In this sermon, the speaker discusses the phenomenon of the Holy Spirit moving in powerful ways in recent years. There is controversy surrounding the origins of this movement, with some attributing it to individuals like Rodney Brown, Wimber, or Benny Hinn. Argentina is highlighted as a place where emotional outbursts and encounters with the Holy Spirit have been particularly intense. The speaker encourages caution and open-mindedness when approaching these experiences, emphasizing the importance of a disciplined and crucified Christian life.

And we're here to talk about what's referred to as the Toronto blessing in my Bible studies lately And I want to lay a few foundations before we get into the specifics. I Have been amazed at the phenomenal emphasis on wisdom Especially in the Psalms But also many other places in the Word of God there's a great emphasis on wisdom and on knowledge and when we come to some of these complicated areas that top Theologians are fighting over I Tell you we need a lot of wisdom as we attempt to try to understand and make right decisions in our own lives Satan is a roaring lion seeketh whom he may devour and we know that one of Satan's great strategies is to attempt to bring disunity among God's people And we don't overemphasize this here on do loss and in the ship ministry, I hope not but Satan Constantly tries to bring disunity to this ship within departments within cabins within families and As we face a new challenge of something Unusual going on in the churches. It of course does affect us Here on the ship some on the ship have been into meetings where these things are happening Some people have already heard this is happening back in their home church if you're British Because the main country in the world where this is happening is Great Britain, you know You cannot be just ignorant of what is going on And this is why I think it is good that we're discussing this now. I believe as we talk about this There's going to be a number of other biblical principles that may be life principles. I'm always looking for life principles Life principles from the Word of God I can base my life on And I'm amazed of how many people don't seem to go for life principles things that are big things that you can build upon a couple of life principles that really have helped me in my own spiritual pilgrimage is That God is working in different people in different ways And we got two Thousand years of mega history to prove it. I've had the privilege of living in about 50 or 60 countries Visiting and ministering in thousands of churches and fellowshipping with thousands of Christian leaders and I am amazed to see God moving on one hand and someone like Billy Graham and On the other hand someone like Benny Hinn people who would appear to be So unbelievably different I doubt if they've ever had a conversation though they both live in the United States Maybe we could organize that So God is God is working in different people in different ways Number two and It's encouraging to see a few people taking notes That's I had heard there were several serious people on the ship and this is a real Encouragement to me, but forgive my cynicism I have to often repent of it, but you know after 40 years in the ring you do You know like rocky for you might have been punched a little bit start to feel it but God is working in different churches in different ways different churches in different ways Linked with that is the simple proof of history that these different churches are not going to easily change and copy the church down the road It might change a little Especially if the people down the road are grace awakened people. I know how to win friends and influence people I Have such an impact in this movement that when I told people to read Dale Carnegie's book how to win friends and influence people a Fair number decided they would never read that book no matter what That's what you call a sort of normal rebellious spirit, and it's It's difficult to know how to handle it But I perhaps should just say that I would warn you against reading Dale Carnegie's book how to win friends and influence people It's a secular book. It's probably got some New Age twitches in it there's a real possibility that you could you know develop a decent personality and this could lead to all kinds of friendships and Communication complications people beginning to like you and the whole thing could get so unbelievably Confusing so you probably don't want to read how to win friends and influence people just press on and be your good old obnoxious self fortunately you might find at least one person crazy enough to marry you and Maybe that somehow she's read the book and you'll be able to or he be able to make it through life Anyway that used to be a required book among leaders, and it's a secular book. It's in many different languages God is working in different people in different ways. God is working in different churches in different ways number three Anything that is interdenominational as operation mobilization and many many other groups Whitcliffe. Oh and F. I Could list a whole group of groups are faced with some very special difficulties That people are not faced with when they're all going to the same church. They're all signing the same doctrinal statement one of the men who gave quite a lot of money to log us to has now hired somebody to handle his giving and They seem to be rather Narrow they've sent me a four-page small print doctrinal statement and They're very discouraging to read that Realizing they want to mainly give to people who have the same