In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the importance of humility and service, using the example of Jesus washing the disciples' feet. He emphasizes the danger of becoming slaves to worldly pleasures and encourages young people to rebel against this mindset. The speaker also discusses the need for believers to forsake all and follow Jesus, while acknowledging the importance of balance and sound theology. He highlights the urgency of spreading the gospel to the unreached, noting that a significant percentage of the world's population still hasn't heard the message.

Let's read a few scriptures together. I want to start in an interesting place for this kind of message, John chapter 13. This is the last supper which we've just had. One of the great burdens I've always had as someone who often breaks bread and worships the Lord in this way is that this message about Jesus Christ taking the towel seems to be neglected. And yet it's right there in the same chapter and it's pretty strong, the emphasis that Jesus puts. It's so strong that in America we have a group called the Grace Brethren who actually practice foot washing in their meetings. And when they get up and present their biblical basis for this, well, it's not so easy to escape it. Of course, I know most people spiritualize this chapter. I'm not convinced about the Grace Brethren practice, especially since I found out they all scrub and wash their feet like mad before they come to the foot washing service. But certainly there's a message here and I'll let you make the application, but I want to read it. Verse 4, he riseth from supper and laid aside his garments and took a towel and girded himself. After that, he poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter and Peter said unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter said unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus said to him, He that is washed needeth not except to wash his feet, but is entirely clean and ye are clean, but not all of you. For he knew who should betray him, therefore said he, ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet and had taken his garment and was seated again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say, Well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. The Lord led us to name the second ship, Dulas. I would appreciate your prayers for the ship. It's a very new venture. The second ship, it's much bigger. It's got many more problems. I had a phone call last night. We're having 5,000 visitors a day in Mexico. We had 4,000 in the evangelistic meetings. In Veracruz, we will be having a united rally, a very, very big event together with Luis Palau. We really need your prayers as we go into Latin America. But we named the ship Dulas because we feel this is the training that young people need today. They need to learn to be servants. I believe one of the reasons we have many casualties among top Christian leaders is that they never had real basic training. I'm amazed how quickly people go to the top in evangelical circles. It's just unbelievable. It's far worse in America than here. A few years of Bible school, maybe a little seminary, out he is, pretty soon he's pastoring a church. We wonder why a high percentage of these people get wiped out or don't have fruitful ministries or their marriages get busted up. We seem to have drifted away from the basic man-to-man kind of training that Jesus Christ himself gave. And we cannot talk about world evangelism. We cannot talk about evangelism at all without talking about discipleship and the discipling of men. There's a tremendous book written now called Disciples Are Made, Not Born. And I hope that every one of you in evangelism is a disciple maker. To me, this is very, very important. And as we see the style and the method of Jesus and then the Apostle Paul, who is constantly working on teams, making disciples, he had his Timothy and many others, I think we see the pattern that God uses to really multiply the church and to spread the message around the world. We need to train young men and women today to be servants, to walk humbly before God. We have many men who are elders and leaders in our churches today. We wonder why many of them are carnal. And if you talk to them, you find they've never been trained. They've never been discipled. They just sort of drifted along, and because of desperation, they were made a leader in the local church. Now, I am linked with a local church. Our movement is not a parachurch movement. We are involved in church planting around the world. That is our main work in Operation Mobilization. We planted 15 churches in France alone. We planted churches in Italy, in Spain, and even in Muslim countries. We don't go around sort of making, you know, photographs of our churches and making some great claim that this is our main work, in a sense, because we feel just as important as this work is just our general work of training men and women. And we don't want them to stay with OM. We want them to join other groups, especially groups that have this vision for church planting and for discipling men and for multiplying around the world. And it's exciting to see what God is doing, especially in India and other places where in some cases when they're on OM, it's mainly evangelism, mass evangelism, street preaching, winning people to Christ. But as they graduate, and for an Indian, generally, it takes us about 10 years to really make a strong man of integrity. This idea that we can create disciples in three years of Bible school is one of the greatest loads of eyewash that has ever been dumped on the evangelical church. It takes 10, 15, 20 years to make a man of God. You take a survey and find out how many Bible school graduates know reality in prayer and spiritual warfare. I want to tell you, you make that survey, you'll come out with a depression. We're not teaching young men how to pray. And we are graduating generation after generation of spiritual midgets. And then as someone speaks out, people are worried that he's negative or he's critical of the church or he's not understanding. I say this because I am totally knit with the church. I am the arch enemy of people in Britain who are criticizing the established church. I read some critical article about this church recently in a particular magazine, and I had that man on the phone. I believe in what was taught here today, if you have something against a brother, confront him. And I phone people all over this country. That's right. I was listening to a tape by a very famous leader in London in which he cut into established missionary work. Not O.M. We had nothing to do with it. He cut into the established missionary societies. When I was finished listening to that tape, my heart was burdened. I knew I had a wrong attitude to that brother. I repented and I got him on the phone. And I've developed an interesting relationship with him. Why are we afraid in the church of Jesus Christ to confront? We need to exhort one another. And I hope you'll get my phone number. And if you hear something screwy on one of my tapes, then I can assure you there are some screwy things on some of my tapes, you'll get me on the phone and maybe you can join with me in helping to get some of these tapes erased. You can put some of Graham Kendrick's music over the top of them. I believe that there is a great danger that slowly we are lowering the standard