In this sermon, the speaker shares a strong and important message about global missions. He mentions that some of his team members from Operation Mobilization (O.M.) Germany are present and encourages the audience to meet them. The speaker also mentions his latest book on global missions and offers it at a special price. He emphasizes the importance of not being afraid to fail and shares his own experiences in ministry. The speaker concludes by mentioning the name change of his ministry from "Send the Light" to "Operation Mobilization" and expresses gratitude for the partnership with others in the ministry.

But God has put a very, very strong, important message on my heart for this time. I also had the joy of discovering that some of my OM German team members have joined us. And I hope you'll meet them in the exhibition area. And they just brought a very, very few books with them, including my latest book, the first book I've ever written about global missions. And I hope they're giving that to you at a very special price. If I had more copies, I would give them free, but I don't have enough copies. You can go into my website, georgeverward.com, and get the whole book free. georgeverward.com. Unfortunately, it's in English. This is a book I wrote 35 years ago. That brought me 25,000 personal letters. And I just thank God for the way he can use a book that, in my view, is not that great. And I find re-reading it rather difficult. Last night, I mentioned the book, Personal Revival, Calvary Road. I was thrilled that they had copies of these books. And they have some books also about the ship ministry. Perhaps the most important book they have is called, Serving as Senders. Because we discovered that the ministry of sending is just as important as the ministry of going. This is not an easy book, but it's an important book. I was one of those pressuring different people to put this into German. So I'm thrilled that they have that book available today. Turn with me now in your Bibles for our scripture reading for this morning in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians, chapter 12. And we pick up the scripture at about verse 6. Where Paul says, I have plenty to boast about. And we'll just read that through verse 10. We'll read 2 Corinthians 12, verses 6-10. These are truly radical revolutionary words. To say, for when I am weak, then I am strong. This seems like a wild contradiction. If you're weak, you're weak, and if you're strong, you're strong. How can we possibly say this? When I am weak, then I am strong. This has been one of the most important passages in my whole Christian life. Because I also was one of these persons with many weaknesses. Now, I don't know exactly what Paul is referring to when he talks about his thorn in the flesh. There's been many different commentaries about what that means. But one thing is clear. He prayed many times for it to be taken away, and it was never taken away. I prayed that for my struggle with pornography when I was a young Christian. And though I experienced great victory, the problem, the temptation, never went away. And here I am now as an old man. Certainly we should not have these problems anymore. I'm in God's work for 48 years. I've helped bring a few thousands of people to Christ. I'm in the Word and prayer every day. I know about the armor of God, the shield of faith. And every day, every hour, every moment of the day, I attempt to live out this reality that's in me through Jesus Christ. And I've experienced his strength in the midst of weakness. Victory in Jesus includes knowing what to do when you fail. And as young people, I pray you will not be afraid to fail. When I first came to Europe, I was living in Spain. My vision was very narrow. It did not include Germany. It did not include Great Britain. It was communist countries, Muslim countries, and closed countries. Which reminds me, it did include part of Germany. East Germany. And I was learning the Russian language in Madrid. And I was planning to go the next summer for a big Bible-smuggling expedition into the Soviet Union. And I shared this with my prayer partners, and people were praying. We went to Vienna, where I purchased a printing device in the Russian language to print up some gospel material. We had a brief tour, first of all, down to what was called Yugoslavia. We should have learned from that experience, because on the third day we got caught by the police and thrown out of the country. But we were a little bit slow to learn. In an amazing way, we got across the border into the Ukraine. We were really praising God. We had all this material hidden in cornflakes boxes and hidden in the walls of the car. I had learned how to type. I had a typewriter in the Cyrillic Russian alphabet. We had decided not to try to give anything out, even secretly. We were going to send it through the post, as we had been doing in Spain. And through the internal post within the country, we didn't think there'd be a problem. But I made a very big mistake. Some butter had melted on one of the Gospels of John. My friend who was with me said, let's get rid of that. Let's throw that away. He even suggested we flush the Gospel of John down the toilet. I thought, oh, how can we flush the Word of God down the toilet? God forbid. I have a better idea. Tomorrow, out on the highway, in the countryside where no one is looking, I'll just drop it out the window of the car. No one will see, and later on someone will pick it up, read it, and be saved. This was a completely stupid idea. Because we were already being followed by the KGB. They saw everything we did. And they saw the Gospel of John go out the window. And within ten miles, they had a major police roadblock. And that was the end of our Soviet expedition. And that was the end of our Soviet expedition. At first, they thought we were spies. And the Pravda newspaper had a main article, American spy caught in Rovno. Somehow, after two more days of interrogation, they decided we were religious fanatics. And took us back to the Austrian border with a submachine gun escort. Some of you have heard of my friend, Brother Andrew, who had so much success in this smuggling work. And this