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No Giants in the Muslim World
George Verwer

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of not removing the supernatural from the gospel. He criticizes the mistake made by some churches in the past of trying to take out the supernatural elements of the gospel. He argues that the gospel cannot be separated from the supernatural and that it is necessary for the work of God to be done. The speaker also discusses the example of Jesus calling his disciples to follow him, highlighting the immediate response and obedience of Simon, Andrew, James, and John.
Sermon Transcription
We look into your scriptures and we thank you that you can reveal your word. We thank you for this message already given. Oh Lord, we just think of your grace to use weak people to touch lives. We are trusting you to open our eyes and fill us with faith. We may not be trapped in unbelief or think that you can only use someone else. We may see what you can do in our own lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. I want you to turn with me to the book of Numbers. The book of Numbers. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers chapter 13. Here we have the story of Moses sending the spies into the promised land. They come back and they give their report. And they said in verse 27, Surely it is a land that floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. So they knew this was the place. In a sense, they saw the challenge. They knew about the opportunity, about the abundance. Then they started to tell about the giants, about the problems. Verse 28. Nevertheless, the people are strong that dwell in the land. The cities are walled. Very great. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains. The Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the edge of the Jordan. And so they saw the enemies. They saw the problems. And this is what caused them to give a negative report, a fearful report. There was a man named Caleb. In verse 30 we see what he said. Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We are not able. We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land, which they had searched under the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers. And so we were in their sight. I feel in a very real way, this is so typical of the reaction of many of us. And I think during these days together we have to decide whether we're going to be as Caleb or whether we're going to be as these other men. There was just one other man who stood together with Caleb. His name was Joshua, who was destined to become the leader of God's people after Moses. And in chapter 14, verse 8, we have the testimony of Joshua, the son of Nun. Verse 8, I have difficulty sometimes believing that I am still existing in the spiritual warfare. When I look back over the past 25 years, I wonder where they have gone to. And yet when I look from a different perspective, and I think of the endless impossible situations in which we have found ourselves in this work, without the human resources, without the proper staff, with so many things against us, and yet again and again we've seen the walls of Jericho go down. It's so essential at this Orientation Conference that we allow our hearts to be filled with faith and filled with expectation. That we may go from here knowing that victory has already been won because of Calvary. That we may know that we go into Europe not on our own feeble resources, but we go forth in the name of the Lord of hosts, and that the God of Joshua and the God of Caleb is our God, and the God of Elijah is our God, and the God of Moses and Abraham, and everyone else. The danger, as we think of some of the problems that lie ahead of us, especially as we consider the Muslim world, is that we'll see the problems. We'll see the walled cities, the Meccas, the Istanbuls, the Ankaras, the Kabuls, the Tehrans. We'll see the walled cities, the impossible situations, and we'll become discouraged in our own souls. I believe one of the reasons God has raised up this feeble movement that we are a part of is because of His burden for the Muslim world. Way back in our earliest days, the earliest days, God gave us this conviction that we were to make the Muslim world one of our primary targets. And 20 years ago, 21 years ago, we started crying to God for Afghanistan. Perhaps for some of us, the first place we ever read about Afghanistan was in Oswald J. Smith's book, Passion for Souls. It was in the original introduction. And I'm not sure if it's there anymore, but I believe it is. It won't take time to find it, but I'm quite sure it is. When I looked at it recently, it just made a few changes. And God burdened us for Turkey. Some of you may wonder, how did Dale Roton, who pioneered the work in Turkey, get the spectacular vision to go there? I'll tell you how he got the vision. I gave it to him. I'm not saying that to boast. I'm saying that just to counter this concept that you need to have some kind of special revelation or vision to go to these places. Actually, Dale had no intention of going to that part of the world. He was involved with a whip of Bible translators. He went through their training. Then he got into the Brethren. And he was probably going to go out as a Brethren missionary, maybe to South America. He was interested in the tribes. And I went out to Wheaton. We had