within the church of Jesus Christ. Now many of us are very burdened for the dead churches, the liberal churches. And you get people that they're in a live church and they're telling about how wonderful their church is and how the Lord's blessing. And they're concerned about the dead churches and the liberal churches. I want to tell you, my concern is the live churches. The so-called live churches who feel that they're doing all right and they are experiencing the blessing of God and God is using them. And yet I feel convinced that often in our live churches, the standard is not what it is in the word of God. Prayer, witness, love, discipline, repentance, and many other areas. And I feel the great hope is among us as leaders to increase the standard in our own lives. To see the degree of reality increase in our own lives. This is what breaks my heart about my own nation. We have many great organizations in America, many great men of God, but I feel even among the most live, and I have to put myself there, that we are falling short, so short of what the New Testament outlines as biblical Christianity. More and more people are seeing this. A.W. Tozer saw this. And that's why in speaking about evangelism, he said something that I've never forgotten, and I want to read it to you. He said, the task of the church is twofold. To spread Christianity throughout the world and to make sure that the Christianity she spreads is the pure New Testament kind. Christianity will always produce itself after its kind. A worldly-minded, unspiritual church is sure to bring forth on other shores a Christianity much like her own. Not the naked word only, but the character of the witness determines the quality of the convert. The popular notion that the first obligation of the church is to spread the gospel to the outermost parts of the earth is false. Her first obligation is to be spiritually worthy to spread it. To spread an effete, degenerate brand of Christianity to pagan lands is not to fulfill the great commission or the commandment of Jesus Christ. C.S. Lewis said, we have the tendency to think but not to act. We have the tendency to feel but not to act, and if we go on thinking and feeling without acting, someday we will be unable to act. This is what frightens me even about a conference like this, though I believe in these conferences, and it's one of the major ministries of our ship, conferences just like this. But there's a danger that we've had more truth, more exposure, more blessing. What are we going to do with it when we get in our vehicles and when we get home, in our families, in our churches, and in our work? I believe a subtle form of spiritual schizophrenia has crept into the church, which on a spiritual level is more difficult to handle than schizophrenia among the mentally ill. Where people have double compartments, they have their spiritual compartment that is obviously visible in a conference like this and on Sunday, but then they have their practical life. What they do with their time, their money, their education. Surely we have seen this in the United States. It's just unbelievable in our country, beyond words, what has happened where people can be so totally schizophrenic and be living in two totally different worlds in which there is no mixing whatsoever. Men have made literally hundreds of thousands. Some of the wealthiest men in America are evangelical Christians, and what are we going to do with the Sermon on the Mount? What are we going to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ? America certainly doesn't know what to do with this book, Rich Christians in a Hungry World. Not that I judge people who have a little bit of this world's goods, but I tell you, when they make it through selling Christian books, when they make it through taking love offerings, when they make it by skiving it off the old age pensioners, then I will speak out and I don't care who is in the audience, be it the President himself. We have rapidly become a nation of hypocrites, and there's a danger that Britain will follow right behind us, so don't point any fingers. I can speak bluntly about my nation, you speak bluntly about your nation, but I'm scared. The standard is coming down. Materialism has so invaded the church. It's just, we hardly know what to do anymore, to even talk about it. And the impurity problem, we know that impurity is wrong, but don't we see how impurity and materialism work together? When these different people have so much money and so much available to them, of course all kinds of other complicated problems naturally come in. And so before I try to paint a little picture of the needs around the world, it is my plea that we may go from here with a desire to increase the standard of life, even among those who feel they're already alive, and who love Christ, and who worship the Lord. And I believe that has to start personally with my own life. I am tremendously aware of inadequacy, and I know that I have to keep repenting, and my message is a message of grace. That's why I've written a book called Revolution of Balance, to keep some of these things that I sometimes say in balance and in context. I think we have to say this because it's one of the explanations why the world is not evangelized. Fifty percent of the people in the world today are still waiting to hear the gospel for the first time. About fifty percent. This is unbelievable 2,000 years since the Great Commission was given. This is unbelievable when we consider 10,000 people who gather at Philae, 9,000 who gather at Keswick, and now another 9,000 who gather at Dales, plus an endless host of other conferences and deeper life conventions that go on throughout the summer just on these islands. I believe the Holy Ghost will bring a holy go, and personally here in Britain I'm tired of so much talk about the Holy Spirit when I see so little burning apostolic reality in the lives of people that I have seen and I have watched for quite a few years. The Holy Ghost will bring a holy go, and I will tell you among the young people today there may be a lot of praising and a lot of guitar strumming and a lot of hallelujahing and some people call it worship, but I'll tell you worship that does not lead to spiritual revolution is not much different than Krishna worship, nor Buddhist worship, nor Moonism. It's a kick. Now I don't have the discernment to tell in some meetings in some situations who is on a religious kick and who is truly worshiping God. If you've got that much discernment I would love to have your book, but I'm scared. I'm scared for an overemphasis on subjectivism, subjective thinking, feelings, who's got the next kick, I believe it is going to paralyze world missionary endeavor if we're not careful. Now we believe in worship, we have whole nights of worship and praise, and we're not against live music and operation mobilization, but it's not enough, it's not enough for us to gather around the Lord's table and remember again that we're all saved. No wonder the people of the world think we're a bit touched as we go out reveling that we are saved and have never spoken to our own neighbors about this salvation and make little sacrifice of time, sweat, tears, money, toil to reach the world. Oh I know I am a crank, that was the best introduction I've had in a long time. I have been attacked and criticized and smeared many, many times and sometimes it's been my own fault, but other