doctrinal statement Four pages they've got everything down you know about the second coming about almost the temperatures in hell every Detail, and I don't know how you know I don't know how we're going to relate to that organization anymore, and it's very disappointing to me and This group which of course I won't tell you what country they're from are going to have difficulty relating to anything That's sort of international or interdenominational because you can't have that finely tuned doctrinal statement and be Interdenominational it just it just will work you may call yourself interdenominational, but in fact you're creating your own Denomination Another thing I hope that we can just put as a bottom line principle Is that the road that we have taken these between 30 and 40 years depending if you want to go back right to my conversion? and what God did in that high school of Respecting people who are evangelical who are biblical whether they're evangelical or even your charismatic evangelical That's the big term. They're using in England now. I Just had breakfast with Clive Calvary's the head of the evangelical Alliance boy. He says you know charismatic evangelical They want to emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit. They want to emphasize evangelical doctrine But as we think about this We we are faced with many many many challenges, and we have to face our own limitations But we do have 35 years of seeing tens of thousands of people come to Christ And would be a lot more except we have chosen to work in the countries where up to now not many are coming to Christ We don't measure things Always by that, but of course we're looking for fruit. We have about a hundred ministries hundred ministries that trace their birth back to OM and we have Thousands of people who are in ministry in all well just such a wide range of different groups I don't want to go into detail about this But I think God has honored our sort of middle road position of majoring on the majors And as we face new controversy in the church, whatever it is we want to look at our roots We want to look at the word We want to look to the Lord and get wisdom, and we're not all going to agree This is probably even the uniqueness about my talk tonight. I'm not going to try to get all you do agree I'm gonna make some effort to keep you living together and love and harmony And when you get off OM which comes very quickly You you will have of course more freedom probably than when you're here Now that may not be true if you belong to a church That is very strong authoritarian leadership You may discover that you don't have so much freedom. I Have so many letters coming from people who are in authoritarian churches their whole books now written about manipulation in the church and The last thing we want to ever have in OM. I can't say we've never failed is any kind of manipulation and And I think it's a terrible thing if we manipulate people at the same time There may come at times a fine line between persuasion we must persuade people and Of course the world if you're out there talking to somebody that if he dies he's going to go to hell the world says you're a manipulator But you believe from the Word of God that you're a persuader Well, I am convinced that unity comes in the midst of diversity and And some of you probably in the next year or two will be in a meeting Where the the Holy Spirit is working in unusual way and you will have some kind of unusual experience in which you feel the grace of God in a greater way or the love of God in a greater way or the power of God and we would never want to despise that experience and As we look at this particular Phenomena that's taking place. I believe we need that kind of wisdom now. Let's give a little bit of history about this Experience there's masses being written about this five books came out just like that You know we get a missions book about every once in a while a new missions book come out but we had five books on this subject within months, and they are selling and The books that I've looked at and the articles that I've read point out that this goes back quite a way There's a bit of controversy and that some are saying this started with a man an evangelist from South Africa known as God's Holy Ghost bartender Rodney Brown Other people are claiming it started with Wimber Other people are claiming it started with Benny Hinn but certainly one of the places where some really hot things have been happening in the last couple of years is Argentina and There have been amazing Emotional outbursts in Argentina when I was there I preached in a little church after I preached half the people left They moved the chairs out, and then they moved into using some of my good friends choruses Marcos wet those choruses. I will tell you they are dynamite I was listening to one of those choruses on Lagos to and I got dancing over the back of the ship it's almost fell overboard, but It was that music if you don't know anything about Marcos wit in Latin America Well, it's too bad because I'll tell you they know how to sing they know how to dance. They know how to leap they know how to jump and There have been phenomenal outbursts and there have been also a lot of conversions So things were happening in Argentina a couple of years ago. Of course we can go back before that and And this different kinds of more emotional blessings Slaying in the spirit that kind of thing has been going on for years, but usually it's been somewhat unnoticed or it's been confined to certain kinds of churches and a lot of people a lot of God's people