The video is a sermon transcript about the importance of studying and understanding the Word of God. The speaker emphasizes the need for discipline in studying and applying the teachings of the Bible. He shares personal examples of individuals who have been transformed by their commitment to giving and serving in missions. The speaker also highlights the importance of different ministries, such as ship ministry, Muslim world ministry, and behind-the-scenes work, and how the message of the sermon applies to each of them.

We have to apologize for the acoustics in this interesting chapel. We hope you will be able to hear, despite a little bit of echo. We really, all of us feeble brothers and sisters helping to put this conference together, welcome you in the name of the Lord. There are many different types of people here. Some are not staying on OM for a year. You're going back into leadership responsibility in your church. We're happy you're here. I wish there were more in that category myself. My personal desire is to have double this many. You may say, well, that's so many. Well, nobody wants to cut down on the summer crusade. Eighteen hundred people with us this summer, and most of the leaders of the teams were new people, and many of them had never been to a leaders' conference. So we've got to train more leaders if we're going to keep up just with the OM, and that's not our goal. Our goal is to keep up with Jesus. He's a lot faster than this pokey old movement. And we want to see people trained to be radical Christian leaders of their Christian unions. Some years we have quite a few here from that group. But we praise the Lord for those who are here, and I've generally in the past years requested it, so I'll do it again, those of you who are leaving after this conference, to give me a little personal note where you're going, so I can pray for you, maybe send you a pile of books. People say you should have a hobby, so I've taken up this hobby of giving out books, tracts. Tremendous inspiration. But we like to pray for those of you who are going into other ministries. You know, it's often tougher to leave a fellowship like this and to go into a hard church situation or some other leadership, where if you announce, oh, let's have a night of prayer, it's going to go over like a lead balloon. Or, why don't we go door to door this weekend? Especially if it's a cup final weekend. We want to, those of us in OM, be praying more fervently for those that are out in other responsibilities. We know, of course, some of you go into fellowships far more live than OM. Hallelujah, I hope the Lord can do something better than OM. We're just, you know, one of God's smaller groups, one of God's weaker groups perhaps in some ways, though of course he has a great gift working through weak people. Have a seat. Required reading for everyone who goes through an OM leader's course is Oswald Saunders' book, Spiritual Leadership. We gave it out in July, gave it out in August, we're still giving it out. Any of you, let's have some distributors please, this pile here. If you have not had a copy of this book, please raise your hand. Let's see how many we got to go. How can this be? Very quickly, let's have some more helpers. More helpers, come on there. Here's the Hoshway Brothers moving into action. Please read it. You don't have to read it tonight. But you can finish it by the end of the week. It's not going to take you the rest of your life to digest it. Keep your hand up. If you exercise your arms more, you wouldn't have so much trouble holding your hand up. Come on. Come on. More distributors here, these men are slow. Way in the corner there. Hell of a world all these people come from. Now, I think we're going to just about have enough. What to do about the balcony? Peter Maiden wants his copy. Here. We'll get some more at the book table. Also, you're supposed to study, you don't have to memorize, the leadership manual. And if you don't have one, that's a little harder to get. But not tonight, but you tomorrow, check the literature table. Neil Brinkley is in charge of the literature table. Stand up, Neil. You think you can find some of those leadership manuals? I think there's some around somewhere. Check the office in case Rosie's safe. Praise the Lord. Now, the title of this little message tonight is God's Way Forward for OM in the 80s. God's Way Forward. It's really a follow-up on my advanced session this morning. But you don't necessarily have to have heard that to understand what I'm going to say tonight. There are times in any spiritual movement when we do not just teach the word of God, but we declare what we sense in our inner being that God is saying to us as a body of people. This has to be based on the word of God. But I'm sure all of you who have studied the scriptures know that the Lord leaves quite a lot of scope for some individual thinking. You will find every single little rule about how to have a happy marriage in the Bible. You'll find the basics more than enough. But then you've got to use a little bit of sanctified imagination, a little bit of prayer, and you've got to wrestle things out. And different groups develop totally different approaches on many areas. And they all claim to get it from the Bible, even just in terms of leadership. Some call them elders. Some call them deacons. Some call them shepherds. Some call them leaders. Some call them coordinators. Some call them pastors. Some call them, of course, bishops. On we could go. Different denominations have chosen different terminology. And I feel very strongly about this message tonight, that it is something of what God wants to say to us. I know that anything that I ever say will be mixed with some earth. This treasure is in earthen vessels. As the message comes out, some of the earth gets in the way. And you have to learn how to get, if you ever listen to me, just how to throw aside some of the Verwarian earth. Try to get through to what the Word of God is saying, what the Lord is saying to you. Now, I believe in a message like tonight, the Lord says different things to different people. Those of you on the ship, in the ship ministry, are going to see how this fits into your ministry. Those of you in the Muslim world are going to see how this fits into the Muslim world vision. And those of you who work behind the scenes, that's somewhat my place, you're going to see how it fits in there. Those of you leaving OM, I believe you're going to see how a lot of this, not all of it, will fit into your situation. Let's pray and ask God to speak to us. Lord, speak from your Word. Your servants wait upon you. We need a message from above. We need something, Lord, that will shake us loose, break up our fallow ground. That we may proceed forward in your timing, in your power, and by your grace. Speak, for your servants listen. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. I'd like you to turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2. An old familiar verse in OM's leadership training arsenal of verses. Chapter 2, verses 1, 2, and 3. I'm using two Bibles these days, the old translation and the new one. Let me try this verse from the new international translation, or these verses. You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard of me say in the presence of many witnesses. Entrust to reliable men, who will also be qualified to teach others. Entrust to reliable men, who will be qualified to teach others. Endure hardship with us, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No man serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs. King James entangled with the affairs of this life. I like that better, actually. He wants to please his commanding officer. And it goes on. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules. A hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all of this. And that's a prayer of mine as we go into this message tonight. That God will give us insight. Sometimes we need the overview. Sometimes we need insight. We need wisdom. You've all heard me quote A.W. Tozer. The greatest gift needed in the church today is the gift of discernment. The gift of discernment. In many ways, I would love to leave O.M. myself. I say that very honestly. I don't believe it's God's will. I believe this is my longer-term commitment. But I have such a linking with so many churches. I have a list of probably 30 churches, 40 churches that have asked me to come and minister to be with them anytime from a day to a week that I've not yet even gotten to. And most places, especially in North America, have given up writing because I'm not over there. I just love to minister among God's people. Not just big churches. Church I was in two weeks ago, Little Methodist Church, only 17 people in the meeting. You know, God isn't so impressed with our bigness. Of course, not against big churches. God does big things. God works in small ways. But I feel such a linking with the churches, and I'll be sharing about that in the morning. And I hope we'll never see O.M. as something separate from the churches. That is totally wrong. I have a reprint of an article against this whole concept that, you know, these groups are parachurch groups and this is the church group. We very much feel that as we look into the New Testament, both are there as part of God's church. The teams moving out that often start churches or teams that follow up on what the Lord has done. And then the church itself. And if there's certainly one of the great needs in our day is the coming together of movements like O.M. and local churches. And a lot of our time, some of us as leaders, is just continually building those relationships. Building those relationships with local churches. Ministry. I don't go to any churches to present O.M. Maybe you didn't know that. Maybe. I've done it once or twice. I don't remember this year. I go to declare the message of God. To declare the counsel of God. Sometimes I'm speaking about marriage. I'm often speaking about other spiritual subjects. And because of this, I get many open doors. I never be invited as somebody with a missionary message. Because as you know, missionaries don't always have open doors. This is how the Lord opened the door into Spring Harvest to six and a half thousand young people. Because I could go and speak about commitment and discipleship and spiritual balance and love. And we bring in the missionary challenge and a thousand copies of Operation World and a few other things. Just all part of the package. I was reading. I'm still reading volume two of George Whitefield. I haven't quite gotten through it yet. I got sidetracked into Charles Coulson's tremendous book Life Sentence. And then finally got decided I better read the first book, Born Again. And then I got into about seven other books. And I somehow can't find that copy of George Whitefield volume two. Somebody probably pinched it. But you know, back in his day, many of his men who went out in ministry were called exhorters. That's a term we don't even use today. The very big thing in our day is that we constantly hear the main need is for Bible teaching. I've heard many people that give the idea that if we just had Bible teaching, everything would be all right in the church. Well, I've gone to churches where all they've had is Bible teaching, sometimes very good teaching. And the people are very orthodox. And many times they're also very dead. I am strongly in favor of Bible teaching. I'm strongly in favor of people in the Word of God. But I believe also God wants to give to the church people with a ministry of exhortation. Men who will stir up God's people, call them to revival, call them to repentance. Take a theme from the Word of God, use whatever method God gives them, and bring forth the message. And I believe this is greatly lacking in the church today. This is why Ravenhill has been so mightily used. This is why Tozer so mightily used, and many other men, with that kind of exhortation and that kind of ministry. Now, actually, I don't like to talk about OM. But I think for this occasion, for this Leaders' Conference, I should say some things about the work of OM. Can two run together if they are not agreed? Ninety percent of you are planning to stay with OM for a year, about 80 to 90 percent. More than that, you are the leaders of OM. Some of you will be leaders this year. And I think it's important that we be able to feel free and relaxed to talk about this fellowship that God has raised up without thinking we're on an ego trip or we're blowing our own horn. Because I think most of you know that we are constantly criticizing our own movement. As field leaders, we're meeting two or three hours already every day through lunch, until we have to go to the next meeting at three o'clock, basically criticizing our own work. So we feel that it is necessary at times to speak openly about this work. And I just think, with all my heart, those of us especially who have been around for a number of years and we've seen the miracles God has wrought, the answers to prayer, the people saved, the people healed, the people helped, the people whose lives were totally destroyed when they came on an OM summer conference. Some come right from adultery, right into the OM conference. And God's put them together. We had the highest response this summer, any summer I can remember, to the invitation for commitment and surrender and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There must have been 700 people this summer who made such a commitment, and some do it without standing up. I received hundreds of letters, follow-up notes from these people. It is truly incredible how the Holy Spirit, despite our failures and weaknesses, again and again pours himself out upon these gatherings and conferences and then scatters those people to the ends of the earth. There are now people who have been trained in OM laboring in almost every single nation in the world, minus perhaps 10 or 15 countries in some very small places. I never cease to be amazed. Many of them never felt they should keep contact with OM. They felt we're too busy, why should they write a letter? Then eventually they write us and they say, I'm here, I'm there. I've got a job in Saudi Arabia. I'm here in Uruguay. I'm in one little tiny country in Africa. There were seven ex-OMers. One mission society, mainly half of them were ex-OMers. I couldn't believe when I heard this news. Many, of course, are back carrying on the vision for missions in their own home church. God has blessed. God has answered prayer. And I want to say this to you because some of you are new in leadership. If you are not absolutely convinced that this is a work of the Holy Spirit directed not by man, not by George Verwer, not by some board of directors, if you're not deeply convinced that this is directed and guided by the Holy Spirit, I would beg of you in the name of Jesus not to join. And when you go out onto that team, one of the most fatal mistakes you can make