times it's been because I believe that what Jesus said he meant, and he said in Luke 14.33, except you forsake all that you have, you cannot be my disciple. Now the moment I say that I can hear the echoes, oh yes, but look what happened to the children of God. It's true, they had that message to some degree, but you see they didn't have the balance, they didn't have sound theology, they didn't have the other things that I believe many of you already have. Why did they attract so many young people? Why are so many young people being let out of the established church? Because many today, they just don't see the reality. They read in their Bible, our God is a consuming fire, and they look in vain for men on fire. It doesn't have to be loud, I don't want to be loud actually. When I came to England I was told you've got to speak soft, you're going to offend all the saints, but I had already listened to Alan Redpath for two years. And when I read these books by Andrew Murray I used to feel so guilty and I thought, Lord you know my greatest burden is not world evangelism, it's certainly not this or that, it's to be holy, it's to be gentle, it's to be meek, that's still my greatest need. And for a while I thought that had to do with being quiet. It was almost as if I was praying, Lord help me to be quiet, help me to speak with low, nice, holy tones. Lord help me to be quiet! Then suddenly I caught myself. I will tell you it was a great day when I accepted myself, because I had a lot of, I'll give you four free books, I had a lot of struggle in really accepting myself. If you're the quiet type and you're not explosive and all that, praise the Lord. God is not out to annihilate your personality, God is out to work through it. But my personality was not like that. Even in the meetings during these days, my feet are moving and I want to jump and shout, and I know this often offends people, because in the early days of OM I was much more free. I still am quite free. I used to stand on the chairs and the tables in the prayer meetings. People were laying on the floor in the OM prayer meetings, at Moody Bible Institute, weeping. Others were standing on the chairs praising God. I mean these are all good conservative, you know, straight line Bible churches. The dean of men peeking through the door at one in the morning, watching these students. You can be sure it caused some interesting repercussions at the institute. I had to learn the hard way that sometimes people just copy you instead of experiencing reality. I think it's wonderful to practice self-control in worship meetings. I don't like to do things in worship meetings that stumble other brothers, or that are freaky, or cuckoo, or whatever other word you use. That's why I like to go out to the woods and perhaps let off some steam, or sing, or praise the Lord. But oh beloved, I pray that we may see the need for spiritual revolution. The need to increase our standard of life. What are we going to do about this issue of materialism? I was about to tell you the main reason I was considered a crank is because I sold all my possessions. Because I refused to buy any clothing. That's now gone on for 20 years. I never thought that others should live that way. It's just a personal thing with me that I should trust the Lord for my clothing. Because I never owned a car, I never owned a home, and never had an insurance policy, or a bank account. I still live on maybe 2,000 pounds a year, and that's not easy. Maybe three by now with inflation, with a family of three. And we are not living in poverty. I don't believe in poverty. I believe God provides. Forsake all, then God supplies all. It's firstly, I admit, a heart transition. It's firstly an act of the will. And when you get married, it gets more complicated because you cannot force your wife. You have to come to peaceful negotiation. And it takes compromise, it takes love. And all the message of forsaking all, which to me is only 1 20th of the message of discipleship. Only 1 20th. Without love, it's nothing. But if you and I believe in world evangelism, I will tell you we are going to change our lifestyle. And there are going to go up things for sale. When God's Spirit moved in at Wheaton College, Moody Bible Institute, and other places, among the poor students, we sold thousands of dollars of possessions to buy Gospels. People now criticize us because we're a big organization. We've got a computer, and a telex machine, and two ships, and 300 vehicles, and people think O.M. has really changed. Of course they haven't looked at that ship. Gigantic rust bucket, built in 1914, the oldest passenger ship in the world. It's only running because of 25 committed engineers who have left big salaries, many of them sold their homes, and have put their own money even to buy the ship. There's no big money behind O.M. People can't believe this movement is basically British based. They can't believe it. With the great British drift to America, it is in all spiritual reasons. I mean, you know, we can be honest, can't we? I mean, it's easy to get the Americans to give. And many people in Britain now are looking to America for the cash. Some have even moved their whole operation there. Now, I'm not saying that that's wrong. I like to just stir people's minds. I like them just to consider this little fact, that India is 100 times less evangelized than America, at least 100 times. We have areas where there's no such thing as an evangelist. There are no churches. There are churches in other parts of India, but they don't move out of those areas any more than the average Northern Irishman is going to leave Northern Ireland to evangelize South End. And so India just screams, and British people don't even need a visa. It's getting tougher for British people to get into America. They need a visa. And yet all the English people that'll go over to America, and very, very few, are going East. Isn't that interesting? I'm not criticizing anybody. Just think. I believe one of the most important things we need to do in these days is think. I believe too often, as Christians, we're led by emotion. We're led by our environment. We're led by various experiences. I would beg of you to consider some of the facts. Let's just think about some of these countries. Let me just take my little prayer cards that I like to carry around to redeem the time and just mention some of these lands. These now are cold, harsh facts. Some of you already know them. Some don't. I can say right here my great burden isn't recruiting you to the foreign mission field. That's not my burden. Because I believe we need men in your positions in evangelism in Britain with a missionary worldwide vision as much as we need missionaries over there. Many people who come on OM, we don't put heavy pressure to become missionaries. Many of them come back into industry. They come back, some of you are XOMers, they come back in to be pastors. My burden isn't whether you're there or here. That isn't my first burden. But it's do you have a vision? I now have to live in this country about 8 months a year. That's not easy for me. Though I love Britain very much because there's so many other calls over there. But I have a teenage family, 18, 16, and 14. I feel my first priority next to God himself is my family. I cancel meetings. I cancel nations. I do a lot of things that my family may be given adequate time. And yet I have found that I just love to minister in this country. And I'm involved in evangelism as well and Christian unions, all kinds of meetings. An incredible meeting just last week of very interesting people from society at an evening banquet. 