haven't been that aware of it Benny Hinn certainly popularized some of the more intensive Benny Hinn's method was blowing The spirit and though you may be skeptical Some of our people have gone to these meetings and they've seen things that are they're just there Holy Spirit and whole the whole choir who knocked right off the chairs on to the floor It brings quite a response from the congregation. I can assure you unfortunately Benny Hinn had some heretical things in some of his books so that brought a big storm and Benny Hinn and Had a visit by a few Christian leaders He was also very much into prosperity And as far as I can see Benny Hinn made some changes and That way that was encouraging The reason this is called the Toronto blessing is because in a Vineyard church at the end of the airport in Toronto Canada things really started to happen Now apparently some of the people from that church went somewhere else in the States Where Rodney Brown was and these things were happening No need to mention the churches, but then they went to vineyard and and it just took off Maybe it's because it was at the end of the runway, but it just it just took it just took off and soon People were hearing about it in Britain and people were going over there now Let's just drop back a little and say there's a lot of Christians Who have been praying for revival intensively for a long time Several revivals major revivals were prophesied for Britain for four years ago three years ago the big Wimber meetings didn't happen a lot of agony a lot of confusion came by that and Some disunity because when people says thus saith the Lord, it's gonna happen They all gathered in Docklands for these big meetings special people flew in and it didn't happen Didn't mean God didn't work there, but they certainly didn't see major revival in Britain There have been some big prayer meetings in the National Exhibition Stadium For a number of years have been more and more books about revival So that builds up a tremendous spirit of hope and expectation Which is good, but if it doesn't have balance it also can be Dangerous now some of you know my own conviction that revival is always plan B At plan a is that from the moment our fair conversion when the Holy Spirit enters in us we walk in Jesus We grow in Jesus. We keep short accounts with God and we walk by day It's when God's people get cold and backslide bitter whatever Then they need revival If you've been around om for very long, you know, we often talk about personal revival That's that's our inheritance in Jesus And then we talk about corporate revival may be in a church. It may be in a group of churches It may be in a nation as a student of revival now for about 30 years Mike and I just listened to another whole series of tapes of revival a great Bible teacher I Have just an enormous struggle with this subject because if revival is where it's at why Does it happen so seldom? What kind of a God do we have? Now we got these people begging and begging and begging for revival fasting and praying I remember when I first arrived in London this group is fasting and praying for revival year after year after year after year This is 30 years ago Never happened Now some of you know that I struggle probably with more than most people with with various and sundry doubts but my own conviction and this isn't necessarily om's official policy is That teaching about revival. I'm not talking about Toronto blessing now in background teaching about revival needs a lot of balance and we need to get into the New Testament and See what the New Testament teaches about revival rather than just telling stories out of the Hebrides I know more about the Hebrides revival I think that most people one little tiny tiny part of Great Britain books are written about it tapes are written about it They're still talking about it, but in fact it was combined to those islands It never hardly spread anywhere else and by the time I got to the Hebrides a few years after the place was as dead as Any place on planet Earth, so I say to myself. What is all this about on the other hand these stories when you hear them? You you you some people go completely cuckoo and the only thing they're interested in is revival Where to me the New Testament clear clearly teaches we all are obligated to live for Jesus Christ With or without these great revivals The Holy Spirit lives in us. That's big and We get this emphasis of the Holy Spirit coming down or the Holy Spirit coming in And I'm not saying we should never emphasize that it's complex But I think the more important emphasis you are a temple of the Holy Spirit He lives in you and the potential I tell you is big Maybe because I discovered that at 17 years of age and have experienced it every day ever since that I'm biased Forgive me. I still pray for revival I Praise God when that little Asbury revival hit I remember sitting in Bangladesh listening to the tape about the Asbury revival It was a couple of years Maybe you're too wonderful things happen, and then it went does that mean God disappeared from Asbury College for the next 20 years No Could it be that revival is more God's rescue program for sleepy Saints and Slimy Saints forgive the terminology, but when we get into sin. That's what it's about and We need to get back a little more closer to plan a Linked with this as I look at the lives of hundreds and hundreds of men and women of God Many of them have never had these earth-shaking Mega emotional experiences many of them have never had many have so It's just back to my first principle God working in different