been separate for about two years. I was at Moody. He was at Wheaton. You know the situation in Wheaton. They always look down and nose at all of us poor Moody students. You know, Moody Bible Institute. They didn't even give degrees back then. We really went around inferiority complex. Now even the Bible Institutes give out degrees. They're not worth anything, but they give them out anyway. And so I went out to Wheaton. And I said, Dale, I want to have a time with you. I presented him with a tribe. I said, Dale, you got a vision for the tribes? I got a tribe. And I poured my heart out about Turkey. Thirty, I don't know how many million it was back then. Twenty-five or thirty million people. Almost no missionaries. Almost no Christian literature. And I said, Dale, is it fair that we go out to tribes that have a hundred thousand people and we beat our brains out to give them the Scriptures. And in the land of Turkey there are thirty million people. And they have a Bible. We found out later it wasn't hardly any good. It had to all be retranslated. They had a Bible and no one's giving it to them. What is the greater crime? What is the greater sin? And he never could answer that. Instead he went to Turkey. And God used him and others to pioneer the work there. I can't think of a tougher place on planet Earth than the land of Turkey. Except perhaps Afghanistan. Maybe Bulgaria. Maybe Mongolia. There are no known believers in Mongolia. There are hardly any known believers in Bulgaria. But Turkey certainly for any large-sized country is the most impossible place you can ever think of. For a Turk to become a believer, he's a traitor. It's not just a religious thing. It is a national thing. It's a cultural thing. It's a matter of heritage. It's a matter of everything. From my studies in the past twenty-four years, I can tell you that tribal work, and this in no way is to run down any work among the tribes. Some of the greatest Christian work in history has been done among the tribes. In a hundred years, perhaps the greatest need was to move among the tribes. And there's still need for work among the tribes. And the Whitfield translators still have languages they haven't broken down. And that must not be neglected. But I will tell you, today the need, the crisis is the Muslim world. The Turks. The Kurds. I don't have in my mind right tonight the number of Kurds. Millions and millions of Kurds in Iran, in Turkey, in northern Iraq. Almost no one working among the Kurds. Almost no scripture distribution among the Kurds. And we're dealing with millions of people. We don't seem to understand that when we're talking about the Muslim world, we can look at this map, we can look at Spain. I think you all know what Spain looked like. South of Spain, you have Morocco and Tunisia. The Muslim world, you'll be getting more about this in the days to come, spreads right across, right across North Africa, right down into the northern Sahara Strip, then across to Arabia, Egypt, Arabia, and all that area, up to Turkey. And across to Iran, Pakistan, 70 million approximately, most of them Muslims. Right across North India, 70 million Muslims in India. Right across Bangladesh, right down to Malaysia. I've just come from Malaysia, a land where you're not even allowed to witness to the Malay people. And then right on down through Indonesia. Unbelievable. One in every seven people in the world is a Muslim. Yet less than 2%, less than 2% of the missionaries in the world are working among Muslims. You would think, the very fact that OM is so committed to the Muslim world. We probably today have the largest single force of men working among the Muslim world, over 150. And more OM graduates than that working in the Muslim countries. You would think that we would almost be overwhelmed with invitations here in North America to go to the churches, to present the vision. We'd be overwhelmed with inquiries, with response to our prayer letters, with support. I want to tell you, if you want to get a case of depression, just get in the kind of work that I'm in, trying to stir God's people. You may think I have a gift to stir God's people. I will tell you. It is, it must be very small. Either that or they must be very hard. It's one thing to get people to shake your hand at the church door and say, that was a wonderful message. In the United States they usually always say it's the best message they ever heard. What they mean since last Sunday. But when it comes to positive, consistency, you know, real action, continued support, prayer, sending laborers, you know, that's what really counts. Forget it. People think that Urbana is a great proof of missionary activity in North America. One of the leading men who led Urbana years ago made the statement that though Urbana proves that there is an increased interest in missions, there is no proof that there is increase in real action to move out to the battle fronts and do the job. And I will tell you, a lot of people go to these conferences today to look for what they call in Sweden, maybe I better not use the expression, just to look for women or men. A lot of these events in America become big social events. And you go there and you find your wife. I'm not saying there's no missionary interest. And I'm 100,000% in favor of Urbana. Let's not be deceived. It's going to take more than conferences to get through the present day evangelical