50% of them didn't know the Lord. We just start talking about the ship. Then we start talking about fellowship. Then we start talking about relationship. And discipleship. I love to speak about all the ships in God's word. And I find that I can be ministering here, even preaching the gospel. And yet the ultimate result always goes over there. India, the Middle East. There's always a recruit. A young person sitting in most meetings ready to go. I was speaking at tent hall a year ago. A young man converted through peace with God. Scotsman. Excellent marine engineer sitting in the meeting. Babe in Christ. God touched him. He's on Dulas in Mexico today. Not just working as an engineer, but being trained by living with godly men. Our top chief engineer is one of the most godly men I've ever worked with. It's just people just are with him in the engine room and they know Jesus Christ is in this man. It's the only way they can explain the character. And I tell you, light speaks louder than sermons. I believe. And I find that I can be in Britain and still feel that I'm involved in the whole world. And I'm sure some of you already have that experience and I believe you can have it even more. What you do in Britain affects the whole world. There are people that you can see saved in your meetings and sent even within a few years. Isn't that exciting? Some of our best workers, we led them to Christ. Now they're leaders. And it's just so wonderful and so exciting. We're here and yet we belong to the whole world. We might be laboring in Kent, but we belong to the whole world. We've got a world vision. Let's look at a few of these countries. Mauritania, according to this report, there are no national believers in the entire nation. Now that one fact should just stir us immediately to put Mauritania on our prayer list. No believers. Can you imagine London with no believers? Not one believer in all of London. Now I think there are a few there, foreign community, who know the Lord Jesus. Alright, just take yourself and three or four others and put yourself in London. Nobody else knows Jesus Christ. You know, you think your nation is so pagan. You know why? You haven't traveled enough. I will tell you, this nation is in no way as pagan as most of the places I have lived. It's just, you can't even understand what it is in some of these countries. You have nothing to compare it with. And I believe there is still, and I find that I love Britain more than most of the British people that I meet. I find that I'm also a little more optimistic, though I think I know the facts. But I am convinced there is still a strong Christian influence in this country. And you can write me about that and I'll be glad to discuss it with you. There is a strong Christian influence in this country. I think some people who talk about how bad it is now compared to past history, I would challenge them on what they have studied at university, because I don't think they know past history. I believe there is still an element. We're not a Christian nation. I don't think that's ever existed. But there's an element. God has got his hand yet upon this nation. God is not finished with this nation. This is not an hour for total pessimism. This is an hour for optimism in the midst of problems, darkness, and struggle to believe that God has his hand on this nation and God has his hand on some of these government people. And one of the purposes is that we may continue to play a vital role in world missions. I feel so strongly that the British Christian, with a tremendous heritage, what a heritage we have in this country. I've only absorbed just 5% British heritage and I can hardly keep my legs from moving. When I think of Bunyan, when I think of Hudson Taylor, when I think of William Carey and a host of other men, the books that we have in the English language that challenge our hearts day after day. One of the reasons I love books is I'm a natural backslider. I backslide almost every day. Fortunately, just for a few minutes, mainly in the mind. I have just this natural tendency to go down. That's why every day I need to be filled with the Holy Ghost. I believe in that message. Every day I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I need to turn away from that which is of the world, that which is of George Verwer, that which is compromise and surrender afresh to the Lord Jesus. And often it's been A.W. Tozer, Mary Machen, Andrew Murray, these men in my quiet time, and mainly the Word of God that's just humbled me. I'm not against crisis experiences. I think you ought to have a crisis every day. It doesn't have to be always the same emotional proportion, but I tell you when I see myself in my quiet time and then look at my Savior, I have to have some kind of a crisis. Forgive me if I'm too emotional about it, but it wouldn't hurt some of us in this country to be a little more released, a little more released. I find many people, and this is a tangent and I'll just touch it, I find many people crippled in their Christian life because they've never learned to be released and to share. Why are young people going sometimes even into extremist groups that have a heavy emphasis on relational theology and maybe go too far in this? Why are young people gravitating to some of those groups? Because in the present church scene, they're starved. They want to share with someone. They want to open up. They want to be accepted. They want love, and they don't find it. We found in our work the emphasis on fellowship, counseling, spending time with people, listening, accepting them in that time of failure is as important as evangelism and hard work. And you know when you give time to young people, you listen to them, you struggle with them, you repent with them and weep with them, I'll tell you they'll work and they'll go and go and accomplish God's work far more. Well, let's quickly move on. I have here Albania, no known Albanian national believers. There probably are a few. Some little work has been done there, but it's just unbelievable. Algeria has about 150 believers. Tunisia right next door has a few dozen believers in the entire nation. Libya, two or three national believers in the nation. And on we could go in terms of North Africa. But there are other places that are more open, though you can get into North Africa and there are other ways that you can help the work there. But think, for example, of Spain. Well, we have a lot of interest. There are whole provinces of Spain where there's very, very little work. When I first went into Spain in 1960, the first country I worked in, it was all closed. We distributed all our literature secretly through the post, about 900,000 pieces. About 25,000 people wrote for Bible correspondence courses to a secret address in Portugal. Within three years of prayer, nights of prayer, Spaniards praying, not just within OM, the whole body of that country opened. By 1964, we had gone into 80% of the villages of the country. That's only the beginning. Now you have to go back and consolidate and plant churches. That takes far more men, far more prayer. That's what we should be doing today, but we're not. We're just scratching the surface in Spain, and yet the Jehovah Witnesses