people in different ways and In in the end of the day it is a mystery God's working is a mystery Maybe you could look with me at the Bible to the 11th chapter of Romans This is so minister to me. We have the 12th chapter that we and no M preach until your ears hurt But in the 11th chapter of Romans, I believe you have a very important verses leading up to chapter 12 Look at this Romans 11 the last few verses it's called God's matchless wisdom or the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments his ways past Finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord who hath been his counselor Who at first given to him it shall be recompensed unto him again For of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. Hey, that's That's powerful. That's spiritual me. I Guess I'm sharing this because I feel there is a danger and let me just understand Let me just say this that men and women who are very committed to the Toronto blessing. They're right in the middle of it I've read their works They including say Gerald Coates are putting out tremendous warnings I was at the American the British Conference of Evangelists probably half the people there have been in the Toronto blessing and They had some of this happening in in one of the evening meetings. I Couldn't see it from where I was. I just had prayer with a brother next to me God would give us whatever he had for us But I wasn't there in sort of the ring and I didn't want to be a spectator and just go looking So I went to my room and and prayed there But these men and women who are in this most of them now are Writing articles as fast as they can't warning people of all the dangers and all the problems because Even when people have had a real encounter with the Holy Spirit It's always just no matter what one more step one more step. Maybe a big step It may be the most emotional step the person has ever had in their life, and they will surely never forget it But it's still one more step You remember in Toulon one of the evening meetings when I shared right here The Spirit of the Lord seemed to move in an unusual way we can't measure many many people came forward here was just completely full quite a few were weeping some were sitting on the floor and Though the Toronto blessing Would seem to be that much more high-powered Making this look like just something very calm though for some omers what was happening up here seemed to be Pretty pretty intensive compared to what goes on in their church. We have people from churches that have never had an altar call They've never had people going forward weeping much less crying laughing or grunting or anything else along that line And it's something we've got to we've got to respect and we've got to keep in mind From Toronto just to pick up the story a little more it spread especially to Holy Trinity Brompton a big Anglican Church in central London now it spread to other places, but it was Holy Trinity Brompton that hit the press major Press coverage in Great Britain imagine that the major newspapers Soon there were queues lines of people trying to get in Holy Trinity Brompton for the Sunday evening service Now this church like many Anglican churches is already in the charismatic tradition They already have leaders who are trained in that tradition in that way of doing things and so They were in a sense prepared It's not like this suddenly happening down in a church the other end of the road where? They've not had this kind of manifestation I certainly haven't heard of anything like this happening at all souls laying and laying in place John Stott's great church There's some discussion about it But it's a different kind of church. It's a different ethos and so far Last I heard nothing had happened. They're not that far away It also came very heavily into Ick this fellowship. That's when OM people Got involved because the number of OEM errs go to Ick this fellowship and one OM woman who was actually in the process of leaving OM came to me and shared how God had done something very precious in her life and It just seemed to be a blessing to her helping her through a lot of hurt and a lot of crises What are some of the manifestations? First of all people just seemingly under the power of the Holy Spirit though some of course who are against this deny this People just collapse and they sometimes remain seemingly unconscious for five minutes ten minutes even longer On the floor they usually make a space in the churches so they can handle these things now sometimes it seems to happen spontaneously other times people have hands laid on them and In that case sometimes they get a catcher they get somebody behind them when they lay hands on them so when they pass out So there's somebody can catch him because in fact people have been hurt Over the years like I say these things aren't new in certain kinds of churches some of your own churches So they've learned over the years how to catch people How to handle these situations I remember in a church because I preach in every kind of church you could ever imagine After the meeting and after I preached a lady walked up boom she collapsed right in front of me and sort of passed out and I Wanted to help her I didn't know what to do. She's very large lady I didn't want to attempt to get her lift her up But an elder quickly came to my rescue and he said leave her alone. She does that every week Just get on and do something else I Found this a little difficult, and I am not exaggerating My experience in that particular situation That by the way was a great special meeting in the city of Manchester