fog that is drowning us here in North America. And we're certainly not going to produce many people for the Muslim world. We need to go back to God's Word. We need to look at men like Caleb and Joshua. And we need to somehow embrace the cross and ask God to change us, to change us, to make us this kind of men of faith. And we need to start exercising faith. Do you know why many people are not here? We should have twice as many candidates for OM. Certainly twice as many from Canada. You know why? Because they have to believe God for money. Today you can serve Jesus Christ in America and you'll get a salary. You'll get a salary and you'll get bonuses. You get a free car if you stay in it. You get a free car, you get perks, you get expenses. And people come and they hear the OM Challenge, the Muslim world, go here, go there. They say, then they try to find out, you know, well, how much do I get? You know, I've got my school expenses, I've got problems, I've got debts, am I going to buy my girlfriend an engagement ring? You know, what's in it for me? And when they hear they've got to trust God for their own finance, forget it, you'll never hear from Him again. It's like this sea captain. He was really interested in Lagos and Doulos. He came for the interview. Oh, this sounds really great. He got to the big crunch question. What's the salary? He said, oh, well, our captains trust Jesus for their own finance. We never heard from the guy again. Can you imagine the impossible thing we are faced with, recruiting top-level professional men, chief engineers, captains, out of the merchant navy. We don't get these men in the Sunday school and telling them they've got to trust God for their own finance. Forget it. I'll tell you, if God doesn't move, you won't even sail a sailboat around your bathtub. But God moves. And the God of Caleb and the God of Joshua is alive tonight. Let's not look at the walled cities. Let's not look at the impossibilities of Islam. You know one of the greatest dangers concerning Muslim evangelism right now? Too much theory. We have this conference. We're going to discuss all the theories, the best way to do it. I'm not against this kind of thing. But we are big in the head and short on the feet. Someone wrote an article some time ago. I don't know if I can paraphrase it to you, but let me try. It's about a group of men that believed in fishing. They had read reports about lakes all over the world where there were tremendous numbers of fish. They had heard about the seas filled with fish, millions of fish. They'd read about it. They'd heard about it. Reports had come back. Fish were seen even jumping out of the water. So this group of men gathered together and they had a conference on fishing. And they were convinced that thousands should go out and fish. Time was ready. They gave lectures. They had seminars. They had panel discussions. They had films, slides. They had fish dramas. Then they had all kinds of different things to get people excited about fishing. And then they even started advanced schools. They had schools where they even gave doctor's degrees in physiology. And people came from all over the world to study in these advanced schools. Then they had a world congress on fishing. People were flown in from every part of the world. Men that knew, they knew everything about fish. They knew the right bait. They knew the fish colors. They knew what fish ate. They knew where they slept. They knew what they wore. Everything about fish. These men, as they had this great congress on fishing, they got more and more excited. They made a film strip about the congress on fishing. And they made big decisions and drew up covenants, pledging themselves to fish whatever the cost. Then this thing really spread. It spread around the world like wildfire. And people had national congresses in their own countries on fishing. And more and more people got excited about this. More and more programs were launched. Soon they started fishing clubs. It just spread across the world as people joined clubs. And they preached fishing and they taught fishing. There's only one problem. Nobody fished. Nobody fished. Books were produced. Everything. Then there were two fellows. They finally, you know, they got this challenge. They finally couldn't stand it anymore. They were a bit fanatic type. They grabbed their fishing poles and they went out to a nearby lake. They caught two fish. This one fellow came back, two fish. Everybody was thrilled. This was fantastic. They wouldn't let him return fishing. They said, No, you must go around the world and teach fishing. How you did it, testify about this. And they were considered the great experts on fishing. So they never fished again. And these two men were each made the presidents of two boards of directors for two new fishing organizations for the sending out of fishermen. And they did. They finally sent out fishermen. And when they arrived even to some of the lakes in far off places, so excited, they found some local people and they started to teach them how to fish. And they had more organizations for encouraging fishing. But they didn't fish. Of course, it's an exaggeration. Praise be of a living God. The church is not in that situation. But it certainly is a danger. It certainly is a tendency. This is one of the reasons on Wednesday, we're going out fishing. Even though we're going to do that the