In this sermon, the speaker discusses the concept of running a race as a metaphor for the Christian life. He references Hebrews 12 and 1 Corinthians 9, where the apostle Paul talks about the importance of discipline and self-control in order to avoid being disqualified. The speaker expresses concern that many Christians are not fully committed to their faith and are playing games instead of living out the kind of commitment seen in the book of Acts. He also mentions the need for spiritual balance and the importance of Christian literature in the church.

I'm very grateful to Buzz and Youth for Christ, but firstly to the Lord for this opportunity to be here. One of my deepest convictions, I mean this with all my heart, is that as different fellowships, different organizations and movements here in Britain, we may be able to move together in God's great purposes. We're not all the same, we're not all doing the same thing, but we have one Lord. How my heart was touched last night for the ministry, and I hope we'll not forget that which we've heard, especially when I think of what God is doing here in Britain. I've actually felt this for a number of years. It's one of the reasons, in a very strange way, it's not time to tell that tonight. God very clearly, 18 years ago, made this country my home. I've never been back to my own country except to speak for a few weeks. And it was with that conviction that God was going to do something very great in this country. He has been down through history, and it's just exciting, just exciting to be a part of it. Ever since my conversion, I've been accused of being a fanatic, not a very interesting cloud to live under. In the last five years, I've been preaching about spiritual balance, I guess trying to get away from my image of being a fanatic. I don't think that's the reason, actually. But I am very, very strong on this subject of spiritual balance, and we've been seeing that in the life of Jesus, in our seminar on Jesus. My daughter came to me the other day, and she felt I was getting extreme on the area of balance. And I come with a heart very, very full. I've just arrived back from Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, a few other places. Traveled by van, thought we'd never make it. We had three punctures before we got out of Germany. My heart is so full. I'm known as a fanatic about literature. I've written a book on literature, an absolutely dead book. It doesn't sell. You have to give them away every time we get stuck with the edition. Because the fact of the matter is the church does not have a vision for Christian literature to any great degree. A few of these men do. And I've cut my book review by 80% because I know they're talking to you about books all the time. But I hope you will visit the book tables, not just to get something for yourself, praise God, that's good, but to think in terms of perhaps giving books to others. You may not be a great communicator, but as you give books away, loan them, lose them. I just put a book about a famous converted political leader, Howard Hughes, Senator Harold Hughes, in the library in Bromley, where I live. They sent me a letter of appreciation. Imagine if everybody here put a few books of Christian testimony in the library next to a lot of the liberal teaching and other books that are in the libraries. What a ministry that could be. I want you to turn with me now in your Bible to a number of scriptures. We're going to be asking some serious questions. It really excites me when I see people taking notes. If you look in the seminar book and you turn to my notes, you will find them very easy to memorize. Don't do it tonight. But there is a page actually that you can write on if you don't have some blank paper with you. And I would like to also engage in operation feedback. I was too afraid to do this last week, but George Whitfield used to do this. When people were preaching, when he was preaching, he would ask people to send up notes to him in the pulpit about what God was doing in their hearts. He's probably the greatest British preacher of all time. Used as greatly as Wesson. Incredible. Now, I don't want you to hand your notes to me up here for a number of reasons. I once had a note that said, your time is up, please sit down. I'll probably get one of those from Clyde. But you keep your notes and send them to me later on or turn them in at the OM literature table where you can pick up a lot of free literature. But if there's anything you want to ask, anything you want to say, I won't be able to get to it all this week. Just feel free to communicate. I actually can say this honestly, prefer small meetings. In Turkey, I spoke to almost all the believers in the capital city of Ankara. I would have preferred that to be a little bigger. There were only five Turks in the whole meeting. So I'm a little overwhelmed here, but I would like to have some communication. And so feel free to communicate any question, any burden. Now, if we can get to that scripture in the book of Hebrews, sorry to leave you there halfway. Chapter 11 tells us about faith. If you can read that chapter on your own, you will be greatly stirred. Remember, even as we hear the word of God tonight, if we don't mix it with faith and it's true all day, it says that earlier