organized by a friend of mine Last time I saw him. He said well. I mean that's all dried up. That's all over. We close that that's finished I Think this is a one of the other things that some of us are struggling with we seem to live in days of such tremendous Instability we seem to have so many unstable people so many hurting people They are vulnerable. They are vulnerable to Emotional manipulation, I'm not saying all of this is emotional manipulation, but surely that is a problem And I fear that if it's not handled carefully in the church That the end of the day a lot of people are going to be hurt and a lot of people are going to be disillusioned Because usually with this come all kinds of promises of revival of blessing we've been through this again and again in so many countries people promising things that never come and Then nobody really coming up and being honest and saying well. Maybe we did get it wrong. I Loved Amy Wilkerson. He's a friend of mine, but he claimed 25 years ago this was going to happen within the next few years and it did not happen and A lot of people were confused. He also went into a lot of confusion in his ministry He later said on tape which most people never heard that he had maybe the timing rule The first thing that was going to happen was a complete collapse of the German economy That was going to be one of the first things the German economy has been going on Strong ever since though in the last couple of years there certainly has been a slight a slight dip But nothing what we're talking about in this in this book So we forgive us with a teaching of a W Tozer in we OM leaders tend to have a little bit of reverent skepticism about Some of the things people are claiming and it's one of the things that scares me the most about the movement I'm part of 80 mm. We are already being criticized by very godly people Because we made claims certain people have made claims and when you get there It wasn't true when I was with you in Dubai a brother came to me And he said I have gone to Kuwait because I was told of a hundred or two hundred Muslims that have come to Jesus And they need pastoring when he got to Kuwait. He could not find him because they did not exist. It's a serious thing It's a serious thing integrity is important men and women of the Word of God another one of the manifestations, that's Extremely controversial is laughing Again I Can see some positive things I more easily see positive things and some of the people I fellowship with you may doubt that but I fell Ash pretty interesting crowd But I know that one woman Who laughed? Uncontrolled laughter when interviewed had not laughed for two years She had suffered child abuse. She had suffered other heavy stuff Heavy stuff a sexual arena she had not laughed for two years and to me It's it's I can't say I know this is for sure But it seems as almost like God just pulled the cork and healed her and just let her laugh Some people would say well if they're coming forward in this great group and some are crying and some are laughing is tremendous noise It's not such a problem because you can't you really it's just bedlam. You can't even hear what's going on The problem is when a guy is expounding the word this is happening expounding the Word of God and somebody in the audience Just starts uncontrolled laughter Now I find it difficult to preach when things start happening little babies start crying, but I've learned to handle that People start staring at you. I don't know if you've preached in those situations where people try to cast a spell on you know I Mean I've had a lot of interesting experiences, but Uncontrolled laughter while you're trying to preach that has become very controversial Now I was in a church where the Toronto blessing was happening in a small way. It was actually a United meeting It's actually a missions meeting One of the house group movements is a tremendous time those people responded to the message as much as any group I've ever ministered to And when one person started to laugh Two stewards were on her or him. I can't remember within seconds they had her out the door and They let her laugh in the maybe they got laughing rooms, but hey They let her laugh so though that group that group is very strong on Freedom and wanting God to blow the place apart you should hear some of the things they say from the pulpit about being free but they Didn't want that going on at that particular time But certainly the uncontrolled laughing There's a book about that now There's also books against it That is a hot issue. That is a hot issue and And We'll perhaps get on to back to that Later on or maybe in the question answer time there are some reports of healing there haven't been a lot Those are traditional things that happen in Pentecostal charismatic churches and other churches There are some reports certainly Of things happening that I don't think any of us would disagree with Let me read from a relatively balanced article in the one of the British Baptist papers, I thought this was very Positive because I think we've got to look at some of what people feel are positive results How we are to assess this is by David coffee one of the leaders of the Baptist Church in Britain How we are to assess the accounts of the extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit of God at work in some of our churches Through the so-called Toronto blessing many many people by the way feel it's so unfortunate such a Blessing is named after some city Canadians of course are having massive Discussion over it a very high percentage of Canadians right across