rest of the summer, we want to do it here. Because some of you aren't coming. And we don't want to be here for five days talking about winning people to Christ, world evangelism, cross-cultural evangelism and all kinds of other things and not get out in the streets of Toronto and fish. And we're praying some people may come to Christ in Toronto before we leave here. My heart is burdened. If you look in Mark chapter 1, you will see that Jesus Christ called those disciples out to be fishers of men. Perhaps some other night I'm going to speak on this, so I'll only touch on it right now. But let's just look at Mark chapter 1, how the Lord Jesus Christ dealt with men as He walked along the Sea of Galilee. And He saw Simon, verse 16, and Andrew, His brother, casting nets into the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come after Me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and they followed Him. Me? No application forms. No screening. No big discussion. Just like that, they left their jobs. I don't know about Canada, but in England today, where I'm a resident, and I love it, and one of my ministries is to encourage, especially Americans, to move to England. Canada's half like England, so you don't need to go. You can go on straight to India. But in England, there's a tendency today to tell the young people to stay in secular work. So-called full-time Christian work is belittled oftentimes, and there are different arguments people use to keep people from stepping out into what some people call full-time Christian work. And I can understand this because sometimes those of us in so-called full-time work, we've made mistakes, and we haven't really esteemed the laymen and the people back home as highly as we should. But believe me, if you look in the Word of God, you will see it is biblical for some people to leave their jobs. And if the world is going to be reached, some people need to leave their jobs. It's a matter of so much work to be done, so many hours needed. And this is what we see here in Mark chapter 1. Jesus spoke, they left their nets, they followed Christ. The same thing when He saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John. They were actually in the boat, mending their nets with their father. And Jesus spoke to them, straightway He called them, verse 20, they left their father, Zebedee, in the boat with hired servants, and they went after Him. Greg Livingston is speaking here tomorrow night, once wrote an article called, Parents, the Greatest Obstacle to World Evangelism. I have openly challenged my dear good friend, Bill Gothard, on this subject because I believe that Bill Gothard's teaching is very much related to the American culture. He's hardly ever been out of the United States in his life, despite my many invitations. And he lives in a very limited world. I've been through his seminars, I love him, I appreciate much of his teaching. He's only a human fallible being, let's never forget that, in this dear country where he has become the most popular Bible teacher in the entire history of North America. And I believe on this point, we make a mistake in this country. Because there are cases when if we are going to follow Christ to the regions beyond, we will have to even disobey what our parents are telling us, especially when we get older. When you're a teenager, I believe you're in submission to your parents. But as you become an adult, I believe there are cases when you have to obey God even more than your own parents. And I will tell you, many missionaries in past years would have never gone if that was not true. Now, basically, as Bill and I had a lot of discussion about this, he more or less agreed. There are some exceptions, but he sure narrows it down, because he says he hasn't known of many. I've also challenged him very strongly that the biblical place of world missions is not central enough in this teaching. And that he has a holy responsibility, when he stands before these huge crowds of young people, to give out a challenge of world vision and world missions. The great burden of God is not just to get you over your hang-ups. It becomes too introspective. And we have become a nation of introspective people who are running around in vicious circles from seminar and seminar, all trying to get perfect, all trying to get, you know, more balanced and more healed and more healthy. And some are becoming more nutty by the minute. And I believe God is wanting to take some of you with your hang-ups and kick you out to the regions beyond, because some hang-ups only get burned out in front-line service. So many young people are unwilling to consider the mission field because they feel they've got this weakness and that problem or this problem. What do you think missionaries are? Do you think they are people that don't have any hang-ups? Do you think the Apostle Paul? Do you think D.L. Moody? Do you think Hudson Taylor? Do you think William Carey? Do you think any of these men were without their hang-ups, their problems, their struggles, their mistakes? Do you think they were totally free from saying stupid things to their wives? You obviously haven't read any of the biographies. And praise God for this word tonight from our brother that indicates how God can use even weak, ordinary people in unusual ways. May we rise up and go. May we determine to be men as Caleb and as Joshua. We see the enemies, we see the problems, not only from without but from within. We see some of our own enemies, some of the giants in our own land. Some of you may have the giant of lust as I do. Some of you may have the giant of worry as I do. You may have the giant of fear as I do. You may have the giant of a bad temper as I do. You may have a few other giants. I hope you don't have more than I do. But let's not look at the giants, let's look at the Lord. And let's believe that as God has used feeble men for 2,000 years, so God can use us. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work to become more mature spiritually. Whenever O. Emmers return to the USA, we send him to Bill Godfrey's seminar. We want to get truth from every quarter. Praise the Lord for it. But we don't want to get stuck. We don't want to become theological eggheads or professional seminar attenders, always looking for more answers, always looking for the perfect solution to some little twitch that we may have. We're professionals in making mountains out of molehills in America and it's about time we launched out into the deep and learned to walk on the water. Somehow we almost want to liquidate faith. We want it all neatly packaged up and tied with a pink ribbon. The Christian life. It doesn't work that way. We've got to launch out. How much information did Simon and Andrew, James and John, have before they left their nets and followed the Lord Jesus Christ? How much information did they have? How many slideshows did they go to? How many seminars did they attend? Which seminary were they enrolling in? I believe we need more of this today. Perhaps in years gone by, and I read about one mission that was too much, in a sense, in this direction. They de-emphasized study and they just launched out prematurely. I am opposed to that. You may think that OM is a shortcut to Christian service. Those who are with OM can tell you our way to long-term Christian service is the longest road I know of. You may have three years of Bible college. You may have, on top of that, four years of seminary. When you join OM, we may put you on the electric washing machine in the kitchen. That happened. Last summer, a fellow came out of one of our top American seminaries. He was a lieutenant on an atomic submarine. He had a lot of training. He was a seminarian. He graduated. He went to Dulas. He was a Bible teacher. They gave him the automatic dishwasher for the whole summer. Amazing. And actually, he came on OM as a training program to prepare to go back into the pastorate in the States. And now, he's going back into that. Watchman Nee said it takes 10, 15, 20 years to make a man of God. I really believe that. I really believe that. And so, it's not a shortcut I'm talking to you about, but it's a combination of study, of getting the Word of God, and combining it with action, with faith, with believing God for the impossible. I know some of you are just shaking in your knees thinking about the money that you've got to trust God to supply. You're racking your brain trying to figure out what dear old auntie is going to leave you a hundred bucks in the next couple of days. And you're trying to figure out who's going to give you this money, even though it's supposed to be by faith. You're a human being, so your mind is grabbing off here and there. Forget it. Stop looking to auntie or uncle. And look to the Lord. Looking to man is that which often hinders us in a great exploit for God. Look to the Lord. He is able to provide. Don't look at the problems. Don't look at the enemy. Look to the Lord. We have so many examples in the Old Testament. One of the greatest mistakes of some of our fundamental churches fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and Tozu was the man that hit them so hard on the head they've never recovered, is they wanted to take out the supernatural from the Gospel. That's why some other groups have come along in North America and they have put the supernatural back into the Gospel. And maybe some people don't like some aspects of it, and this and that, and there's a lot of controversy. But, you know, you cannot have the Gospel without the supernatural. You can't say, well, this is only for the Book of Acts. You may not agree with every single thing on either side of some of these different controversies, but you cannot take the supernatural out of the Gospel. And if we go back to the early beginning days of most of the major movements today, the movement of the brethren, today a more reserved, conservative, Biblical movement, still very good in some places. But if they go back into their history, they'll discover it was a reckless movement. Men threw old fortunes to the wind. J.N. Darby, who in his latter years became a theological bloodhound and split the movement in a number of ways, in his early years he was an evangelist on fire for God, living on apples and bread as he crisscrossed France and won thousands of souls to Jesus Christ. And what do you say of the history of the Methodists? And what will you say of the history of most movements? We have a God who specializes in the supernatural. Yes, He works in the ordinary as well. And I often emphasize that. Think of Elijah. I often think of Elijah as someone perhaps planning to come on O.M. It would be rough if he came. And here he is up on Mount Carmel and he's going to call on God to bring fire down and ignite