is to think you are working for Operation Mobilization. Beloved, we are a fellowship. And if you're in this fellowship, you are working for Jesus. We can never meet your needs. We can never give you enough pastoral counseling and help, though we're trying to increase that. Trouble with OM, we're trying to increase about 25 different things all at once. And we're wrestling to know what our priorities are. But I believe it will revolutionize your life, especially in Christian work where things sometimes do get very, very ugly. If you think Christian work, whether you're with OM or any other group, is some kind of nice way to sort of go out and serve, you're in for big surprises because Christian workers and Christian leaders, they're human, they're real, they fail. And one of the key things we want to emphasize as we go on in this decade is that we are working for Jesus. And that this work must be guided and directed by the Holy Spirit. Someone recently wrote a tremendous leaflet called The Missing Person in Foreign Missions, the Holy Spirit. There's not enough time waiting upon God. There's too much discussion and not enough unction. Committee meetings gather together oftentimes as five minutes of prayer and five hours of talk. And I pray that in your own life and in our OM gatherings and in these conferences, there will be much waiting upon God and seeking the Lord and making sure that the Holy Spirit is leading and guiding us. We know that's not some simple little easy thing that comes about through throwing out a few spiritual cliches. It takes time to know God's ways. I can be, I guess, OM's biggest critic. Anybody who doesn't see blantant problems and difficulties and at times sin in OM, they certainly must be just a spiritual baby. But I believe that the Holy Spirit is still in charge of this work. On the basis of that, I'm willing to go a few more years. Don't presume. Never presume. A spiritual movement, the moment they begin presuming that the blessing of last year will carry the next year, are beginning already to move into danger. Because God, as we spoke about this morning in the message that I felt the Lord had given, often allows movements to be tested to the very fiber. That's happening to a number of spiritual movements right now. They're being tested to the very fiber. Leaders have been knocked out. Marriages have split. I think most of you know that I have a great appreciation for the charismatic movement. I'm now distributing this book, Love Covers, which is basically a favorable presentation of the charismatic movement and a book that calls charismatic and non-charismatic Christians together. In the broader sense, we're all charismatic. If you're not at least somewhat charismatic, you're in trouble. You better go get your plug in the right socket. I hope you'll read over that book. I have received more letters as a result of distributing that book than any book I've distributed this year. They're coming in from all over the world, people asking, I want a dozen, I want a dozen. And we have hardly started yet. And I believe one of the reasons the Lord brought in this very special unusual gift is because he wants to help finance some of these efforts to distribute great Christian books to Christian leaders. Christian leaders are incredibly busy. They seldom go into a bookshop. They seldom buy a book. But when they get a book from another Christian leader, especially one they have doubts about, they read it. I've got people reading Love Covers from California to Timbuktu. And I'm getting back some exciting letters. Yes, I agree with Billy Graham, who said that one of the five reasons for church growth in our generation, one of the five reasons, was the charismatic movement. We are not charismatic in root. Many of us, when we first got saved, didn't even know what that was. We knew who the Holy Spirit was. He was born before 1904. And I just praise God that from the early days, he did not allow us to any great degree to develop prejudice against this movement. Of course, we had our reactions against extremism. You cannot, we've always said, put people all in different categories. But I think it's a miracle in O.M., a miracle of the Spirit of God that we have come together of these different backgrounds and different viewpoints on certain issues, like the whole subject of tongues, and like some of the things in connection with church government, and that God has enabled us to function together and has enabled us to reach at least 300 million people with the Word of God in these 20 years, and that's not an exaggeration in any way. Yes, the Holy Spirit is working. He works in different ways in different people. He works in different movements in different ways. I'll never forget in 1964. A brother, I was very close to him, did not feel that we emphasized the Holy Spirit enough. He didn't feel some of our leaders were filled with the Spirit. He thought I was filled with the Spirit, very kind of him, mainly because I was noisy. And he left. And a movement was started as a counter to O.M., as a slap in the face. It was called Operation Pentecostal Fire. They certainly had a better name. Within a couple of years, it was dead. It was dead. You see, it isn't the name you take on. It isn't what you talk about. It's not even whether you have all your doctrines neatly stacked in the right priority. It's God. And God works in mysterious ways. And it is a mystery to me how He has been able to use the likes of us. And I tell you, I stand before you just one of many leaders in this world more inadequate, more feeble, more scared than I have ever been. And yet I know in God's mysterious ways, He has chosen to use a feeble band of nobodies, not only for initial evangelism, but for spearheading many major efforts that have resulted even in new churches being born and in many people coming to Christ. Yes, the Lord in the past 25 years, if we go back to Mexico, 20 years if we go just to Europe, has laid a foundation. He's raised up a fellowship. He's given this fellowship a unique purpose and a unique place in the Church. And now in a miraculous way, He's given us unity with thousands of Christian leaders. I thank God that we didn't develop some kind of a persecution complex when we were so criticized in the 60s and tell everybody to get off our backs, we're going to do our own thing. Instead, God humbled us, showed us the error of our ways, showed us that we deserve some of this criticism, and that we must just keep loving people. And if they punched us, we just love them more. And some people who used to use OM as a punching bag today, now are spreading this vision more than people in the work. There's nothing like getting an enemy turned around. Look at the Apostle Paul, fighting the Christians with all the hatred he could stir up. God turned him around. We need some people like this. So the next time somebody tries to take the mickey out of you, next time someone calls OM the biggest floating band of vagabonds that have ever cluttered up the evangelical world, you say, praise the Lord for that insight, brother. Just love him right out of his shoes. Yes, God has laid a foundation. Some people think OM is getting into the middle years. You know, don't compare a movement with people. I'm getting into my middle years. And Dale Roatan is getting into his middle years, and quite a few of us. You can't make that comparison with a movement. You study church history. OM is just being born. Wesley at his death. Basically, that in a