more united event with all these different groups in Europe. Do you read, those of you who want to do this, do you read? I hope so. Because I tell you, if we can pull off a more united event in which there is equal partnership of several different organizations, it will be five times more intensive than Love Europe. Now I'm not saying I'm against it. But I hope you're ready to pay the price. Because we are dealing with a divided church. Not only are the divisions between different organizations, different fellowships, different streams. You can't even say certain words today. You should know if you're going to preach certain words you don't say anymore. One of America is psychology. If you're in a church you use the word psychology, you're going to get hit. So you better get a different word. Other churches, it doesn't matter. You have to know where you are. And don't think, well, if I'm in the Presbyterians, I know what language. There are more different languages among different kinds of Presbyterians in America than you may be able to learn. And I find, just being honest, absolutely overwhelmed sometimes by all of this controversy. And let's be honest about our own situation in OM. We have a lot of differences. These memos we shoot around to each other are a joke. They express deep feelings. One woman shared a deep memo in the middle of the year. I mean, it was heavy. And it brought heavy reactions and they were very different reactions. And I'm the guy that sometimes has people on the end of the phone who have been devastated by some of these memos. So they are not a joke. We have great differences among us. It's going to take a lot of effort to continue to live together in the midst of the diversity. We have tremendous diversity of thinking when it comes to community. Part of the work is still quite committed to community. Part of the work is moving absolutely in the opposite direction. Now I'm bringing this to a close. I wanted to just let this one verse jump out of the Bible. And that's verse 41. Because I believe if we take this teaching, this example of Jesus Christ and it's His example that's more important to me now than this one verse, then I believe it will help us to maintain this commitment to character, to stay together in love and unity, to carry out the goals of Love Europe, to carry out the goals of the last months of the decade of Muslim emphasis. And we hope that will continue into the 90s. I believe it will help us penetrate that huge block of unreached, so totally unreached Orthodox Hindus that Rick Hibner wants to speak to us about and all the rest. I preached on a similar subject just a week ago in a little Pentecostal church in Haverford West. I've got the outline there in my Bible but I'm not going to use that. But the Spirit of God somehow used that message. Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him too. Now I've had a lot of struggle with Operation Mobilization this year. A lot of struggle. I've had a lot of struggle with myself. So I've had a lot of struggle with myself. I've also had struggles with my wife which is mainly my fault. I've also had a few struggles with my children which we don't want to talk about. I've had struggles with Operation Mobilization. I've had struggles with a few other things. It means you're living fairly close to the precipice. Now that's supposed to be the mark of the choleric temperament. I should have, according to the books, backslidden completely 20 years ago. I'm still here. It must be your prayers or Mrs. Clapp who's still alive. Maybe it's my father who's here and has prayed for me. I don't know all the reasons. I sum it up by a simple word called grace. But I will tell you what's carried me through this year and that's Jesus Christ and his teaching on going the extra mile. And I want to just ask you to do that. Now I know this teaching can be taken to extreme and I don't want to do that. I saw a film the other day about Rajneesh. Some of you remember Talbrook. I hope you pray for him. God's using him. He is an unusual character. His new book is wild. He's on television. He's on radio. And he's still broke. Send him a donation. Talbrook. I tell you, the people, the range of people that God brings to us. And Talbrook was one of the key men to expose Rajneesh. He was out there in Pune before Rajneesh ever got to Oregon. And he, I mean it's wild. But if you saw that film on British television of Rajneesh and that cult, you just can't come out of that without shaking. Just shaking. And we want to confirm again as a body to in every way avoid anything that is cultic. We know we can go to extreme. There will be people that consider us a cult. If you can't give 15 reasons right off the top of your head as a field leader why we are not a cult and how to know we're not a cult, you need to go back to field leader training school. Maybe they have that at Rill. But really, there are so many ways we can quickly show people that we are not a cult. The very fact that 45,000 of our graduates aren't even with us. They are all over the world. There's hardly any common denominator among all these graduates. Except maybe they love Jesus Christ we hope since quite a few of them are backslidden and we don't even have that. We are not a cult. But it