have just passed 30 or 40,000 strong. Unbelievable rebuke to the Church of Jesus Christ. There are other European countries. I think there's only a couple dozen missionaries in the whole of Greece. It's a country OM hasn't even worked in. Just unbelievable situation. And what do we say of places like Turkey? It's one country I want to implant upon your mind. Turkey has 38, this card says 40 million people. It's been one of the main OM fields where we've been involved in church planting, and we've represented a majority of the missionaries in Turkey between OMers and ex-OMers. Though all the different groups now, and there are more now, the last 10 years, we all work as one body. This is a beautiful thing in Turkey. You have a workers' conference, and you all come together. Now that's a lot easier when the work is small. And of course already extremist groups have been born. They say that in Turkey there are probably, and I know you think you know where Turkey is, probably less than a hundred believers from among the Turkish background people. I'm not speaking of minority groups like Koreans living in Saudi Arabia, praise the Lord. Greeks living in Turkey are despised by Turks. Among the real Turks there may be a hundred. It's just an unbelievable situation. The first step isn't to get in your car and drive to Turkey, though you can do that. The first step is prayer. You know, there's a word that constantly God brings to my mind when I think about my own work, OM, with all of our failures and all of our needs. And when I think of the church, there's a word that comes to my mind. You may want to write it down. I call it sanctified imagination. And it's my prayer that as we go away from here desiring to be more committed, to be more involved, that we would develop a sanctified imagination. How can I, right where I am in Lancashire or in Cumbria or in northern Scotland, how can I be more involved? And as you pray and ask God to expand your imagination, I believe He'll show you ways. Many, many years ago I got this idea. I found out many others already had it, which is often true of an idea you get, of saving used stamps. I was a philatelic agent, owned a philatelic business when I was younger, and I sold that to print Gospels and get the word out. And then I thought of the idea, why don't we just save all these stamps off envelopes and sell them for the Gospel's sake? Some of your groups already do this. That has released thousands of pounds, thousands of pounds for world evangelism. Just one little funny idea. And there are so many ways. I believe there are ways we can be working together more. We get ideas. Let's get on the phone. Let's find out what we're doing. I wish I knew more of what you're doing. You're all so conservative here. I know you never want to tell anybody what you're doing. You got a, brother, do you have a prayer letter, brother? Get this prayer letter out of your pocket. But it would be wonderful to know more about your ministries. And I'm convinced there are ways to be working together. I'm sure some of you could be going on trips to some of these countries to minister. It's not just the great famous evangelists that can make an impact in India. Most of them never go to India. We've seen ordinary men go out with a gift to teach. Edwin Orton of the Birmingham City Mission went with us last year. God mightily used him out there. And, you know, there's just so much that could be done, especially when the whole world is becoming a global village. Some of you could spend a month in Turkey. And there are other countries that are much closer, and I know many of you already are. Of course, I realize that when I'm speaking to an audience like this. Sanctified imagination, especially in mobilizing God's people for prayer. I'd like to send this article I wrote, and that, of course, is free. It's only a pamphlet. What happened to the prayer meeting? I yearn to see missionary praying brought back on the map. I'm amazed in going to prayer meetings what people pray about. The Mickey Mouse vision that we have. I will tell you McDonald's hamburger chain has more vision to reach Britain than the average evangelical fish living today. And may we repent, and may we somehow do something about it. And it's going to start in prayer. Brother Brian Gilbert was sharing with me this One Step Forward program. It almost sent me to the moon. What a tremendous thing to get churches into that kind of thing. Ron Smith, I know, has got something somewhat like that. There are so many things that we could be doing. Oh, I know, someone says, well, we're afraid we're all going to become too activistic. This is the big thing in Britain today with evangelical pacifism. The Lord has led us to sit here and wait until he moves us out into evangelism. You know there's house groups that teach that? And some of them have been sitting for a long time. And you know what happens when they're sitting? Immorality, adultery, division, false doctrine, you name it and you get it. When pacifism is there, the devil is right there to move in. A Christian is on the move. I'm against being a workaholic. I'm against activism in the flesh. But I think we need to be careful when we accuse people of being in the flesh, just because they're a little active. Because history shows that most of the great men were slightly active. And if we just sit back. You know what happens to many young people on OM when they come back to some of the churches? They get literally pulverized. They're only with us for a summer. Of course we cannot thoroughly train them in one summer. It's a catalyst. They get a vision. They get a burden. And we tell them, and naturally this is true, in the coming years you are going to make mistakes. They're excited. They want to do something. But most of them aren't leaders. Most of them are ordinary people. They come back to their local church situation. I know everybody's watching, you know. What kind of cuckoo thing is this guy going to do? Many people seem to feel almost guilty. What is he going to tell me to sell my new Jaguar? Is he judging me because, you know, I just bought this 500 pound color television? People get a little nervous around some of these OMers. I don't know why. You know, if you want to waste your time watching television for endless hours, I'm not going to judge you. You stand before Jesus with your color television. I'm not against television. I don't have one. I'm not against it. No, seriously, I believe God can use television. I'd like to see some more Christian programs. But I'll be quite honest, I haven't got yet enough discipline to have television in my home. Now, you're British. You're more disciplined by nature. I just, you know, I love, my problem wouldn't be the bad programs, my problem would be the good programs. And once in a while I go over to my friend's house and I watch a good program. And that way for the children it's a very special treat. My children have never complained about not having television. They read books avidly and they're discovering all kinds of wild things to do, which gets a bit heavy at times. But when I think of the destructive force of television on the church, I just shake. And the biggest thing is not the evil programs. It's wasting time that will never, never get back. Beloved, the good has always been the enemy of the best. Nothing wrong with sitting down for a short time, relaxing, and maybe watching the news, maybe