in Hebrews, if the word preached is not mixed with faith, it will be a little value. That's why I so believe in the ministry of counseling and pray that you will seek help and counsel. If you have a spiritual question or you want to make a commitment, there are people that want to help. That's not the total answer, but it could be part of the answers. One of the young men who shared with me recently some very heavy things said he had never talked to anybody in his life about this. I don't believe that's God's way as Christians to go around with things bothering us, eating away at our conscience, making us feel guilty. We've never talked to anybody ever about it. I would have been wiped out years ago as a very weak, struggling Christian if I hadn't learned something of opening up. And I'm scared because I know that keeping things in also can create about 50 different psychosomatic illnesses. It's just not healthy, it's just not sensible, and it's not God's way. The word of God says, confess your faults one to another, pray for one another that ye may be healed. And we're the introspective, bottled-up generation. And I pray that many, even among ourselves, will be sharing and praying for one another, and there'll be a flood of spontaneous fellowship right across this great camp. The word preached must be mixed with faith. Faith will demand action. Faith will demand decision. And I believe we're in a divine moment tonight. Last night, God was speaking especially to leaders. Tonight, I believe God very strongly wants to speak to just, ordinary, nobodies, especially some who may be very young in the faith, and you may be just struggling along, bound up with doubt, in some bondage, gripped by some problem, or whatever else. And God wants to bless you. Those whom He loves, He chastens. If you feel the chastening hand of God tonight, it's because He loves you. And if you're never chastened, if there's never any correcting ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life, it's because you may not be yet His child. Then you better really, really be scared. So in Hebrews 11, we have this great message of faith. And then we get to Hebrews 12, and I want us to read starting at verse 1. What a wonderful thing to hear those pages of the Bible. Let me see the Bible. I learned this from Buck Singh in India. He planted about 400 churches, by the way, slight anointing. Raise your, uh, raise your Bible. Where are the Bibles? Hallelujah. Now let's try something else. You got a bit puffed up on that. How many of you have not read yet, you love the Word of God, you love Jesus, and you believe it's God's Word, but somehow, you know, television, other books, Little Orphan Annie, Bionic Man. How many somehow have not yet read the Bible once? Let's be honest, there may be a few. Never read the Bible once. Raise your hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're honest. About 75% of you. You know, it was a blessing last week. People came up to me and they said God's spoken to them about reading the whole Bible through this year. We did it as a youth fellowship years ago. As a group, we did it individually as well. It only took us 66 hours. You just read it non-stop in the church. 66 hours, 70, something like that. It's so funny that the local people thought this was so strange in this pagan community and made front page and got on the Associated Press, went all over the world. Youth group reads Bible, you know, big thing. Let's read the Word of God. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed or surrounded about with so great a cloud of witnesses, you read about those in Hebrews 11, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, hinder us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and his set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. We read more and I hope you will read more from Genesis right through Revelation. I want to ask you a number of questions tonight. I think it's good to take spiritual inventory. It's Wednesday night, the middle of the week, and I feel these are some of the most important questions you can ever ask. I wrote them down this morning in my Bible. I may not get to all of them. And you can write them down, and you can before you go to sleep tonight, and there may be some tonight that right from this tent you'll just want to get alone with God, and not just be caught up with more activity. Others, God will lead you into activity. But oh, what a need there is as we're here receiving much, receiving much, to have times alone with God. There may be some that may want to try to get to sleep early, and try to get up early and get out on that beach, not necessarily to run. That's not my main burden, but to seek the Lord. I believe these are days when God wants us to seek his face. The key to revival found way back there in 2 Chronicles 7-14. If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked way, then I will hear from heaven and heal their land. Beloved, in our Christian life there will be no gain without pain. There will be no revival in Britain without a paying of the price upon our knees and upon seeking his face. Let's ask some serious questions. First of all, I want to ask you, are you in God's race? I had a rush to get back to England for a leadership conference a week or two weeks ago. Drove almost non-stop from southern Italy to London. The amazing thing is when I got to London, one of the first things I read about was the London Marathon, which they're expecting to become one of the great sporting events or athletic events in the future. Somehow, in an unexpected way, 4,300 came and finished the race. 26 miles. We had a very interesting group jogging this morning. Most of them, after the first 400 yards, started popping in non-stop. I hope you won't give up. It was a very low-profile effort. Another brother went jogging up the mountain, so we got quite a variety. 