does show how the devil works and how the devil wants to try to destroy this work. How the devil wants to try to bring major scandal into the ship. Into anything. He wanted to bring it into Mosbach. I believe there were more satanic attacks not Mosbach, Offenburg. I believe there were more satanic attacks going on in Offenburg than we know. A lot of the arrows never hit us because so many people were praying. We don't even know what Satan had planned for Offenburg because of the tremendous volume of prayer that was going on. Maybe some of the things that slipped through are a challenge that we need more prayer though we know no matter how much we pray there will be the struggles, the failures, the battles and all the rest. The extra mile. Can I use a few more minutes to just challenge you who maybe are hurt, who maybe are confused, who maybe have been struggling about the things that go wrong in OM, about the things that you don't agree with, about a particular brother, about a particular sister, maybe just about yourself to take this example of Jesus Christ and go the extra mile. Let me be specific. Would you go the extra mile with that brother in OM that you feel you don't understand? Now let's not pretend. Everybody in here has some OMer at least in mild terms you don't really understand this person. Would you as a commitment to the Sermon on the Mount, as a commitment because you love Jesus Christ, go an extra mile and try to understand? I'm not even telling you to love him. Look how gentle I am. I'm not even saying you have to love him yet. Just wait a few minutes. I am asking you to try to understand him. Why he says this. Why he wrote that memo or she wrote that memo. Before you make a categorical decision, before you, and seldom in OM do we verbally block people out. We mentally block them out. I believe we even block people out subconsciously. If you feel that I have subconsciously blocked you out for any reason, please forgive me. I don't know of anybody in OM that I have anything against. I have so many problems. Do I have to have that one as well? Can I have total victory in one area? Well, I don't even like the word total victory, but a high degree of victory. I don't hold things against people. It's not my thing. In fact, this is the way I've got some of my friends. People that really were hurt by me. They did say some hurtful things and somehow it just all turned around and love came out. But we don't have the time anymore like we used to. Do you realize how big this thing has gotten? And how slow it has gotten that big so that some of us have been here all along. This is my 29th September conference. 29 years with no exceptions. Every September this is where I've been. Every year there are new people, there are new converts, there are new leaders, there are new marriages. I'm trying to keep track of the children, the babies. I mean, it's ridiculous anybody with a brain would think I'm a fool. Thank you. But I'm still going to keep trying. I am happy not launching the next big vision of OM. Don't generalize about people. A guy like Ferber has got to launch another big vision or he'll never be happy. We're all more complicated than we look. I am very happy not launching another big vision. I get a lot of motivation out of small visions. A lot of the things I do are incredibly small. People think it's a waste of time. Maybe it's therapy. I am happy to get behind your big vision. I have no big vision for Turkey. As far as Turkey, Julian, I'm a survival. I stand in front of sometimes 10,000 people even in television and challenge people to pray for Turkey. I believe we're going to reach Turkey. I believe we're going to see a harvest. But I don't have any big vision for Turkey. If you launch your big Turkey vision on me, if I can't totally relate to it, fine. You just go ahead and do it anyway. Just like Love Europe. I want to be committed at my age to just backing up your visionaries, your revolutionaries. But as you do it, as you run with it, I want godliness. And if I see things that are sinful or that are wrong or that are, I believe, displeasing to God, probably I'll pray and talk to Peter first who can bring the balance. But I tell you, if the two of us agree that you're in trouble, you're going to hear from us. We may go through the area leader. We may go through, I don't know, maybe a letter. But we want this movement to be committed to godliness. And it is not godly when we hold things in our hearts against one another. It is not godly when we speak evil one against the other. It is not godly when we make innuendos. It is not godly when we put barbs in memos that say nothing positive about what this brother has been doing, serving Christ in absolute sincerity. All we come in is with the barb or the criticism. I'm not saying that that is ungodliness in extreme form. But it's less than honorable. As far as I know, I wrote one memo of that type this year. And it hurt a brother deeply. Only one for me is a miracle. I went to him as fast. You can't even find out in O.M. Very hard to find out who's talking against you, who's upset by you. Characters like me in leadership will. Especially got Peter Maiden around listening. I went to him and I said, look, I am sorry I miscommunicated. I didn't