sense terminated the birth of the Methodist movement. I don't want to compare OM with the Methodist movement. We're very, very, very, very different. And in history, you make a great mistake when you go try to copy previous movements. One of the unique things about OM, it's got many original, many original things. But OM is just being born. You are part of the birth of a spiritual work. God can lay me aside. God can lay McCloskey aside. God can lay Roatan aside. God took Keith Beckwith, the director of the work in Britain, within the third year he was in the work. Took John Watts at the same time. Took Chris Begg and three others in one motor accident. This work is just being born. You are part of the birth. It takes a couple of decades for a spiritual movement to be born. If it's a man-made movement, it can be born and die in five years. We've all seen that happen. We've seen it even happen with churches. People talk a lot about church planting. I've seen churches planted by man. Planted by man. In my book of Acts, it says God added to the church. Today, often man adds to the church. You go back five years later, it's dead. Yes, God has laid a foundation. And as we move into the 80s, I think we have a foundation in which we can do much more. I think most of us sense, and I've had very little resistance to this as I've talked with many leaders, that in the 80s we must emphasize the Muslim world and the unreached people. We were ignorant of this people's challenge ten years ago. We were in it. We were doing it in our sort of scatterbrained way. Reaching 200 million people for Christ across India. You don't think we've reached into almost every unreached pocket of people? We have. But it's only the bare beginning. But you've got to start somewhere. The trouble with too many people is they sit in seminary for eight years all discussing how to start and how to do it. And some other little character walks out of Bible school flunky and says, hey, I think God answers prayer. Why don't we try that? And boom, things just start to go. We're not going to reach those unreached people without more prayer. Our priority in this decade must be prayer. Waiting upon God. Praying forth labors. Praying forth finance. Penetrating strongholds. I believe God wants us to penetrate whole denominations that are resistant to this vision and this challenge. Get to the leaders. Get to the pastors. And whether they send anyone on OM or not, it could shift their whole viewpoint. You may not understand somebody like Ralph Winter. You may not agree with him. I will tell you he is one of God's chosen men in our day. I've watched this man. He has a simple lifestyle. I've always disagreed with him on a number of points. We've had some interesting conversations. I have trouble with everything from California, even Frank Dietz. But he's a man of God. He doesn't have to agree with me. And he is over there, a great man of God, Roberson McQuilkin of Columbia Bible College. We were talking about Ralph Winter. He said Ralph is a man with one arrow. He has one arrow. Everywhere he goes, the same arrow. He's shooting every denominational hobnob across America straight in the head. It's exciting. They get angry. They pound their fists. Who's this? Nobody from California with his $15 million college telling us we've been all wet for 50 years. I mean, he is a little bold, isn't he? We need men like that. We need men like that. We need to be stirred up. O.M. needs to be stirred up. Praise God for Ralph Winter's vision. The unreached people. He's got it down to a science. I can't even follow his charts. And God has used that to influence some of our leaders. We were talking about it today. What is the largest unreached people's group? The Muslims. They are broken down into many subgroups. Many subgroups. Many languages. You know that. They don't all speak Arabic. And Turks are not Arabs. And Iranians are not Arabs. If you don't know that by now, you better start reading a little bit. And Kurds aren't Arabs. And they are one of the most neglected people's groups that's been on our mark for 15 years or more. One of the other biggest unreached people's groups are the Turks. Another one is the Afghans, and that's broken up into many groups. Gordon, do you know how many subgroups there are in Afghanistan? Do you have any idea? A hundred. He just gave that off the line. Maybe 101. It's unbelievable. It's an unbelievable challenge. The Muslim world must, I feel very strongly, be the big challenge for the 80s. God has given us these two ships. They are like spiritual catalyst bombs. They can go anywhere. The Lord directs them, and they seem to go anywhere. And they can spread the vision. We need that. We even let them go to Australia. Someone told me years ago one of our ships is going to go to Australia. New Zealand. These places are evangelized. Now we're getting invaded by the Australians. Ten years, they're allowed to take over the entire work. They don't need a visa for India. And I believe God has given other ministries. There's not time to go into this. That alert the church, challenge the church, present the vision. So much more I could say about that. But we must now make sure that this energy, this vision, the results of this, gets channeled in the direction of the unreached people. In the direction of the Muslim world. And as much as the Lord enables us, because we can't do everything, and that would be one of the greatest mistakes we could ever make, other unreached people. I believe 2 Timothy 2 and verse 2 needs to be re-emphasized in O.M. That's why we're here at this Leaders Conference. My method of leadership training many, many years ago was simply to live with a brother. I've had the joy of living together with probably 200 people in 25 years. I mean for at least some weeks or some months. Just living together, traveling together, making mistakes together, having an argument, repenting, weeping, getting it together and pressing on. I'm still convinced that's the greatest method of discipling and training men. Live with them. That's one of the key benefits of the ship ministry. So many people can live with God-fearing anointed men. They can see their lives, they can see their wives. If you want to find out about a man, talk to his wife, if she's honest. Better yet, try his daughter. Now O.M. has become bigger. It's not possible for us, especially now that many of us have families and the change and the increased dimensions of the work, to live with as many people as we once did. The reason I have just got a coach to travel in is so that other people can be in the coach. The first reason, to be honest, is so we can survive ourselves. That other people can travel with us. And we can learn from each other. Iron sharpens iron. Think of the lessons learned in the back of those Volkswagens between here and New Delhi. Living together, working together. Teamwork has been one of the absolute anchors of O.M.'s strategy. We must not lose it. Working on a team. And I want to just bring in here the fact that we don't want to just train men to stay with O.M. and fill those many key needs we have in O.M. We do. But we want to train people for other missions. God's given us a linking with WEC. God's given us a linking with the Red Sea Mission Team. Lionel Gurney, the founder, will be here in two weeks. God's given us a linking with the North African Mission. A number of their major leaders are Exo-Emers. They're recruiting more Exo-Emers than any other mission in the world at