26 miles. There was a picture of one elderly gentleman in his 60s crossing the finish line. And on that same day that I read that article, the main thing that everybody in Britain was thinking about was the great horse race that was going on that day. And if they weren't thinking about that, then they were probably down at the Thames watching Oxford beat Cambridge again in rowing. And I was sitting on the tube late at night, and there was obviously a Cambridge fan on the tube, and I asked him who won, you know, Oxford. And he said, well, I said, well, you know, what happened? He said, well, I'll tell you how they did it. I said, well, how? He said, they import Americans. Hallelujah, there's still some hope in the race. They also had a woman calling as Cox Wayne, so maybe that was the secret. But it's interesting to watch racing, to watch the Olympics. And if you think this is irrelevant, you obviously haven't studied your New Testament, because not only here in Hebrews 12 do we have the picture of a Christian as a runner, but also Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 says, I so run. And he goes on to say, and I believe it's the missing link in many Christian lives, and I believe it's the reason that many of God's people, instead of being his chosen people, are his frozen people, is because they don't know the secret of what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians chapter 9. Do you know it? Paul said, I buffet my body, discipline. I buffet my body and bring it into control, bring it into subjection, lest after preaching to others I become a castaway, disqualified. Beloved, the Bible teaches, not me, you can forget me, the Bible teaches that we are in an intensive race. I say this with fear, lest it will be misunderstood, but I pray that you'll at least think about it. I'm really convinced that few of us, I don't care whether you're from a house group or a cathedral, whether you're with OM or who you're with, I feel that few of us know the kind of commitment we read about in the book of Acts. And it burdens me day and night. I feel that many of us are just playing games. And I feel even many of my friends and co-workers as Christian leaders, many of them have been deceived into a commitment, into a commitment that is less than what God would have. And we have neglected whole basic emphases in the New Testament, like the warfare, discipline, buffeting the body, and such things as when Paul wrote to Timothy and said, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. This is why, though the church is growing, and it is, the number of missionaries from Britain is decreasing, because somehow the thought of going to a strange country and eating strange food, and maybe not having the things we're accustomed to, does not appeal to most people. It does maybe appeal to a few, and they have to experience much of crucifixion, lest they do it in the energy of the flesh. Tozer said, and I hope you'll read his books, that we have measured ourselves by ourselves for so long, there are no longer higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit. And for 25 years I've gone from nation to nation, looking for examples, looking for men I could pattern my life after, looking for men who I could learn to pray from, looking to men who had more love, more zeal, more compassion, more reality, who were living examples of what I see in Paul, and in Jesus, and in Timothy, and what I read about in books like Hudson Taylor, and George Mueller, and others, who I don't believe are fairy tales. And I found few. I found few. I can tell you, praise be to the living God, I have found some. And some I'm not worthy to tie their shoelaces. And don't misunderstand what I'm saying, because I can assure you, no matter how committed a man is, no matter how zealous, no matter how much he knows of total commitment, no matter how much he is in that race, he's still an earthen vessel. He still will have his weaknesses and his failures. And that's where God had to break me, and God had to humble me, and God had to show me I was looking at times for things that didn't even exist. And I went back to the Word, and developed, I hope, a little bit of spiritual balance. But you see, if you're not committed, if you're not really in the race, if you've never really presented your body as a living sacrifice unto God, there's nothing to balance. Balance is not a position of compromise, not a matter of sacrificing the basic truths. No, it's a matter of taking the often extreme strong statements of the New Testament and letting one statement balance off the other. Love and truth. Zeal and wisdom. Freedom and order. Love and truth. Zeal and wisdom. Freedom and