even one program. I'm not against that. But people so quickly become slaves to the pleasure cult, especially in our country. And I know it's happening here. Praise God, many young people today are beginning to rebel against this. I think these things are important. I think so often our message and our challenge is way up here and we don't get down to the nitty-gritty about our time, our money, and all the rest. May God just lead us in the way we should go. I don't know how many other countries to mention. Somalia, a few hundred national believers, one of the most needy countries in the world with just a small number of believers. Bhutan, that's way over in Asia, right there. It says here there are hardly any believers. Maybe among the Nepali people there, there might be about 300. And then some of the states within India. Just think of Bihar, 62 million people in Bihar, almost no missionaries left in Bihar. In the northern part of Bihar there are hardly any believers among the national, the main Bihari people. There are quite a few believers among the tribals in the south. That area of India is such a great burden on some of our hearts. And on we could go. It's just unbelievable. Uttar Pradesh, another main area within India, has 100 million people. 100 million, double the population of Britain. Less churches, less churches than south east London. 100 million precious souls. Now one of the tricks of the devil, to try to hinder world evangelism, is to get those working in the home front, like many of you, sort of get their backs up against those on the foreign mission field. It's true, some foreign mission people, they overstate things, and in overstating things they sort of reduce sometimes the work that you're trying to do. So you sometimes overreact and say, look, how can we think about all these countries, Britain's so pagan, and you give some quote about some section of your own city, some housing estate, with no witness, which is probably very legitimate. I know the need in Britain is fantastic. And we are involved in evangelism here. We hope to throw maybe 20 teams into Britain and southern Ireland again this summer. We have 12 men ministering all the time. I'd like to get more of them here next year. But compared with these other places, I don't even believe it makes sense to compare. And this is why I'm convinced, though we may be laboring, preaching, and teaching here, working for renewal, that the blessing must flow out, and that we must be praying that the Lord of the Harvest will send out more laborers into the harvest. Could we not be organizing some nights of prayer for world missions? Could we not be having missionary prayer meetings in our own churches, or making at least 25 percent of the meeting real prayer for missions? There are so many things, I'm convinced, we can do. It has grieved me that some of the main evangelists in the world today seldom give a real missionary challenge. I don't understand that. This is a biblical, basic teaching, Acts 1A. And when it comes to the uttermost parts of the earth, let's just look at two scriptures that are not as well known as Acts 1A, because I think it's so important. I love to hear Martin Goldsmith on the biblical basis for missions, and some of you know his outstanding book. Don't just stand there. And that's one of the things that we can be doing in Britain, is distributing some of these great missionary books. Michael Griffiths, Give Up Your Small Ambitions. Hudson Taylor, William Carey, these can be on your book tables in your meetings. Isn't it amazing some evangelists will not allow book tables in their evangelistic meetings, or only their own books, or their own records. Oh, what a blessing it is when you find people who push other people's books and other people's records. You know, it doesn't take too much spirituality to push your own thing. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. I think some people are too much the other way. But what a wonderful thing it is to see people pushing other groups. Introducing people to other movements. Other ministries. Speaking well and telling people what a great blessing that other evangelist was. I'd love to bring you a whole message on this subject that God has just torn through my wicked heart. The subject of esteeming others better than yourself. There's a lot of people around Britain preaching and teaching. I listen to their tapes that I don't agree with, and I feel they're off-balanced. I believe it's compromised. But I esteem them. I love them. I get blessings from them. And I think this is such an important thing that's already been emphasized here. But just look quickly at 2 Corinthians 10, 16. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 16. To preach the gospel. Paul is speaking 2,000 years ago. To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you. And not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand. Isn't that an unpleasant little text? The regions beyond. Other countries we're talking about. Other countries outlined. Outlined in this little book. And I believe, especially those of you in a teaching ministry, and many of you are, you are under God's instruction to teach the whole counsel of God. And that means you've got to teach what the Bible says about world evangelism. And it includes verses like this. And then look very quickly at Romans 15, 20. Romans 15, verse 20. Wow. Yay! So I have strived to preach the gospel not where Christ was named. Lest I should build upon another man's foundation. One of the mistakes we make is we're trying to Christianize Britain instead of evangelize the world. All kinds of movements are born that are basically British centered. I don't find much biblical basis for this. Your major emphasis must, should be Britain. But if you're going to be biblical, your work is the world. Even though your main target may be local. And we are not called, there's no biblical basis to think we're called to Christianize Britain. And it's my view, I'm sure as many don't agree with me, it's my view that we may not be on the brink of a great revival. I want that. I pray for that probably as much as most. But it may be that we're going to move the other way into a period of persecution and suffering, compromise, apostasy. Read history. It isn't always revival. It's just around the corner. I only throw it out to think, to pray. But I believe this, the world is the field. And when they have a revival in Indonesia or Brazil, even though I'm in Britain, I'm just thrilled. I would say as an American Lord, if you want to bring revival today and there can't be one in the United States and China at the same time, Lord, I'm bringing it to China, even though I'm not Chinese and I probably won't be in on it, and I certainly won't be the major speaker. We're part of the whole body of Christ. As one member suffers, we all suffer. That's why I want to know about your ministry, because if you're suffering, I'm suffering. And my heart hurts. And there's been tears many times down my face. And I've been prostrate before God about Britain, about the church, about all the needs of the church at this time. But the greater burden is the whole world. That was the vision and the burden of the Apostle Paul, and it should be ours as well. In these closing moments, I want to share just something that's heavy on my heart about some of the other major obstacles to world evangelization. And I know the