present. God's given us a linking with OMF. God's given us a linking with BMMF. Mr. Punt once spoke at our coordinators' conference. And O.M.ers are in all these groups. And usually they get some most years. There's many other missions. I can name just right there 25 other missions. CLC is one that comes to mind. Others are smaller, like the London City Mission. Just met a former second officer from the ship. He's now full-time with the London City Mission. God's using him. It's hard work feeding around the doors of London. So we have, in a sense, a two-fold vision. Of course, we want to train people for specific needs within our own fellowship. Those frontline situations in Turkey, in Pakistan, in other Muslim lands. And we need key men who will have long-term ministries and things like the ship. Otherwise, we'll not be able to carry out this other ministry. Training people to work with other mission societies and other churches. Quite a few trained in O.M. Not only work with denominational groups, they have started O.M. within their denomination. One brother left O.M. in the early days and started the Alliance Youth Corps. In the Missionary Alliance Church. What a link God has given us with some of their churches. On October 7th, I speak at the 100th anniversary of the CMA Church in New York City. A ministry started by A.B. Simpson 100 years ago. The Alliance is still basically an evangelical, dynamic missionary force. And we've had the joy of working with them. Moving on from this, as we see this vision to reach the Muslim world. To reach the unreached people. And we know there's unreached people in Europe. We know there are pockets of unreached people everywhere. What could we say is the greatest need as we think about how we're going to bring this to pass? I'm going to have to be a little quicker. These things will be covered again because they're so important. But I just share what I feel the greatest need is in O.M. right now. We're going to go on with this vision. This has to be crystallized by each O.M. field. In a lot of things I'm quite flexible. But some things you'll find me like a piece of concrete backed up by whatever else, steel. And one of the things I am strong about is that O.M. has to be led basically by the people in the country where they are working. It will not be led by people sitting in London. The people in France will get God's mind for France. They will be in fellowship with us. If they get into sin, if they become a cult, we will become their arch enemies. And right across the world, in India, the leaders there meet four times a year. They've got to get God's mind for India. I can't get God's mind for India in England because I've lived in India. I've been involved in that work. Of course, I can make suggestions. You'll never understand O.M. unless you understand that the work basically is directed from the field where they're working. That's why every field is different. Ultimately, I believe we are like-minded. Ultimately, I believe we're headed in the same direction. Unity comes in the midst of diversity. You can't work in Turkey the way you work in India. Let's not be ridiculous. And you can't work in Saudi Arabia the way you work even in Jordan. Every nation and, in one sense, every people's group is unique and takes wisdom and discernment to know how to reach through that group. I got one of Eugene Nida's most unique articles on pluralism last night. I wouldn't even read it. Boy, when she starts talking about the problems of cross-cultural communication, you just tremble. That's why groups are scared of us. They say, how can this immature, naive band of semi-literates, spiritually speaking, go into in-depth cross-cultural evangelism? The only explanation is God. I want to assure you, my beloved, I really believe that if God dies, we are definitely in trouble. This has to be kept in balance. And we can learn from Eugene Nida. I've been reading her books for many years, not so much lately. We can learn from these missiologists. But if we wait for the intellectuals, if we wait for the seminarians, if we wait for the missiologists to actually do the spade work, actually go out into these countries and learn the languages and give their lives, the job is not going to be done. It's never been done that way in 2,000 years. I've been reading a little more last night about C.T. Studd. I don't have the quotation with me. It's unbelievable. If you ever think O.M. is extreme, if you ever think I got problems, C.T. Studd was so extreme. He wrote a booklet called I Don't Give a Damn. Or I Don't Care a Damn. It had the word damn in it. And it so upset the stodgy middle class evangelical society that day that he was removed from his own mission. That's right. And most people abandoned C.T. Studd. And you can't blame it all on the people. And I think when he was kicked out of his mission, that's when he started the weck. And they were so despised, they were so criticized, that for several dozen workers, I think they were seeing something like 35 pounds come in, in a week or two. It's an incredible story. Norman Grubb has written about that. And yet, God laid his hand on that man, despite their mistakes, and there were serious mistakes. And he just blessed the weck and has made it one of the great missionary bodies today. It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing. What is the greatest need if we're going to go forward in this vision? We're going to maintain even the existing witness. 400 people in India right now is no small thing in any missionary history book. And now we hear of them going down like duckpins with hepatitis. We need more prayer for India. We need more fasting and prayer for India. This whole work needs a recommitment to India, a land of 700 million people, because it's a spiritual warfare. It's a fistfight with demons from one end of the country to the other. And I believe OM must renew its commitment to India, and especially the Muslims within India who are just so unreached and who are gaining momentum at such a speed. But still there's a greater need than all of that. It's described in many places in scripture. If you look back in Chronicles 7.14, you'll find it. If you look at Acts 4.31, you'll find it. It's what some people call revival. Now I, for a couple of years, hardly spoke about revival because the word was so confusing to people that I've decided to go back and speak about it again. This year I had the joy of speaking at the Canadian Revival Convention. I was somewhat skeptical when I first heard about that movement, especially when they organized a fellowship. But in a very unusual way, I was asked to speak as the main speaker of their convention this year. I can't even remember how many people were there. A thousand or something. And I had the joy of fellowshipping with some of those people, especially these two brothers who were God's human instruments in the revival. Believe it or not, twins. The satyra twins. And I saw those brothers flowing together in revival and ministry and counseling. And other men like Bill McLeod who may visit the ship. And we know, of course, there have been a number of sort of charismatic type of revivals. This particular revival is a non-charismatic, in the technical terms, if you understand what I'm saying, which is somewhat unusual in our day. And I was just so blessed. And I was encouraged. And when I came back from there, I just preached one of my old revival messages that I used to preach and called people to come forward