mean that. It was solved very, very quickly. The brother is not here. And I just believe that when the word of god says that we speak evil, we speak in love, then that's how we speak. When the word of god says we speak in love, surely it must cover writing in love. And what I'm pleading for is to go the extra mile. I know we have hurt one another. I know I may have hurt some of you. I know that I really lost my temper once with Peter Maiden on the phone. He's brilliant. I was so upset about something. I think Marge was in the office. Boy, did she get an earful. And I was just home from the States and Peter said, look, you got jet lag. You don't really mean all that. And I crawled back into my cave and repented and said, lord, I'll go the extra mile. Maybe that was the wrong application. But I believe if we're going to make it in the Muslim world, if we're going to make it in this movement, now pushing toward 2,000, we aren't there yet. Official statistic is 1,750, I believe, from Viv. Then it's going to, the days ahead are going to be rough. There are going to be misunderstandings. There are a lot of hurting people. You've been involved with people up to your eyeballs. Are there or are there not a lot of hurting people in operational mobilization? Of course there are. And that is nothing new in Christian work. Do you think they don't have them in the other groups? Think they don't have them in the local church? But I tell you, we've got to learn from these people. And as we listen to these people, sometimes what they say will bring another leader into a very bad position. That is heavy information. We have to be absolutely godly and mature and wise in how we handle information given to us in an in-depth counseling situation. That's where some of our heaviest disruption comes in, O.M. We don't mean to pass on that information, but under pressure trying to prove a point, something comes out that shouldn't have come out. I want to publicly say that in my early days that was one of my great mistakes in my effort to try to convince someone of my way of thinking. I was strong-minded. I guess I still am. I said things that put someone else in a bad light. I once said something about Ralph Shalas that put him in a bad light. I picked up some heavy information. It was second-hand or third-hand. Under pressure, counseling a brother. I said something about my brother, Ralph, that put him in a bad light. Fifteen years later, a guy confronted me that that caused him to lose respect for me. I tell you, when he told me that, I just wept. Now, I know we can't score 100% on this. If you can score 100%, you can autograph my Bible. If you want me as international leader, only if I can score 100%, I'm out tonight. But I tell you, I'm going to aim at this with every inch of fiber in me. The Sermon on the Mount is my food. I want to live by the Sermon on the Mount. I want to follow the example of Jesus Christ. I was listening to Tozer two days ago, and I was so ministered to as he brought out the fact somehow no matter how close we are to God, no matter how Christ-like we are, there is the sense that we're still thousands of miles from Jesus Christ. That so helps me. You know, there's a false extremist group that teaches so much about the humanity of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, they say that you and I can be just as Christ. And that kind of perfection in it is quite wide. It's hit India. It's hit Turkey. There's a group in Norway that specializes in it. We've got them in America. It's subtle. The brother movement almost did divide. That was part of the problem. Over-emphasis on the humanity of Jesus Christ. I hope that you will be committed to going the extra mile for others. I want to thank my team in Bromley for going the extra mile with me. We've had, I believe, a fairly peaceful, encouraging year. I can see endless scope for improvement, but I believe one of the reasons is the team's willingness to go the extra mile. They know I have more than I am able to handle, and so I fail. And they do write me and do encourage me and exhort me, but also they go the extra mile. Very quickly, I hope we'll go the extra mile with our prayer partners. I don't want to lay a lot of heavy things on you, but really it's pathetic sometimes our communication with our prayer partners. They don't hear from us. They don't get prayer letters, but once or twice or three times a year. Some of them hardly get personal letters even after they give a gift. I know we're over-committed. I want to look into how we can cut down. I don't want to just add more burdens. We feel under strain. We feel we've already gone far enough. I feel that way at times with the local church, but I know I need to go one more mile. One more mile with that prayer partner. One more mile with that person who's out there who maybe gives to me occasionally. I would beseech you to go one more mile for the lost. An extra mile to give out an extra piece of literature. Would you like to be part of OM if we no longer encourage people to give out Christian literature? Would you have enough discernment to think that maybe something was going wrong? Because God is using literature. We didn't print a million tracts for Love Europe just to keep an old wives tradition. We