hour is late, but I just feel this is so important, and maybe the only reason the Lord sent me here is just to say these next few words. The first obstacle, I believe, is the reducing or compromise in regard to the inspiration of Scripture. This is the Word of God. I'm not going to take you into the inerrancy controversy. I'm probably more British and American on some of these things. This is God's Word. All of it. Sure, there are things we don't understand. I listen to Dr. Schaeffer about the problems of the man who doesn't believe the Bible. I believe there are far more than the problems for the man who does believe the Bible. This is God's inspired Word. Let's feed on it. In my surveys in the Christian unions and in many churches, less than 50% of the people have read the Bible through once. In the Christian unions, less than 20%. I make them raise their hand and stand up. Of course, they're young Christians, many of them. It's amazing. It's supposed to be God's Word. A new book has just come out by Ralph Shallis for young Christians. Get it. It's the only book he's written about going on. Here's an Englishman that's been so used to God in France and North Africa that he has all his writings in French. He's unheard of in this country. You know his brother, Marshall Shallis. Ralph is slowly dying of cancer. He's writing, writing, writing. He's burning out to the end. We finally got one of his books translated from French back into English, even though he's an Englishman. Praise God for such missionaries, though he's been a man almost unknown in this country. What a challenge it is to think of people like that. I'm convinced. Let's hold fast to the Word of God. I love people. I really respect people. I believe God's working in many different funny ways. But personally, if they're not clear on their stand about Scripture, I cannot work with them. I just cannot. I may even preach in one of their conventions. I preach almost anywhere. I'll preach in a pub if you get me in there. But when it comes to collaboration, if they don't stand on inspired Scripture and they start playing around. You know that man that just dragged 900 people perhaps into hell in Guyana? Do you know one of the first things he did? He was a pastor, still a pastor in the Disciples of Christ Church. One of the first things he did when he started going astray, he denounced the virgin birth and then he spit on his Bible. If you don't think that thing was inspired by demons, even though I'm incredibly conservative on that area, then maybe you better read the story again. God's Word. And this is so important. I believe every Christian should be memorizing God's Word. And that's such strength to resist temptation. It's another message in itself. Secondly, I believe the great obstacle is unbelief. Unbelief. I love to speak in the Brethren Assemblies. Boy, they're just like sitting ducks when you come in. And just talk to them about George Mueller. Just talk to them about George Mueller, one of the founders. Talk to them about Anthony Norris Groves or Chapman. Talk to them about these early extremists, these Brethren cranks who almost turned this nation upside down. Mueller at the end of his life with 30,000 answers to prayer. And I asked them, how many of you are keeping lists of answers to prayer? I will tell you, those of you who are from Brethren Assemblies, we need to go back to the first principles. We now have many teachers in the Brethren Assemblies, but not many fathers. You know where that's quoted from. And the Methodists need to go back a little bit to John Wesley. And it's amazing, the men that founded our movements, their lifestyle, the way they lived. What a challenge. What a heart cry. C.T. Studd said, let's not be nibblers of the possible. I wonder how many of us in our ministries really, if we're honest, we're just nibbling at the possible, just taking as much as we can handle with our little human bag of resources and the money that we can somehow scrape together from God's frozen people, chosen people. Not nibblers of the possible, grabbers of the impossible. And that firstly is people. I'm always scared when people come to the ship because they get their eye on the ship. They don't understand that we spent, some of us who are locked together still, from when we first met back in college, we've been struggling, praying, working, nights of prayer, all the rest of it, and much failure mixed in for twenty years. Don't get property first. It's not outward things first. Build on men. Get around you a group of spirit-filled, committed men. Let God add the property. Better to live in a tent with five spirit-filled men than have the QE2 and a bunch of carnal, half-cocked Christians. And yet this is so often the mistake the Church has made. Property, buildings, in America we're neurotic. We're almost totally neurotic on this point. Who can build a bigger building? We had one man to get more people into the Sunday school. He parachuted into the parking lot to gather a crowd, I tell you. Imagine if an Englishman did that. I bring the birth of a new cult. Unbelief, unbelief is certainly one of the most paralyzing, vicious, fiery darts that the enemy uses. And I want to be honest. In the last years, unbelief has come at my soul in the most unsuspecting ways. And if you've worked for twenty-three years with the greatest burden to see revival and renewal and reality among God's people. And then you live with them. I live with my OMers. And I know their problems and their mistakes. And I yearn for greater revival and reality in my own work. That's always more depressing than seeing it down the road. And I tell you, if you were the main OM leaders, and there's about two hundred of them now around the world, my message would be stronger and it would bite harder than what I'm giving you here this morning. Because we know that we are in desperate need. And as a training movement that graduates a lot of our strongest men, we have to start over again, over again, and over again. And it's not easy. Third obstacle I believe is an overemphasis on the existential, on the subjective, on emotion. I feel very strong about this. I'm an emotional person. But I feel that probably in my life the greatest danger would be if I built on emotion. We go up, we go down. One minute we're praising the Lord, next minute the same tongue we're biting at some brother or some sister, even after we preached a message on it. And I feel there needs to be a greater emphasis on dying to self, on discipline, on plotting. William Carey said, give me plotters. Why can't we get more missionaries out of the present day evangelical scene? Thousands have come and are coming to Christ in Britain. I know thousands who claim experiences with the Holy Spirit. Where are they when it comes to missionary candidates for tough situations? We're too soft. We want the next blessing. And many people have actually deserted their churches, good evangelical churches, because they wanted more emotional feeling. We mainly are thinking about what I can get. I'm going to go to the church where I can get blessed. And of course the little churches, and some of them are screwy, and some of them are good of the new groups. I'm doing a whole research. If I ever wrote it, I don't know what would happen. All these people I've had on the end of the phone. And I know a lot of what's happening around this country in many circles. The splits that are taking