and repent in the front of the place. It was up in north of Birmingham. I almost fell over. People responded. People came up. I prayed with over 20 people personally. And God touched many of their lives. I believe God wants to give us a ministry of revival. I believe God wants to touch people in revival. I long to see whole churches, but I'll be happy and motivated even if I see individuals here and there that is our greatest need in OM, revival. I think you know that in OM we have emphasized personal revival more than sort of a larger type of revival. Personal revival is emphasized in Calvary Road. It's you and Jesus. It's the cross. It's being filled. It's cup running over. What a linking God has given us with Roy Hesham. Never would dream that this would happen. He's more or less committed to a few of us. The whole care of all of his books when he and his wife go to be with the Lord. I know he'd love to be with us now. And I was with Roy Hesham recently for a time of fellowship. And I can testify this man who wrote those books 20 or 30 years ago. And you ought to read his biography because it's really down to earth about his problems and failures and the mistakes of that movement. I will tell you I've watched Roy Hesham ever since I met him. He's a man who has lived in revival all these years. Doesn't mean he's perfect. He's intensive like me. Consuming fire. Ephesians says be filled with the Holy Spirit. Old Vance Hadner one of the most unique southern preachers in the history of America. He says we wouldn't have to speak about revival if we knew more about viable. It's a big southern accent. Viable he says. What's that? We are according to the scriptures alive in Christ. That's yours. And if you're not appropriating that life because Christ lives in you, you're making the biggest mistake in your Christian life. And you're settling for less than God wants to give you. Doesn't matter if you've been in OM one year or ten years. I believe the greatest need in OM is revival. A quickening from the Spirit of God. This will renew our worship. Tombstones can't worship. You can't get water, generally speaking, out of a rock. Jesus, of course, or it was Moses did, but I think you know what I mean. Would you unite with us as leaders in this fellowship and work toward revival? Revival in our own hearts. Revival on our team. Some of our OM teams by January, they are dead. Let's not defend it. Let's not feel offended. They get somehow just beaten down and hurt and they just don't recover. Praise God that's not the end of the road because many of them, within a few months, experience revival. And many of them do go on. But I long to see greater revival in our prayer meetings. Some of the OM prayer meetings we have to acknowledge are dead. There's some kind of an OM rosary. We keep swinging it around until people get hit in the nose by it. Now, just forgive me. Probably this is part of my problem. I have a real trouble understanding people who have no enthusiasm. Forgive me. How someone can fall in love with Jesus Christ, get caught up in the vision of God, the glory of God, be able to talk directly to God, see miracles, see people saved, and have such a blah in the prayer meeting is beyond my ability to accept. And I will not accept it. God wants us to be zealous people. William Macdonald in his book, True Discipleship, says zeal is the thing we are without excuse for not having. Any dumb babe in Christ, even if he's illiterate, can have zeal. I want to ask you, leaders in training, filling your minds with great nuggets of truth in these intensive seminars, I want to ask you, are you zealous for Jesus? Do you go into these seminars really hungry to get something? Or do you sort of limp in like someone dragged you around with a horse for your jogging in the morning? Zeal, enthusiasm. Some people say, oh well, you know, we could become fanatics, go overboard. You know what Tozer said about that, don't you? I love this quote, I can't resist giving it at every conference. But he said, to think that too much enthusiasm was the greatest problem in the average church was like sending a squadron of policemen out to a cemetery to guard against a midnight demonstration by the residents. I don't think it's the biggest problem in the church. Maybe in your church. I want to ask you, are you on fire for Christ? Are you filled with the Spirit? Do you know the glow of God? And then I list as the next greatest thing, commitment. If you don't like that word, use another one. Dedication, surrender. One of our most widely preached passages is Romans 12. We put you there for brethren by the mercies of God to present your body as a living sacrifice. If OM ever lost its message on commitment and surrender, we're finished. We're finished. We call people to commitment. We're not ashamed of it. I find it incredibly hard to give invitations. I was up in Norway recently. I didn't think I was getting through to the people. They were listening to all this razzmatazz, interesting music, and I had to speak through an interrupter to give, I'm not going to give any invitation. I'm basically a coward, only the Holy Ghost. If I have any boldness, apart from pure stupidity, only the Holy Spirit. And I thought, I'm not giving any invitation here. A brother comes up to me just before the meeting, sort of says something like, well, we sure hope you're going to give an invitation tonight. Even Norwegians can get excited. When I gave the invitation for commitment and surrender, I preached it as hard as I could. Fifty, sixty or more came for counseling, wanting to commit their lives. Realizing that there's such a lack of commitment today. There's such a playing around. Playing around at prayer, playing around at evangelism, playing around at giving. I will tell you, if God's people learned the joy of giving, we'd have so much money, we'd have to have special meetings into the night just to dream up new projects to know where to spend it. Most of my dreams and visions, I have to murder in the morning because of the lack of finance. So often from God's supposedly chosen, so too often frozen people. People are running around arguing about tithing. Arguing about tithing. I would have thought a donkey could tithe. It seems to me that God's principle is still, except you forsake all that you have, you just can't be my disciple. Ooh, what a verse. That verse in O.M.'s early messages, which we still do preach on occasion, upset more people than any other verse. William Macdonald lost more friends through true discipleship, and I'll tell you, when Where is the Treasure came out, it's lucky he could stay among the brethren. He came on O.M. for a year, never been the same. Maybe you haven't read Where is your Treasure. I remember going to Cambridge University in the early days. They were really laying for me. There were ugly rumors against me at Cambridge. I remember having fellowship once with John Stott. He said, you know, someone told me you're the Pied Piper of Cambridge University. Can you believe that? All these intellectual giants, dignified stalwarts of the English stock. This little skinny American comes in, Pied Piper's up to the Regents' barrack. It's got to be out of your mind. And I'll never forget going to Cambridge University, and they thought, you know, I was going to come in on this forsaking all message. And I just had this word, you know, I don't think people in one sense should give unless they find it a hilarious experience. You don't give first and then get filled with the Spirit. That may happen in some cases because God is full of surprises. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit and all that God wants to give you, vision and commitment and reality, you will give and give and you will just find it a hilarious experience. It's just what the Bible says, no special doctrine. It's more blessed to give than receive. You don't have to come on OM to learn that. But oh, how so often God's people are selfish. And we're building bigger mansions and we're buying bigger cars and we're justifying every ungodly expenditure that can ever be imagined. And millions go without Bibles. Do you know the need in Poland right now for Bibles? Do you know the Bible Society is asking for Bibles within Poland if they could just get money and get people? Oh, what a challenge. What a challenge to invest for eternity, to lay up all your treasure in heaven, to abandon all and follow Christ. The greatest need is revival. The second greatest need is commitment, deeper surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. The next need I have very quickly is what I call the amalgamation of the practical and the spiritual. I feel very strongly about this. I feel Satan tries to bring in a dichotomy, even into OM. Those out on the front lines of Pakistan, these are spiritual men, these are God's guerrillas. Those bounding on typewriters in Manchester, well, they're good brothers and sisters, praise the Lord. Maybe they couldn't get to Afghanistan. Or maybe they just like the English climate. Or maybe they like that beautiful section of Manchester. Beloved, one of the greatest needs in God's work today is for practical workers. I will tell you right now, our Indian brothers are not praying for great preachers. They're praying for truck drivers and mechanics that are harder to find almost than dodos in Ecuador. I ask you not to allow the spiritual and the practical to be put into separate categories. This is a mistake we often make even in the area of money. Do you think in the early days of this work that it was just a matter of praying and then going to sleep? We believe together with fervent prayer from the earliest foundation of this work that we should also communicate the vision. We've got a hot message. We don't put it in the refrigerator. I've written weekly reports up until a couple of years ago when my friend John Neal took over. Now all different kinds of people write it, though I've written it the last two weeks for 20 years almost. Every week to the men and women who stand behind me. They are as much in this work as you are. Not many of you have been here 20 years. These prayer partners, some of them have given hundreds of dollars and thousands of dollars and pounds have stood with us 20 and 25 years. Half the men on the board of directors in New Jersey have stood with us over 15 years. He was not a wealthy man. He was just a working man. God revolutionized his life. His one great passion was just to give. It was never huge sums, but I will tell you over 23 years he's got a lot of treasure up there. God led him to sell his nice house and give half of it to world missions and move into the house he bought with the other half, much smaller. Can you imagine in this kind of mania spread across the Christian world why we'd have more Bibles and scriptures and tracts and films than we know what to do with. It's interesting that many on OM find it difficult to send out even one prayer letter a month. So we finally decided we'll try to send out one every other month. Now we're down to four a year and we're still going down. Why? Because I'll tell you why. It takes discipline. And if we're honest, we're not disciplined people the way God would have us. We don't know how to buffet the body, things we don't want to do, force it to do things we don't like to do. So the prayer letters don't go out. People don't pray because they don't even know where you are. And the enemy comes in like a flood. I pray that this year there will be a renewed discipline in prayer communication, getting the prayer requests out. Somebody said to me, well isn't it better just to send personal letters? I mean how many personal letters can you write? The way some of the people I see write personal letters you're never going to do very much that way. Plus, listen, a personal letter is good. I'm more in favor of that. That communicates that you are a person. A duplicated letter of prayer request communicates that you are a person with a ministry. Two different things. Use both. Don't put one against the other. There's a lot of things I would love to say. Taking the initiative to find meetings. Some of our best preachers sit with nothing to do on Sunday because people don't have the initiative to organize meetings. Or maybe they don't think meetings are important. How do most OMers come on OM? In most cases a meeting plays part. And then of course there's that meeting in which just one is speaking to one. I believe with all my heart that God has given us one of the greatest gold mines of literature that any movement has ever had in the history of the Church. And yet so often we lack initiative to even take the literature to the meeting. It's so heavy. We are getting old. And then someone told me I couldn't believe it. I could have choked the guy if I was in a bad mood. He said at that church they already have our books. No church has our books. I've never met one. You take a survey on the greatest books Calvary Road, not one in ten have ever read it. In the church today there are more books than there ever were. Beloved, we are in an ignorant age when it comes to missions and we need to take the books and take the messages and take the pamphlets and if they won't buy, give it to them. Let's give away ten million books in 1981 or two. We need a vision for literature. What it can do in the church. What it can do to spread the mission vision. Ralph Winner without his literature would be doing very little. He works by literature. Luther worked by literature. He's a German theologian showing that the literature is the major tool that the Spirit of God has used to bring the Reformation, to bring new movements, denominations and the advancement of the gospel across the world. Forgive me for getting so excited. I speak too fast and then some of you don't understand me. Let's amalgamate the spiritual and the practical. Let's pray. Let's be Calvinist and we work with all of our might like Arminians. Half of you, praise God, don't know what I'm talking about. There's so much I would love to say. The next greatest thing I've just put here is spiritual balance which we'll talk about later on. But believe me, balance is not compromise. Balance is not a sign of coming into the middle years of growing dusty or musty. Balance keeps the fire from becoming false fire. Without the message of balance in OM we would have been finished years ago. I personally would have been finished. Most of you wouldn't have tolerated me. I'm not even sure my wife would. Balance is love. It's love in action. It's love bringing different truths together. It's not compromise but it's, in a sense, as Robertson McQuilkin said, it's staying at the center of biblical tension. Different, strong, radical truths of the word of God, different sides of the issue and the facts of history pulling us into spiritual balance. That is essential and there's almost every subject you will deal with in this Leader's Conference. You'll have to work toward finding the balance. The next