order. And there's a hundred areas where we can find that one truth will balance out another truth. The Concorde, the fastest airplane in the world, is a perfect example of balance. And if you're more balanced, you can go faster for God. So it's not a matter of compromise. But if you don't even have that basic commitment, if you're not really filled with God's Spirit and moving forward as a soldier in the battle, well, it's nothing to balance. It's like having two wings out in Heathrow Airport, and no main fuselage of the airplane. Can you imagine? It would be a strange sight for airline spotters to see two wings going down the runway. There's got to be the body. There's got to be in your life that commitment, that abandonment to God. And then God can bring in the balance. I remember when I was ministering in the Netherlands with Brother Andrew. Some of you know Brother Andrew, God's smuggler. Tonight you've got Brother George, God's bungler, and that's no joke. I went into the Soviet Union. One of the first things I ever did in Europe, got arrested by the Soviet secret police due to my own stupidity and accused of being a spy. It wasn't very exciting. So God uses even mistakes. But Brother Andrew gave, oh, we met together for tea and he asked me if I gave an invitation at the meeting. And I said that I hadn't. I said, well, you, you can do that. He said he thought he would because he discovered that it was easier to cool down a fanatic than warm up a corpse. I don't know. I don't know your churches. Maybe the greatest problem in your church is too much enthusiasm. Too many people just getting excited about Jesus, running out, witnessing all over the place, disturbing the neighbors. A.W. Tozer said this. He said to think that too much enthusiasm was the greatest problem in the average church was like sending a squadron of policemen to a local cemetery to guard against the demonstration by the residents at midnight. You don't like that. You can take it up with Tozer when you get to heaven. Oh, how we need that God given enthusiasm. I was reading just a few moments ago, a little bit in this book on the subject of zeal. William McDonald says that's the one thing we are without excuse for not having. You don't need a theological education to have zeal. All you need is to be born again. And that leads me to another question. I've, I wrote it down and I don't want to forget to ask it. Are you really a child of God? We have to step back a little bit because you don't enter God's race by your own efforts. You don't enter God's race by baptism or church going or being good to grandmothers or taking little children to school on whatever day they go these days. But by faith in Jesus Christ and I sense there may be some that have never even begun the race in terms of being born again. Perhaps I could just briefly share my own testimony because someone may be able to relate to this. I at 16 would not have understood anything about this kind of gathering. I would have considered it complete fanaticism. This was not my side of life. My grandfather from the Netherlands was an atheist. My other grandfather from Glasgow, Scotland was a drunk. My father came over from the Netherlands to find a good life. And we were not finding that so well because the Bible says he who commits sin becomes a slave to sin. And when you live near New York city, as I did at 16, things get very heavy. I don't want to go into the details. But one woman began to pray for me. She'd been praying for the school that I was attending for 15 years. Not only that God would save people, but that God would send them. That school, that ungodly secondary school, became the first birthplace. London became the second in a sense of Operation Mobilization. It wasn't called that back then. One woman who believed in prayer. I will tell you if she was here, even though she's very, very old now, she would be in every single prayer meeting going on around this place. She went for prayer meetings like ducks go to water. Prayer is, as Mr. Vendoran of Caponry once said, I think it's the title of his book, the Christian's vital breath. No wonder so many of God's people are anemic. And that woman prayed for me for three years. She sent me a portion of God's Word, a Gospel of John through the post. And I read it over a period of two years, three years approximately. And every year I got worse. My conduct was so bad I was blacklisted by the teachers of the school. I was arrested by the police for housebreaking and stealing and a few other things that should have discouraged her completely. But she kept praying. And then Billy Graham came to New York City one night. I didn't know what that was either. I didn't even know what an evangelist was. I was a little bit into pornography. I went to pick up some once and there was a magazine about Billy Graham right next to it. I saw he played sports and he had a wife. I figured he wasn't totally crazy. I figured I'd go in and see what he had to say. And there in that huge place, a little bit similar to this, with my doubts, with my questions, I even had my binoculars because I heard he was a hypnotist. I heard the simple Gospel. Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin. And I was convicted of the Holy Spirit. And I went forward for counseling and I repented of my sin and trusted Christ as my Savior. And I can tell you, this is not an exaggeration. It has been real every day ever since. And if there's anyone within the sound of my voice tonight that's not yet made that commitment to Christ to trust Him as your Savior, I pray that you may make your way to that counseling room and someone can show you how tonight you can know the peace and the forgiveness and the joy of salvation. It's real, beloved. Oh, it hasn't been an easy road for me. I had many questions, especially God's people. Any of you ever had this problem? Everything was going right until you got more and more involved with God's people, God's peculiar people. You haven't met me yet. You know, if there's anyone here tonight that I turn off, you know, we Americans, I've been 18 years trying to learn English. You can see I failed. We live with a total inferiority feeling when we're in Britain. And we know the moment we open our mouths, I preach in Christian unions almost every other week, if it's an evangelistic meeting, the moment I open my mouth, they find out I'm American, they're switched off. Look, if you're switched off by anything I've said, be encouraged because when I listen to my tapes, it really switches me off. And I am glad for cassette recorders with automatic quick stops. But I will tell you, though, maybe something I say or someone else says switches you off. God can switch you on. We are weak. We are human. We fail. We do turn people off at times. I remember witnessing to a hippie up in Kathmandu. I think he was a little high and I was going strong. Oh, I was using all my apologetics. Dr. Francis Schaefer, F.F. Bruce, you know, boy, I thought he's going to come to Christ any minute. I'm crying to God in the name of the Lord, in the name of the Lord. He looked at me. He said, buddy, I don't read your vibrations. I didn't want to ever witness again. You know, failure is often the backdoor to success. And those of us who are so-called Christian leaders, we're not always bounding over the wall in some kind of gospel van. I remember once giving out tracts in the street of Thailand. I really wanted to be home, drinking a Coca-Cola, having a milkshake. Oh, the great day that McDonald's came to England. Thank you, Lord. Oh, I'm sorry about that. I don't get paid for that. But I was dreaming about hamburgers and milkshakes. And here I was standing in the streets of Thailand, giving out tracts. I've always had trouble with my nose. That's why I don't turn sideways. I don't like these people sitting over here. And they have an expression in Thailand. If they don't like a foreigner, they call them because their noses are so, you know, so streamlined, these nice noses. They think ours are like Pike's Peak, sort of a Snowden on the face. And here, as I was giving out tracts, a man came up to me. And instead of taking the tracts, he reached out and he stroked my nose. Oh, if I ever had a missionary call and I never had a call, God just saw me, knew what a full-headed character I was and gave me a kick. And I've been going ever since. But I think if I ever had one, I would have lost it there. But failure is often the backdoor to success. And if there's any of you, you have doubts, you have fears, you have questions, would you at least seek some counsel? Would you open God's word in a fresh way and let the Lord Jesus work in your life? But just a couple of other questions I want to ask before we go, and we're going to keep to our time tonight. And that's this. I think I heard Clive's explanation after David Pawson's message, and I agree with it 100% because I have the opportunity to come back in two days' time, just about the time you're getting relaxed and you're ready. I'll be back. But I want to ask, just in closing, a couple of other very serious questions. And that is simply this. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? How in the world can we ever even think of evangelizing Britain or the world unless we know we are filled with the Holy Spirit? Oh, I listened to A.W. Tozer on this. He hit me very hard. You need to know, he says, you need to know you have been filled with the Spirit. Some speak about a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some speak in other terms. I'm not going to argue about that tonight. I think of what Billy Graham says. He said, I don't care how you get it, just get it. Just get it. And it won't hurt you to get on your face and pray for 20 minutes tonight to make sure that you're filled with the Spirit of God. Acts 4.31, after Pentecost, some of the same people who were at Pentecost were praying and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And they went forth and spoke the Word of God with boldness. You cannot explain the book of Acts without understanding that doctrine. It's not just some spectacular event that happens to a few certain people who need to preach. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is a very down-to-earth thing. It's a very practical thing. God works in different ways in different people. Some are more emotional than others. But you must know if you're going to walk with God, if you're going to run in God's grace, you must know God's power. Ephesians 5, be ye filled with the Holy Spirit. In Hebrews chapter 13, you'll find another verse that should warm your heart. Because in that chapter, it says, our God is a consuming fire. Have you ever heard anyone preach on that text? Our God is a consuming fire. And I want to ask you this other question. Are you on fire for Christ? Isn't that the will of God? It doesn't mean you'll necessarily be loud like me. Some of the most consistent on fire people I know, they don't preach. They live and their light burns. There was once a man who went, joined the Salvation Army, became one of the greatest soul winners of all times. He wrote a book called Resurrection, Life and Power. And in that book, he gave a definition of fire. Let me give it to you. What is fire? It is love. It is faith. It is hope. It's passion, purpose, determination. It's utter devotion. It's a divine discontent with formality, ceremonialism, lukewarmness, indifference, sham, noise, parade, and spiritual death. It is singleness of eye and a consecration unto death. It is God the Holy Ghost burning in and through a humble, holy, faithful man or woman. Are you that man? Are you that woman? And then I want to ask you, is Jesus Christ Lord of your life? Lord of your money? Lord of your time? How I praise God for the emphasis that's come across here on a simple lifestyle. To me, that's so basic in our day. Not that we're all going to be the same. Not that we run around judging people whose God may have prospered in a special way for a special purpose. But that we may become a little more like the Lord Jesus. Is he Lord of your life? A constitutional monarchy may well, well, well work for the British government. We all pray for the Queen. I remember when I came across on the Queen Elizabeth, first time I went to an Anglican service, heard them pray for the Queen. She's number one, but she has no power. The power is in the hands of the Prime Minister and other ministers. That's all right for your government, but it's not for your Christian life. Jesus wants to be King, absolute Lord, absolute monarch in your life. Have you made him King or is Prime Minister self somehow still running your life? If you're really honest and all that's in these days, Prime Minister self and some of his other departments, the department of jealousy, the department of social affairs, the department of greed, that somehow these departments and Prime Minister self may be dethroned and Christ may be made Lord, Lord of our lives. Have you ever done that? Are you still doing it? I believe this is God's word for us tonight. I share this as someone who has failed oftentimes in the midst of the race. Yeah, even fallen flat on my face. And I know one thing that whether I'm running full speed, winning men to Christ and praising him, or somehow I've fallen flat on my face. And usually with me, it's either lust of the eyes or my big tongue that somehow for a few moments gets me down. I know that at that moment he still loves me. If somehow there's someone here tonight, you've been in the race, you've known what it's been to run for Jesus, to experience the exhilaration and the joy of being in God's way and in God's work. And yet somehow tonight you're down, maybe lust, maybe pride, maybe bitterness has got in, maybe fear. Somehow you're down all to just realize he's reaching out and he's saying, come and run again with me. Lay aside every weight, fix your eyes on your Lord, allow him to fill you with the Holy Spirit. And believe me, you will be running not some little dinky 26 mile marathon, but a full total life, thousands of spiritual miles for Jesus. And the joy of that, which I've only known 26 years, it's not very much. Talked to my friend on the phone, Oswald J. Smith, 90 years of age, still running, still praising God. I almost wept. Man came up to me in South Africa. He gave me some sweets. He thought I was a little boy. He was a hundred. Personal friend of George Mueller, patted me on the head, run along, sonny. A hundred years of age, still running the race. Oh, beloved, may this can't be filled with men and women who in these days put their hands on the plow, allow God to fill them afresh with the Holy Spirit, meet Jesus Christ Lord, and never, never will all hell resist us. Turn back from our savior who we love. Let us pray. Let's have just a moment of silent prayer, searching our hearts, asking those questions. Are you in the race? Are you really his child? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you made Jesus the Lord of your life so that you'll go anywhere, anytime, whatever the cost, by his grace, by his power. Are you on fire for Christ? If you're not, would you confess? Would you come to the cross and say, Lord Jesus, forgive me, lukewarmness, pride, playing around. One more even jellyfish floating downstream. May God give us a backbone by the power of his Holy Spirit before it's too late. Would you just spend a moment in silent, quiet confession, commitment, prayer to the living God. God who loves you with an everlasting love. Let's pray silently. Just pour it out, pour it out. Oh Lord Jesus, I can't pray for others in a full extent, but I know that I must pray for myself. Fill me afresh, oh God, with your Holy Spirit. That I may not be found just playing around. That I may not be found speaking things that I'm not living and experiencing. Lord, I seek your cross tonight.