this altar. So what does he do? He throws water on it. I mean, no, this is not the best way to light fires. I learned how to light fires in Boy Scouts, even with flint and steel, but we never threw water on the little paper before we went to light the fire. And yet here Elijah puts water on the altar and then calls upon God so that it could be without any doubt that God did it. This is why we have some of our policies about believing God and about finance. Some of you may not understand it, but just read that story of Elijah. And we believe the God of Elijah is the God that is with us here tonight. And let's believe that there will be fire from heaven, first in our own hearts. I believe this is very important. It says in Hebrews that our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews chapter 12, the last verse, 29. Our God is a consuming fire. Isn't it the will of God that we be on fire for Christ? Is this for just a few sort of odd, spiritual et-ceteras or eccentrics? No, I believe it's the normal Christian life. I can testify as a weak, struggling brother in Christ that 25 years ago at my conversion, fire dropped into my heart. And it's never gone out. I don't believe everybody will burn the same way. Some wood burns fast. Some wood burns slow. Coal burns even slower. We're all different. I'm not asking you to burn like me. But just burn! You may be shy. You may be quiet. You may be phlegmatic. Whatever. Just burn! Our God is a consuming fire. And if there's no fire burning in your heart, you are in real trouble. Samuel Logan Bringle, one of the greatest soul winners of all times, following in the steps of William Booth. Booth was afraid of him. He didn't think Bringle would learn submission. He gave him a really hard time. But Bringle finally made it through the lines of the salvationist Philistines and became one of the great leaders of the Salvation Army. And here's what he said in his book Resurrection Life and Power. What is fire? What is fire? It is love. It is faith. It is hope. It is passion, purpose, determination. It is utter devotion. It is divine discontent with formality, ceremonialism, lukewarmness, indifference, sham, noise, parade, spiritual death. It's singleness of eye, consecration unto death. It is God, the Holy Ghost, burning in and through a humble, holy, faithful man. That's the will of God. Fire. Consuming fire. God's fire. Holy Ghost fire. And it's the only way His work will be accomplished. That's what Caleb had. That's what Joshua had. That's what Elijah had. That's what every great missionary who's ever burned the trail across this world has had. And we've got to get it. By crisis, by process. Because without it, we're just doomed to tread in our own humanistic treadmill. Our God is a consuming fire. Make sure it's burning in your heart, whether it's slow or fast. Let us pray. Our God and Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for men like Caleb and Joshua. Just reading of them excites our hearts to attempt great things for You. We know You have not called us to be nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible. We know You are a God of the supernatural. We're not looking for a circus, but we're hungry for reality. We're aware of the dangers, the extremes, the foolishness that the likes of us can easily get into. But we're also aware of the sleep of death, that unorthodoxy that can corrode our spiritual batteries and leave us as nothing more than an evangelical fossil. Oh, consuming fire. Oh, great God, burn, burn, burn in our hearts in these days to come, that we may never be the same. That we may know the reality of moving in the energy and the power of Your Holy Spirit. That we may love as we've never loved before. That we may take up our cross and follow You. That we may die to self and live for Christ. Open our eyes that we may see the wonders of Your Word. That we may keep our eyes on You. And as we consider the Muslim world, as we consider other impossibilities, that we may not be overwhelmed by the problems and the difficulties and the giants within and without. That we may be filled with faith, as we are well able to overcome. And we'll give You all the glory. And Lord, when we fail, we will bounce back. And when we hit a cul-de-sac, we'll go down and we'll find the right road. And we'll refuse every form of diabolical discouragement that can move in upon our soul. Because we are Your children, we are bought with a price. And we have the shield of faith, wherewith we can stop all the fiery darts of the evil one. And so, Lord, we are without excuse. Therefore, we shall be Your men and Your women. We shall, by Your grace, go where You want us to go and do what You want us to do. Bless mightily those who remain behind this summer, that they may pray like they've never prayed before. They may enter into the ministry of agonizing intercession to wrestle for the souls of men and the establishment of the beachhead of Your church in many lands around the world. Lord, we don't want to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. We'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. And we believe that can even be Toronto. Stir us, O God, that we may never be the same. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
No Giants in the Muslim World
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George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.