greatest thing I've written here in my notes is the word homes. I believe in the 80s we must emphasize more the home. We are not a bunch of bachelors plotting across the world. Most of us are married. Many of you who are single within the next few years will be married. Praise God for the few remaining soldiers and soldieresses who plot on single. We need more such people in OM but it is difficult to remain single in such a movement. The greatest need perhaps in my personal life is more of a God-centered home. I'm not talking about some little haven of heavenly peace where only doves dare to go. A home is a home. At times it's a battlefield. At times it's a jungle. But somehow God has got to be in there and somehow we've got to pray and we've got to spend a lot of time with him and we've got to spend more time with our wives and we've got to learn how to somehow survive even when we're in this great spiritual warfare. I believe it can be done. Some of us, not without failure, are doing it. And then lastly, only for lack of time, the greatest need is a miracle. What a miracle of God that so many British and French and Germans and Americans and Swedes and Norwegians and Singaporeans and Indians and South Americans and all the rest have come into such a great degree of like-mindedness. This is a miracle of the Spirit of God greater than many things that people would classify as a miracle in our day and age. I've got a whole new message for you. The hardest to find miracle almost in the church today. I'll give you that message another night. Yes, unity is going to cost. It will mean sometimes sacrificing personal vision. It will mean sometimes going to one field instead of another. It will mean at times doing things you don't like and as you move forward and as we move forward there are a few who once sat where you are sitting whose marriages have come completely apart. And it comes on many of us as leaders almost every week sometimes every day that there's some who were once amongst us and today their marriage is over and the kids are in all kinds of chaos and the other problems often at least one of the partners in almost every case is totally away from God and I'm not going to say it's not happened to many in 24 years but we have the principle of the 90 and 9. I believe one of the greatest strategies of hell right now is against the Christian whole. I've seen Christian leaders across the world go down like duck pins. I can't believe it. I don't even talk of some of the things I don't think it's going to work unless we as families are willing to take up the cross. If we try to meet all of our little inclinations all of our little needs all the little things that we feel are going to make for a happier marriage it's a dead end road. There are things we need to do there are things we need to buy there are homes we need to have some place to put our coat and live in. But I believe ultimately that which is going to keep our marriages together is the cross. Crucified life. The commitment to Christ and the same kind of commitment to one another. And I'd love to talk about this all night. They're just some of the burdens on my heart for the way God would have us move forward in 1980. On the one hand the vision, the strategy the Muslim world the unreached people the foundation there's got to be revival commitment the amalgamation of the practical and the spiritual spiritual balance God-centered homes and unity and of course the prayer life and the spiritual life that goes with this. Let's pray. Just take a moment for silent prayer searching of our hearts some of us I wonder if there's some of us something you're holding back from God clinging on to it like a little boy clinging on to a penny when someone wants to give him a ten pound note. Would you let go of some crummy little copper penny that Satan's got you infatuated with? Would you make a deeper commitment of your life to Jesus Christ and his kingdom and his work tonight? To even be a leader if that be the will of God? Would you make a fresh surrender to the Lord and be filled with his Holy Spirit that you may know that personal revival every day of your life? Would you ask God for a greater vision? A vision for the whole world a vision for the unreached people a vision for the church that revival may come and the blessing will spill out and run out to the ends of the earth a vision for a God-centered home a vision for unity and oneness the kind of discipline and diligence that could enable us through quality do twice as much this next year as we have done in this past year twice as much in terms of in-depth penetration impact and spiritual conquest for our Lord Jesus Do you believe that? According to your faith it will be granted If God can give us a hundred thousand pounds in answer to prayer in the first night of this new OM year what can he give us in the next 365 days? Much more than money I can assure you thousands of precious souls born again of his precious blood filled with his Holy Spirit and marching like a mighty army across the world in obedience to the King of Kings who may return before we even get to the next conference May your heart be filled with faith according to your prayer Let's pray silently Spirit of the Living God Fall afresh on me Spirit of the Living God Fall afresh on me Bend me, mold me Fill me, use me Spirit of the Living God Fall afresh on me Our Lord and God in much feebleness and weakness we, at least some of us collapse before you In ourselves this is not possible this way of life In ourselves we would but run for the nearest bed of ease But by your grace we shall go forward By your grace that which you have given us we will commit now to faithful men who will be able to teach others also that this vision from man to man and mouth to mouth and heart to heart would move across the world We sense, O Lord, our unity with hundreds of other agencies and churches and missions That together we may obey you Keep us from extremes on one side spiritual frostbite on the other side from introspection on one hand and overconfidence on the other that we may walk humbly before you We know, Lord, that we are but earthen vessels and have feet of clay But your treasure is overwhelming us And we are filled with your Holy Spirit And Lord, if there are any leaks help us to find them in these days and to be refilled again and again and again Break down the human barriers that so easily divide us O God the nationality barriers the temperament barriers the doctrinal barriers the strategy barriers A hundred barriers that somehow even sometimes though they're good issues somehow creep up and divide and ultimately destroy the ongoing work of your church We may be of one heart and of one mind and move together for you for your glory never for the sake of O.M. but for your glory for your kingdom because we love you, Jesus Amen Let's just stand and as a reminder of what it's all about sing, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus Turn your eyes upon Jesus for the glory in wonderful things and the things of earth will grow strange in your eyes in the light of his glory and grace Turn your eyes upon Jesus and the things of earth will grow strange Amen God bless you and I think we'll have the habit when we close as we do in England I think it's a good a good habit to just sit down for just a half a moment of prayer and then get up Let's just do that Commune with God Do remember to keep quiet in the dormitories after the listed hour It's very, very important