believe in Christian literature. But I must confess that I have failed many times this year to go the extra mile. I don't believe our only problem among God's people and in this very active movement is just too much activism and too much running and too much commitment. I believe if we were gut level honest, many of us would acknowledge that we wrestle with laziness. I wrestle with laziness and I can give the image of being the total work committed person because there's very many, many forms of laziness. And I just beseech you as we have that example in Jesus Christ to go the extra mile for the unconverted. You're winning a person to Jesus Christ and we don't want false motivation to come in. But if a person gets saved as a result of it, you know, it's a difficult one. But I will tell you what is going to help train up that new level of leaders. It's when they see reality in you. They see you reaching people for Jesus Christ. Not a total answer. Not a simple answer. We're all different. But I believe as Odwell J. Smith emphasized in one of his books, if you want to disciple someone, if you want to train someone, you want to see someone turn on for God permanently, take them with you. Don't just teach them. Don't just talk with them. Don't just counsel them. That's all important. I believe in it. Take them with you. Let them see you talking to unconverted people to Jesus Christ. Somebody wrote me a complimentary letter a couple of days ago and the funniest thing that they were impressed with, it was in Newport, they were impressed with the way I related to the local people in the dock area of Newport. I didn't do anything there. I said hello to a couple of Indians in the street. I just treated them. There's a lot of Indians in that area. I went down to the Indian area. I told a few of the English people that there are people over there and they're really nice, wonderful people. You ought to go visit them. I talked to one. I didn't do anything. I didn't lead anybody to Christ. There's a Christian leader. The great impact that I made in Newport as he saw the way I handled the Indians and the local people. God, are we in such bad shape that a character like me can come along, do nothing, and make an impact for God? What condition has the church gotten into? Some of us in our desire to speak well of the local church and to demonstrate our commitment to the local church are unwilling to speak about the mess it sometimes is in. It's difficult. It's better it comes from them, isn't it? It is awesome when you take a survey as I did in a very live church just recently and I said, how many of you people are praying for Turkey? We hear about it on the news. We in Britain are no longer ignoramuses. This is a new day. We're coming into Europe in 1992. And I said, how many of you people are praying for Turkey? Not hardly a hand. When I repeated it again, I figured they didn't understand the accent. How many are praying for the land of Turkey? These are spirit-baptized people. These are people flowing in the gifts. These are people moving in power. How many of you people are praying for Turkey? This is Acts 1.8 stuff. These shall be my witnesses. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. Turkey is right there. You write it in your edition. Hardly a single hand comes up. Now the difference between your temperament and my temperament is that you can see that it doesn't bother you that much. Right? It doesn't bother some of you that much. You're so phlegmatic some of your wife has to kick you to get you out of bed in the morning, right? But I tell you, my kind of temperament, I roar. I roar! That's why I love Compolo. I don't care what Compolo says. He can spit. I love Compolo! Because whenever I speak after Compolo, I feel that I am one of the most loving, tender, sensitive speakers that has ever ministered. The extra mile. You make a list. You make a list. Maybe after you read the Sermon on the Mount, how can I go the extra mile? I don't need to say anymore. The hour is late. You make your own list. My wife has gone the extra mile with me, I'll tell you. And I'm not boasting of it. I am ashamed of some of my behavior in the home. And I just thank God that again and again she has gone the extra mile. I must not presume on that. I think she would say I've at times gone the extra mile as well. That's what marriage is made of. If one is only going the extra mile, it won't work. She will get a reward in heaven, but the marriage will break. Got to both be going the extra mile. Those tough situations, the misunderstandings. You don't want to talk, but she wants to talk. Talk! You want to read a book, she wants to take a walk and buy some roses. Roses! And it is true. It is definitely true that in Christian work, generally the women are getting the tougher end of the stick. Do you know that expression? And my heart goes out to many women, married and single, in our work, who somehow, we used to say, are getting a raw deal. That's too strong. But they do. They don't get the recognition. They don't get the attention. Their gifts are not recognized enough. They get misunderstood. They get criticized when they shouldn't be criticized. I know there are plenty of exceptions. We are, and tend to be, a male-dominated