the nation don't know anything about it That much except a little that they've read because it is limited to a relatively small number of churches so far in Canada We have now had the opportunity to receive reports from a wide range of opinions across the country There's no doubt in our minds that God has been at work Whatever Baptist may personally feel Whatever questions they may want to ask the evidence is that There are many Christians in local churches who have been touched by this blessing there is the evidence of Semico get some water here churches Where repentance and reconciliation has transformed the life of a fellowship To that we could only say praise God to communities where the lapsed have been restored backsliders I mentioned in the beginning They've been restored three churches where conversions have been recorded For congregations who have experienced times of refreshing from the Lord Then those who testify to a new hunger for God fresh concern for others And it goes on to talk about some of the other things that have taken place I think most Christian leaders would acknowledge that if there is just that special emotional experience and Touch of God or infilling or whatever you want to call it and nothing happens after that no life is changed No fruit no witness, then then what really would be the purpose I? Think they would be in a majority Would would agree with that. It's just that once this gets going Sunday after Sunday How do you how do you handle it? And believe me some Christian leaders right now on under phenomenal pressure knowing how you know what is the next step? We were involved in world missions Or be you know crying out to God for workers Rather than being negative. We are trying to ask Lord is this gonna bring a new army of harvesters? into the mission work You know if God has to do some kind of mighty kickstart. I think of this thing sometimes as Jump-starting I mean we know a lot about jump-starting Oh, you know and because there are so many vehicles Don't start properly you have to push them. I never forget the day. I discovered that a diesel truck only has to be pushed a few yards, and it will often jump-start quicker than a petrol vehicle and Could this be one of God's sort of jump-start? Programs in answer to prayer so many people backslidden so many people Wounded so many people hurt so many people through divorce So many in our churches have been through divorce and broken relationships. They're hurting people the vulnerable unfortunately sometimes the good as well as bad and Is this is this one of God's rescue programs? I'm not telling you that don't go writing to your church George Verwer said this I'm asking you a question that you have to wrestle through yourself But could it be now we know That if there are some authentic things going on Immediately Satan is going to try to copy or bring what's the word I want Counterfeit thank you Satan Immediately does that and people in this movement? They are concerned about counterfeit. They are concerned about people just copying Seeing somebody else seemingly fall down laugh and Seemingly getting blessed man. They want to get it as well. They're standing there. Nothing seems to happen. They fall down anyway I Tell you I'm the kind of temperament And if you follow my early years of my Christian life to get a blessing from God. I did some really strange things You know the idea of operation mobilization came to me after being arrested by the KGB Coming back for a day of prayer in Austria. I was on the top of a tree I Mean I could have launched a complete tree climbing movement at that time that could have Rapidly spread maybe across the world and thousands of Christians would be climbing trees And getting this George Verwer treetop blessing and who knows what could happen I? Think most of you know the story of the lady who got the leap Experience she was into leaping and Once she leaped and just got zapped she felt by the Holy Spirit And it changed her life, and so she beat she got into a teaching ministry, and she taught the theology of the leap Now I have a difficulty when people system make systematic theology out of special times of unusual Activity, and that's what I fear in this and I fear that the very churches Who are in this are gonna split? I'm not so worried about the church down the road that isn't in it. They got other problems I'm worried about them, too. This is I'm worried sometimes about OM But the churches where this is happening already some people are getting tired of it the things that happened and Relationship complications still go on lust and other problems still go on Do you think these things happen in a vacuum that everything else stops? While these special times of blessing go on no life goes on complications go on And one of the things that's happened is When churches have experienced a lot of heavy emotion Satan tries to set them up for immorality One of the most famous pastors in the whole of Argentina has just been caught living in massive adultery It has shaken the church in Buenos Aires People are hurt people are disillusioned imagine the thousands of people go to that church They once one minute they think they got the most spirit-filled pastor and the greatest man on earth the next moment He's exposed for massive adultery and immorality That is spreading Has been spreading long before people were ever talking about this That will not go away through spiritual crises It will go away as people learn to discipline themselves as people learn to deny self as people develop the kind of witness that Lois Mowdy talks