morning, he's known as God Smuggler. They call him God Smuggler. Brother Andrew, God Smuggler. I'm Brother George, God's bungler. Bungler means the guy that makes big mistakes. In God's providence and mercy, this led me to a day of prayer in Austria, in the mountains. And that failure turned out to be one of the greatest blessings in my life. I realized my vision was too narrow. And that I must include places like Britain and Germany. I needed to slow down. And to build up the number of people who were involved from Europe. This is the summer of 1961. Around the same time, God was raising up this ministry here. And we've had over 43 years of wonderful partnership. And I want to thank especially Brother Doyle and many others who have kept that partnership going. When at times, I'm sure we have failed. During that day of prayer, the name Operation Mobilization came to me for the first time. The name of our little group before that was called Send the Light. That was the old name. And the vision was to work with the church. And help mobilize especially the young people of the church. I then moved from Madrid, where things were very, very restricted, to London. And started traveling in Austria and Germany and Netherlands. And by the next summer, God gave us 200 people. The next summer, God gave us 2,000. Including people who spoke fluent Russian and could do a much better job. And within 10 years, that particular part of the work became the biggest operation in Eastern Europe, smuggling scriptures into the satellite countries. Millions and millions of pieces of literature were flooded out in all those countries, even way before the Iron Curtain ever came down. We were learning that God could overrule our failure. We were learning that we were called by grace. And that his strength was made perfect in weakness. I had many other weaknesses in my life. And I don't want to go into detail about that this morning. But as I look back over these many years, I'm amazed at the way God uses all kinds of people. And I hope that you will not be frightened by your own weaknesses and your own struggles. One verse often brings another verse into balance. And one of my books is on this subject, The Revolution of Love. Because I believe that biblical balance is essential for us to be long-distance marathon runners to God. And what a challenge we face. Paul wrote to Timothy, and he said, Be strong! Be strong! In the grace that is in Jesus Christ. It seems like a contradiction, but it is a paradox. And as Paul prayed for this thorn to be removed, and it did not happen, we have an enormous encouragement. The mystery, living with the mystery of unanswered prayer. No matter how many unanswered prayers you have, and you can send me an e-mail. After I preach, I just stand around talking and giving out my e-mail address. And if you learn how it works, you can actually get free books the rest of your life. But whatever number of unanswered prayers you submit on your e-mail, if I can't double the number, I'll send you ten free books. Because I have given thousands and tens of thousands of hours to prayer over these 49 years. Some days I spend three and four hours in prayer. Every week I'm in some kind of, almost every week, half-night of prayer or prayer day. And I can share many, many stories of answers to prayer. But I also must be honest. Many of my most fervent prayers have not yet been answered. Prayers for unconverted relatives and cousins. Prayers for some of the places that I'm going to mention to you in a few moments. As I share with you the ten most difficult, impossible nations in the world, according to my viewpoint. But rather than decrease my prayer through discouragement, I have decided in these senior years to increase my prayer and my prayer. And hope for a breakthrough in these situations. And one of my burdens for this weekend is that all of us would make a greater commitment to spending time with God in prayer and in prayer groups as well. Realizing we worship him in the midst of mystery. Realizing that his grace is sufficient. His strength is made perfect in weakness. Realizing nothing is too hard for God. I have such a struggle with that. Because some things seem so hard. And these ten nations I'm going to share with you. As I pray for almost all the nations in the world, between our co-workers and our ships, we have been in every nation in the world. In fact, one brother, my close friend Ray Lynch, whose biography has just been written, a really amazing person whose main passion was preaching in the streets. We've just celebrated 40 years of partnership, even though we're very, very different in heart. He's much older than me, and he's finally now had to go to a care home as an older person. Ray has preached in the streets to hundreds of thousands. Thousands have made decisions. We don't know how many are saved. And Ray, in answer to prayers, visited every nation in the world. And I can tell you, Ray has some serious weaknesses. His wife left him after he married. He became estranged from his own children. And has suffered great emotional damage through all of that process. And yet, as I have watched what God has done through Ray Lynch, I stand amazed. Maybe you could write the names of these ten countries down. I know some of you may not agree, because you have countries you think are more difficult, more impossible. That's okay, because I'm revising this list. And I already have ten countries that are competing for the top ten positions. So if you send me an email explaining a nation that is more problematic, more difficult than one of these on the top ten, it may push your nation into the top ten. We've been increasing our prayer for these nations in the last couple of years. And I've been sharing this burden in different parts of the world. And already we have seen changes in these nations, even in the past few months. I won't have time to say much about that, because this is just a quick overview of these ten countries. The first country is North Korea, where there are very few missionaries. Only a few open churches in the nation. Many believers in prison. I'm sure you know of so many killed the day before yesterday in this