movement. Isn't it interesting? Everybody is crying for more men for the mission field. OM, up to a few years ago, was one of the few missions with more men than women, and now we're in trouble for it. It's going to take us five years to catch up, at least, in terms of bringing the women more into the heart. And what Ann said is absolutely true, but what Mei Wei said is also true. Some were satisfied. There are all different temperaments. There are all kinds of women. Some were satisfied, and they stayed, and they forgave, but some left. I don't mind if they leave, but if they leave hurt and tromped on and other things, then that's less than the best. And I believe we should go the extra mile men with our women. Not only our wives, the women who work with us, the women who type those letters, the women who lead the team, whatever. Well, let's pray. That's enough. Lord, you know that I'm a man of many exhortations, but I believe, I follow your word because sometimes in one chapter like Romans 12, there's 20 major exhortations, all of which can be such a heavy punch. And Lord, take any verver straw, any verver straw from this message and just let us burn it in our minds. But if there is wheat from what I have said, and from this great passage, surely it is all wheat, the passage, then we want to receive that. And we want to go the extra mile in our work, in our love, with one another, even in this room, in believing the best, in making greater efforts to understand people. We think of so many scriptures about letting love cover, about esteeming others better than ourself. Oh, Lord, you know, you know our hearts, you know our failures. And we're not going to get in to perfectionism, Lord, you know, that's not our thing. We're into repentance, we're into your precious blood, we're into mercy, we're into grace, we're into growth, we're into power, Lord, the power to change us and make us slowly more and more like your Son, Jesus Christ. And Lord, I know if there's hope yet for me, then there's hope for all of us in this room. In our inadequacies, in our failures, the sins of the tongue, the sins of the eyes, the sins sometimes of our feet, we go places we shouldn't go. And we just thank you that again and again in these September conferences, August conferences, again and again these 29 years you've broken through, you've broken down barriers. Lord, we have all of our co-workers who have put so much time and so much effort into the work. We have them all coming here in a few days to the general council. And we know we've got to be going to some of these people, we've got to be apologizing to some of them. We've got to be asking forgiveness, we've got to be reaching out, we've got to be going the extra mile, we've got to be better listeners, we've got to spend more time with some of them. And yet at the same time, Lord, you know sometimes we've got to say hard things to people. We've got to have discipline in this work. Sometimes we have to encourage people to leave for one reason or the other. But we thank God it hasn't happened that much. Lord, we think of struggled souls like that one brother who ran out of the tent, grabbed me by the neck after the message because he was so hurting and so angry having been turned down for a particular country. And we thank you that by your mercy and grace you defused his anger and his confusion and his bitterness and hurt and caused him to recommit himself to you though we know it will be a life struggle for this dear brother who we do love but who we do not believe necessarily has a place in Operation Mobilization on frontline spiritual invasion. We thank you for our wives, we thank you for the single women. Lord, who oftentimes have gone the extra mile with us and sometimes, Lord, by force in a sense and that's not your way. And Lord, we would take hold of this great sermon on the mount and we would say, Lord, make it real in us. Forgive me if I've gone too long and enable those who wanted to leave earlier to go the extra mile but God, I believe we need, we need this message in our movement, in our lives, on every level. We're not going to pioneer hundreds of millions of orthodox Hindus where there is barely a church among them multiplying. We're not going to penetrate Saudi Arabia and Sudan and Turkey and all of North Africa which is just so overwhelming even to think about places like Libya. We're not going to do it unless we're willing for extra mile Christianity. Sermon on the mount, Christianity, so that we can keep our own act together at the Quinta, so that we can keep our act together in Bromley, so we can keep it together in love in Mossbach and in Soventon and in the CAO and in the garage and down in Bombay or over in Cyprus so we don't bite and devour one another slowly, subtly, falling into the devil's trickery. Oh God we pray, move upon our movement in these days. Show those who should stay and those who should go and don't let any of us leave this calling you have given us without that word from above. That's what brought us in we believe oh God and only that should take us out. That we won't leave because we're hurt or because we're giving up or because we feel we're not appreciated or not respected or not honored or whatever. That is all there is of this recording.