about in that book the snare And our burden is to give every one of you a copy of the snare before you ever leave Om I just had lunch with Lois remember her she preached some of you remember her at the conference in Debron Just had the privilege of meeting her husband and being with her in Colorado the new edition of her book is out in the United States And I think we need to understand and a lot of the leaders in this they do understand this They would say amen to what I'm saying right now these things do not happen in a vacuum It must be followed by discipleship by training by the discipline life by the crucified life by intercessory Prayer and all the aspects of Christian living that are outlined in the Word of God somehow those of you who may be More critical or more skeptical than others at least for your own personal situation, please Be slow very slow To judge people who have been blessed in these meetings of course we can always find negative things That's true everywhere But I want to believe I'm wrestling in attempting to believe that the positive in all of this Is going to outweigh the negative and my experience is that we're two or three people are gathered together Sooner or later. There's a mess. That's a verb or proper about the word or two or three are gathered together Sooner or later. There's a mess, but our great God He knows how to work in very messy situations and I believe that through this We can get a bigger picture of God We can get a greater understanding of the mystery of God. Why why does he work this way? well, I Was reading in the Psalms this morning? people people shouting show shout unto the Lord I get in trouble when I Probably in some of the churches before he started shouting I would be accused of being extreme Clearly in the Word of God we have examples of people winning prostrate Adam you're toser. He was known for laying prostrate Alan Redpath a great evangelical leader describing toes are laying prostrate on the beach Lake, Michigan We say well, that's all right Well shouting those. All right, it's laying prostrate is all right Then why you know, why is it so wrong if someone breaks down and falls on the floor in their church and starts weeping? or if someone else somehow Gets triggered off emotionally and some other kind of expression comes out And the other thing that may help you Understand all this Seldom Is there any spiritual activity without human activity? I am convinced personally some of this is just Human activities just flesh and blood. We're human beings. We are subject to emotional Things I know of my own life when my mother died. I went into the woods and I screamed I Wept I made sure nobody could hear me, but I was just in an emotional tornado Now I know other people when their mothers die. They don't cry Different cultures responded for away. I Remember hearing one of my first stories about Italy. I don't know if it's true But among the Catholics in Italy, I hear when the group funeral they just go very emotional it's not true and it'll jump into the grave and Here is such an interesting thing Great Britain known to breathe the nation of such stiff upper lip Unemotional people I was just at a funeral. I was at a funeral with British people hardly anybody I was crying and the woman was very you're on me the XOM ship girl right at 40 of cancer I Mean, I was trying to be real English You know looking around Chris. I mean, I didn't know her that well. It wasn't like being married to her or something and And finally I walked away from the coffin and this other So I'm a woman black girl, and I've been with for some years hardly ever see We came up soon as she started talking to me I just started bawling and here's this this black girl trying to comfort George Verroon bawling Personally, oh, I believe it's good to cry And I'm a little more happy perhaps about the crying that will laughing But I will tell you in my own life. I have experienced at times uncontrolled laughter I've never really thought of it. We've been from the Holy Spirit When I still actually do have my droughts But suppose it is just human weakness just human weakness high-level emotion human weakness Like when you see some of these films and you have uncontrolled laughter or uncontrolled weeping In one sense, it's no big deal. It's no big deal We shouldn't You know think Satan is getting in. You know, this is this is what's happening with the people who are strongly critical the devil is getting in and all kinds of heavy stuff is coming out and There is gonna drag the evangelical church in Britain back into a cold war Now, how do we handle such things on the ship? Are we gonna now have an invitation and we're gonna just pop the cork and Get everybody up here and just see you know See what we can do We got some pretty strong guys here that could do some pushing and and it works better Actually, if you hold your leg out in front of them as you push But I personally don't think that's God's timing for this George Verwer visit to the ship I can tell you When I go out on the ship at night and look at the stars even as I did tonight and just worship God I Get blessed you can give it any name you want that do last blessing But when I go out on the deck and look at God and his creation and his power sometimes tears come to my eyes You and I don't want to wait until we get to some church Where this is happening and maybe that's going to be the cure-all to all of our problems I think God wants to meet us But it's clear from all that's happening around the world. God is meeting different people in different ways and I think it's