strange explosion where these two trains collided. We really believe now is the hour for North Korea. And I know that when I come to Germany, I get considerable resistance from certain people, because they feel I don't emphasize Germany enough. Don't you realize how needy Germany is? How few Christians we have, how many problems we have. How can you come here talking about the unreached people of other countries? We might lose one of our Sunday school teachers and he goes off to be a missionary. I have a great burden for Germany. No matter what I say, no matter how many conferences we have like this, history shows that less than 1% will ever go to the mission field. So I don't know what people are worrying about. George Borwer is not going to depopulate the German churches. And we're not trying to get all of you to go to the mission field. If I talked to you personally at the end, I'd probably tell you you should not go to the mission field. We don't want you on the mission field. But these countries that I'm about to talk to you about most of them have less than 5% of the witness we have in Germany. Some of them have less than 1%, less than 1% of what we have in Germany. So it is only logical, it is only normal. And Germans are generally fairly logical. And many are normal. So it's logical and normal that we think about these countries, we pray about these countries. And that every young person here is at least willing to go to one of these places or similar places that I will not have time to mention. Tonight we're going to look at Isaiah chapter 6 where we have that great prayer, Here am I, send me. And I'm praying that if you have not already prayed that prayer, that tonight you may be willing to pray with absolute submission and reality, Here am I, send me. And maybe some one person here will end up in North Korea. The second country is very different but even in some ways more difficult. The land of Saudi Arabia, there is no practicing church among the Saudis. There is not one church. There are some foreign groups, Koreans, Filipinos, worshipping. And even they get persecuted. And sometimes in prison. Including some of our own people. So there is more of an open door here than North Korea. Much more of an open door. But no major response. And yet this seems to be the hour. It seems to be the hour for Saudi Arabia. Many tent makers who love Jesus have jobs there. You could probably get a job there. So many of these countries they respect and they love Germany. In many of these countries the Germans are respected and loved. Even on the human level the Germans have really big open doors. But first we need to pray more for Saudi Arabia. All of these surrounding countries, Yemen and Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, these are all much more open. But their response is small. Pray for Saudi Arabia. The third nation, the nation that's been on my heart for 47 years, where I've seen very few answers to prayer, though I've seen some. The land of Afghanistan. There are German co-workers laboring there. My own nephew married a German woman. They are living in Kabul. They've been working among the Afghans for 15 years or more. They know the language like many of our other workers. They fluently speak the language. And in mission work today, learning a language is incredibly important. But it is also amazing what we can do in the international trade language called English. It's so encouraging that so many of you know English. And as we go and think of America and many, many parts of the world, tens of millions are wanting to learn English. So many of these more restricted access countries where we are working, we are there teaching English. It's a great open door to share Christ even in China. China is asking for 10,000 more English teachers now. China, by the way, is not on my list. Because evangelism is going on there in such a phenomenal way. Even though, of course, there are millions and millions of unreached people. There is no comparison with Afghanistan. There is no church in Afghanistan among the Afghanis. We know there are now believers. Some of them are gathering in Bible studies. There's a tremendous open door. There are 200 tentmaker workers in many agencies living in Kabul right now. They are asking for us to pray. Would you put Afghanistan on your prayer list? Would you possibly consider working in Afghanistan at least for some years? The fourth nation in my top ten is Iraq. Iraq was one of the first countries God ever put on my heart 47 years ago. Up to two years ago, it was the nation where I seemingly saw the least number of answers to prayer. I was getting nowhere. Now, in the last two years, things have radically changed. And Iraq is a wide open door. And it may fall off my list of top ten in the near future. Many are coming to Christ. Many new churches are being born. But the incredible war going on and all of the other suffering keeps it in this top ten problem nation list. How long will this door be open? Should not some of you consider Iraq in the near future, as soon as you graduate? And then my fifth nation, again quite distinct from these other countries, because the response to the gospel and I'm referring now to the land of Sudan, the response to the gospel in the south has been so big. Hundreds of thousands of people have come to Christ in the last few years. So on that basis, it should not be any longer in this top ten. But because of the war, because it's the nation with almost the highest level of suffering in the world, it remains on this list. We have an open door for going to Sudan, especially in the north, where you can share your faith with Muslims. I'd urge you to read more about this country, to find out more about this amazing country in the open doors. My sixth country is Libya. I had an amazing phone call two days ago. There's a conference of 80 Christian leaders in a conference center I've never been to, two kilometers from my house. And this man said, would you come and speak at our conference? I'd never heard of the man. It's as soon as I get back on Tuesday, he's coming Tuesday. I said, what's the conference about? He said, everybody is coming because of their interest