place in churches right now in Britain are phenomenal. And of course sometimes these little new groups balance out and they become very good. So don't despise a new group. A.W. Tozer said the greatest need in the church today is discernment. We need to try to discern, not make blanket statements and get to know. But the enemy so often gets in when groups put the emphasis on feelings and on the next blessing. And we become too subjective. And we think we can fellowship with everybody as long as they've got the same feeling. Not me. I tell you, listen to what Tozer said about that. You've got a book, you know where we're going, and we know our faith is on God's word. Let me give you something from a man named Hodges in a book called Unseen Warfare. This fervor, speaking of the general fervor of the early Christian life, not necessarily first love, don't confuse that. This fervor is especially characteristic of beginners. And it's drying up should be welcomed as a sign that we are getting beyond the first stage. I couldn't believe that when I read that. To try to retain it or to long for its return in the midst of dryness is to refuse to grow up. It is to refuse the cross. By our steady adherence to God, when the affections are dried up and nothing is left but the naked will clinging blindly to him, the soul is purged of self-regard and trained in pure love. I hope you're going in that direction. So whatever may come upon your soul, depression or elation, this or that, whatever may come, you know what it is to set your eyes on the Savior and to keep going. Never get out of the train when you're in a tunnel, someone once told me. And if you're in a dark hour in your Christian life, if you're confused, if you're baffled by problems and temptations, that's not the time to do something, you know, a bit off and make some major decision or so-called get off the train in the middle of a dark tunnel. Fourthly, I believe a great obstacle to world evangelism is materialism. Materialism, wow, it just swept us off our feet. And it's interesting, when you talk to someone, they'll always tell you about another brother who's more materialistic. They'll always point out somebody who's got a newer car and a bigger car and a bigger house and a bigger television or whatever. Everybody feels one brother, you know, is more. So therefore, I'm really not that bad. Tozer said, we measure ourselves by ourselves for so long that there are no longer higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit. Will you stop measuring yourself with some other evangelist and put yourself next to Jesus? And if you have to measure, well, Paul, we got lots of him. And I'll tell you, then you'll get on your knees and search your heart about your lifestyle and about the use of God's money and about this subject that C.T. Studd often talked about called sacrifice. And he was really a crank. And I got a whole page of his quotations that I just printed, just happened to print or get wrecked to print a thousand copies for me just in case any of you want any of these bullets from one of God's guns. Materialism. Let's take a stand. The World Congress on Evangelism, I was there, I don't know how that happened. The World Congress on Evangelism put a statement in the Los Angeles Covenant. We believe in a simple lifestyle. I tell you, when I get over in my home country, which is just a few weeks a year, you better pray because I'm in Dallas Seminary in February, Moody Bible Institute, Asbury College and four other major institutions. It's very interesting. You know another thing that Tozer said? He said if any secular company needed so much raw material to get so little finished product as the Church of Jesus Christ, it would go bankrupt in six months. I believe God wants men today, not who will criticize the Church, individual churches or denominations, but men who will see the need of the Church. They'll have the eyesight and the discernment to see the mess we are in, yet realize they are part of that mess, and then through the cross and prayer and commitment and New Testament living, will work from within for revival and spiritual revolution, world evangelization, and all the rest. I wish I could talk to you about the state of the Church in some of the countries we've been in. You think it's got its problems here. You can't believe India. And I feel this is the fourth obstacle, and I'm running out of time, the fourth obstacle I believe is false ecumenicalism. I don't want to trot on any toes. I don't know who's all here today, but I believe many people in this country are naive, including some of your top leaders. I really believe it. They just haven't traveled. I don't know what they read. Maybe they read Little Orphan Annie. I don't know. Liberalism is a gangrene that has severed the nerve of missions in a way that will never be recuperated. Just come to India and see Christian churches that are more Hindu, more Hindu than Christian, and to discover within the church lying, cheating, embezzlement, murder, arranged murder. I will tell you, when the salt has lost its savor, it is no good. And when the so-called church has lost the word and the Lord, it is no good. This is why in OM, though we've been criticized, we cannot engage in working on a cooperative basis with churches where there are men denying the basics of our faith. It's not all just, you know, we all like to be so friendly. I love these people. My heart is broken for people. And individual liberal ministers that I have friendship with, I have dialogue with them and I yearn to see them come back. And I know many of them are there because of cantankerous and bigoted so-called fundamentalists on the other side. And that extreme, the real extreme, is almost worse than liberalism. And that extreme has created perhaps more liberals than will ever be able to count. But somehow this idea that we're all going to come together, all these different churches around the world, what put label, every label you put on it, we're all going to work together. I believe it is a lie from the pit. And you've got your feedback paper. It's a lie from the pit. I'm not in any way speaking about any particular group. I'm not against true ecumenicalism. All believers in Jesus Christ who have been washed by the blood of the Lamb are one body. But I read in my Bible if any man preach another gospel, let him be accursed. When have you last heard a sermon on that in these interesting days in which we live? I don't find the Christian gospel easy. I don't find believing in heaven and hell easy. I don't find believing that all men are lost without Christ, including the Muslims and the Hindus, easy. It's an endless agony to my soul and I doubt how many of us really believe that, that those men are lost. But the little I believe is like a burning fire in my soul that cannot be put out, though I know for 23 years many have been watching and waiting. Our God is a consuming fire. This is His truth and this church in Britain today is existing because men burned on the stake and I will not forget them. And you and I may not have the privilege of burning on the stake, but we can burn where we are and be filled with God's love and stand for the truth and lay down our lives for the sake of the gospel. May God grant it. May God grant it. I speak as one far behind many of you in these things, maybe just one with a bigger mouth. What the Lord said, he who hath ears, let him hear.