good that the average person in OM Would like to study things a little more would like to talk to people the best place for this kind of very contraventive controversial high explosive activity the best place is in local churches Preferably your own local church Now of course if you come from a local church that is against all this You've got a much bigger problem Then if you come from a church where they're gung-ho into all this and some of probably in this room a high percentage of your churches are not into this and It would be very very disastrous If somehow when you get back to your church you start Propagating something that you're unsure of yourself and give the idea that basically you pick this up when you were on operation Mobilization we've already had letters Asking us why have we allowed our young people to be exposed to this kind of unbiblical extremism We have letters already from churches, and if we don't act wisely we are going to be getting a lot of letters in the months to come Probably more logos too as they head to the British Isles and to Europe I don't know certainly probably won't find too much happening in Djibouti I Might just say that the people who are very much against all this have put out articles showing that the exact same phenomena is happening in non-christian religions and in cults It's it's powerful It's powerful, and I don't think on this ship and an OM an interdenominational movement We're ever gonna. You know all agree on this issue, and I think we need a little time and I think we need to understand that when this kind of thing does happen it's so much better if it happens in a person's local church where there's a right supervision the right follow-up and Start to try to promote this on our ships I think would would be a hindrance a real hindrance to what God is attempting To do if it happens and of course even talking about it like tonight people will tell critics will say And I'll be criticized for this message Critics will say even talking about it like this begins to build up Expectation it sets people up for the next step well That's the risk if you went to theological college you would be studying these issues We cannot protect you even though some of you are quite young we cannot protect you from all the different things that are going on in the Christian world and I hope you'll keep that in mind and If churches Who send their young people on OM think that we can protect them from being exposed To all kinds of different churches all kinds of different things years ago We had big controversy about baptism some people went on the ship they wanted to get baptized by immersion They found a local church willing to do it boy soon We got letters from here and there OM is leading our people into getting baptized They call it re-baptized if they're from places like Finland and Norway and they get really uptight About these things and we try to find the middle road. We have never scored a hundred percent Let's pray Brother Costas McCrease what a privilege to have you here I'm humbled you sitting there listening to me go on and on come up here and lead us in a spirit-filled Prayer all these young people some are leaving within the next few days some in six months some in a year and We're praying God is going to bring many many more people to the to the ship Amen Just lead us in prayer loving Jesus We thank you for your mercy When you look down from heaven and you saw us And you pitied us and you had love and compassion for us When we lifted up our eyes In faith and put our trust in you This was the most radical thing that ever happened or will ever happen again in the life of Jesus Help us to build on that Lord Jesus and help us to allow you to form your image in us Help us to walk with you that when people see us they can say Jesus went by here May we represent you Lord Jesus with our life and our walk Help us in our homes to be better husbands Help us in our homes to be better kids Help us in our churches to be faithful Help us Lord Jesus to carry out the command To go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature Jesus did not tell us Too many other things you gave us a simple commandment, and if we don't obey on that Lord Jesus. What's the use of all the rest? Help us to be faithful in that Help us to go Because our flesh doesn't want to go Because our own nature doesn't want to go we don't want to suffer we want the good things of life We won't comfort. We don't want suffering. We want a self. We don't want to give up a self Lord Jesus We want to to live for ourselves Lord Jesus. We we confess this tonight before you Lord Jesus This is my flesh every day I have to battle that and I have to look to you Lord Jesus to ask you to help me to live for you To be like you and someday to be able to say like Paul Be like me as I'm I'm like Jesus. Oh God may our life point to Jesus Help us to be real disciples Help us Lord Jesus to keep in the centrality of the message and of your command Help us not to turn right or left but straight your eyes and Faithful to the end not counting the cost not asking for anything But just give everything to your precious hands Lord Jesus Bless us tonight and may these not be just a time of pleasure for ourselves But even a time of suffering a time of giving up and time of of denying oneself for Jesus With all the pain it might cause Thank you for the times in my life that I said Jesus I Give you everything Thank you Jesus May I repeat his alter experience time and again in the years to come until I meet you face to face And ask this in your wonderful name. Amen