in Libya. I'd never even heard of this group. I said to him, I definitely will come. Libya has less than 20 believers from among the Libyans. There are almost no missionaries. Though we know there are some Egyptian believers that have gone to Libya to share their faith. Pray for the Egyptians. Egypt has tremendous potential as a missionary sending country. Though of course they have their unreached peoples as well. Gaddafi seems to be changing a little bit. I believe this is the time to increase our prayer for Libya. My seventh nation is the land of Iran. Again, this may go off the list in the next year. So many Iranians are coming to Jesus. Christian literature and Bibles are going out. Literature and Bibles being distributed throughout the nation. I'm sure it would be very easy for German people to go to Iran. We've had small groups working among the earthquake victims. In the summer I will be speaking to the Iranian church of London during their summer conference. Iranian churches are popping up all over the world. Yet at the same time Iran is a very tough nation for the believers. Very tiny percentage of Christians. Very few missionaries or young people even considering mission service in Iran. We have this false thinking that Satan wants us to have. We think these places are closed. Our problem is not closed countries, my friends. Our problem is closed minds. I'm asking you to open your heart and open your mind to these countries. That God's people generally have forgotten. That we may see great breakthroughs in the next few years. And then my eighth country is in Central Asia. Now Central Asia is a wide open door for the gospel right now. We have a lot of people in Central Asia. A lot of our ministry there has to be mercy ministry, development ministry, helping the government and sharing our faith at the same time. My eighth country is the exception. It's the only nation in Central Asia where there is almost no open door. Almost no workers. The church is being persecuted. Very little literature is going out. I'm speaking of Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan. Do not confuse that with Turkey. Turkey, which was on our top ten years ago, now has almost one thousand workers. And thousands of Turks have come to Christ. Now it still would have less than five percent of what we would have here in Germany. And I wish I had time to share the vision I have for German people to reach the Turks who live among us here in Germany. But we must move on to my number nine country. Due to China, this is no longer an official country. It's a land of Tibet. How many of you ever pray for Tibet? Raise your hand. That's wonderful. We have five or six people that pray for Tibet. I want to ask you to pray for this country. There is almost no church. There are now, in answer to prayer, a few workers. We've heard of the Chinese house church movement also starting to send workers to Tibet. Again, I believe now is the hour for Tibet. How can we leave a nation with almost no witness? How can we do that? What kind of thinking have we developed? What do our churches believe about the word of Jesus? Who, before he ascended into heaven, said, Ye shall be my witnesses, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth. Would you consider working in Tibet? If some of you would even go there for a year, I believe you would fall in love with the Tibetan people. They are one of the more unusual peoples of the world. And then my final nation. You can never, never guess. It's only just in the top ten. Just barely got it. And I voted it in because it represents the smaller places. That many people do not know about. I'm referring to the land of Socotra. Socotra. Just say it in English. Did you know where it was? No? God forgive you. Thank you. See how grace awakened I am? It's right off the country of, off the coast of Somalia. And if I were giving you a list of eleven, I would probably give you Somalia. And we'll divide it into ten. That little island has no church. But finally there are some workers there. Not yet heard of the first believer. The Maldive Islands are very similar. The Maldives are not quite so difficult. The Maldives over here. There's my top ten. And if a year from now, you send me an email with those ten nations and you tell me you've been praying for them, I'm going to send you a couple of free books because I want to promote prayer for those nations. Though we may feel it's so difficult, it seems so impossible. We feel so weak, so small next to these giants. And we go to the word of God when we see David slaying Goliath when we see God using ordinary people, even characters like myself or Brother Andrew and other people that you personally know in the great history of Germans in missions as this nation was one of the great pioneering nations of global missions. We see the impact of that even to this day in places like India and many other countries. Some people are saying, we don't need any more German missionaries. No, they're too expensive. Plus, there's so much work here in Germany. And then we have all these people here as well. We have the Turks and the Arabs who go to Berlin. We have everybody in Berlin. They all should be a priority of the church in Germany. That's normal. They're living right next to us. You don't need me to tell you about that. God has brought me here to talk to you about those other places. That none of you will easily go to without the Holy Spirit doing a deep, powerful work in your heart and calling you by His grace to one of these more impossible forgotten places where often the church does not even exist. Let us pray. Our God and Father, we praise you for all you've done over these years. We don't understand why these places are so forgotten and neglected and difficult. But we believe we must come in the midst of a mystery in the midst, in my case, of much unanswered prayer and cry out to you again for this new generation of young people that they will not fail where we have failed, but they will be willing to take up a more radical faith and go to the hard places and the forgotten places that everyone may hear and be established among all peoples. By your grace we ask this. Amen.