In this sermon, the speaker begins by praying for the spread of God's word and the importance of investing in Christian literature. He mentions the impact of cassette tapes in spreading the message of spiritual revolution, citing the example of a political revolution in Iran. The speaker emphasizes the need to be prepared for spiritual conflicts and encourages forgiveness and letting go of bitterness. He highlights the importance of even the smallest acts done in God's name and reminds listeners of God's love, mercy, and forgiveness. The sermon concludes with a metaphorical illustration of Satan as a roaring lion and encourages listeners to be vigilant and not to underestimate his power.

Let's pray and ask the Lord to help us as we continue on from last night on survivalship, on how not to grow weary in the great task of evangelizing the world. Let's pray. Lord, I just thank you for these books. I think of nations where they have so few books, not even a fraction, not even one-tenth of what we have, not even one percent of what we have. Help us to get involved in spreading your word, in investing in Christian liturgy. We thank you for cassette tapes. Thank you that in our day we can be involved in spreading the message of spiritual revolution. We think of that political revolution that took place in Iran through the cassette tape. Pray that we may spread a spiritual revolution through using cassette tapes. Help us now as we deal with this subject, and we may be edified, built up and made ready for the great spiritual conflicts that will lie ahead of us. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now we're speaking about survivalship. We talked about discipleship, and I was trying to explain to you how God, through the years, took me through discipleship, I'm still in that, to what I call a pattern of survivalship, persevering. 1 Corinthians 15, 58, Be ye steadfast. Have you memorized it yet? Unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And we looked at that verse in Galatians. Be not weary in well-doing, for ye shall reap if ye faint not. You remember the story of the importunate person knocking on the door, late at night, kept knocking and knocking, and the Lord using this as an example of persevering prayer. Persevering prayer. And as we have this week, together, what a privilege it is. Our burden isn't firstly to get you to join OM for a year, or to somehow come on a summer, or even to join a foreign mission society for 20 years. Our burden, our first burden, is to see you running in God's race for a lifetime, whether it's in Chester or Calcutta. It's to see spiritual health, to see you living in revival. Revival. That's God's privilege. In a sense, there's two kinds of revival. There's what I call personal revival. Men like Roy Hesschen emphasize personal revival. And then there's church and group and city revivals, nationwide revivals. Edwin Orr, in some of his books, he emphasizes that kind of revival. It's always been my first burden to emphasize this kind of revival. Because I'm convinced that as a nucleus of people experience personal revival, and learn to pray, that can lead us to churchwide and citywide and even nationwide revival. We have a southern preacher in the United States named Vance Havner. He's sort of a, how can you explain Vance Havner? Amazing old combination of Lloyd Jones, Alan Redpath, and perhaps Billy Graham. I don't know. He's just a combination of a number of people. He's very, very old now. I don't know. He must be 100, at least 90. He says, you know, we wouldn't need to talk about revival if we knew vival. He says it with a southern accent. Vival. You old folk know about vival. Something like that. This man preaches often to ministers. I've never known a man to bring more ministers to repentance than old Vance Havner. He was preaching at the Moody Pastors Conference. He was preaching on repentance. He was sharing the agony he went through when his wife died. He was sharing about personal revival. Before the meeting was over, 100 or more ministers were up on the old mourner's bench. He does it the old-fashioned way, repenting, crying, and asking God to bring revival to their hearts. Vival. That's really simply linked to those verses in Ephesians that we are alive in Jesus Christ. We are alive in Jesus Christ. We have in Christ all that we need to live in the day-by-day power of the Holy Spirit. Someone might say, well, what about the Holy Spirit? You know, when you speak about the Holy Spirit, you also are speaking about Jesus. When you speak about Jesus, you are also speaking about the Holy Spirit. To be filled with the Holy Spirit means also to be filled with the love of Christ, the power of Christ. And I really think it's a mistake to get caught up too much in arguing over terminology and to bringing competition between the members of the Trinity. I heard a great message recently by David Wilkerson, one of the leading charismatic Christians of our day, sharing with other charismatic Christians, and his message was the absent person in our midst, Jesus Christ, is one of the strongest messages I've ever heard. And we find some people emphasize one member of the Trinity, some emphasize another member of the Trinity. Don't allow competition between the members of the Trinity. They are totally locked together as one. They are one. And if you are totally yielded to Jesus Christ, if you are totally committed to Jesus Christ, and have made Him Lord of your life, then you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. And if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then you are learning something about the Lordship of Christ. You may not have arrived to all that it means. I haven't. I don't know anyone else that has. When you think you've arrived, you better get that little power packet and pull out the little book, Humility, and re-read it. Because if any book has the ability to bring a person down a few notches, it's Andrew Murray's Humility. And he was a man who knew the fullness and the power and the unction and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So we want to talk about going on as missionaries. You say, well, I haven't signed up yet as a missionary. Oh, yes you have. Yes you have. The day you gave your life to Jesus, you signed the dotted line. There's no middle ground. It's not a matter of signing up with Jesus, giving your life to Jesus, and then sitting over on the park bench reading the newspaper. Every Christian is a missionary. He may be a disobedient missionary. He may be a confused missionary. He may be a lot of things that he shouldn't be. But as far as I see it, he's a witness. Perhaps the word witness is better than the word missionary for some people. Acts 1E, ye shall be my witness. It's a message to all believers. It's not a message for a missionary conference. Probably some people are going to boycott this conference. Let's break the Chester boycott against the missionary conference. Let's have a march through the streets. That would be good, wouldn't it? We could have a march around the wall like Jericho. They're going to do something really, really crazy. They won't know O.M.'s been here. If you just sort of totter back and forth between here and the city mission, you look like a bunch of wallflowers. But people do. They go on picket when a mission conference comes because they don't think it's their thing. I have them write me, missions is not my thing. I want to tell you, you're looking at someone, missions isn't my thing either. But it's Jesus' thing. And he came into my life and now he's made it my thing. I was talking to a pastor of a very large church and they just had a missions conference and a lot of the people didn't come. They're there Sunday morning. They have a marriage seminar. They're there. They want to get their marriage. That's the big thing in America. All the marriages are coming apart. So they have a marriage seminar. People come. They pay $50 to go to a marriage seminar. Or any other self-help seminar. How to get on with your mother-in-law. How to make your bed in a Christian way. People pile in. They want to improve their Christian life. All the various self-help seminars. America's a nation of seminars. People fly from Los Angeles to New York to go to a seminar. And this pastor put his finger on the nerve of why they didn't come to the missions conference. And he said, they don't see what's in it for themselves. They don't see what's in it for themselves. And we're the gimme gimme generation. We want to know what's in it for me. And one of the fastest growing doctrines in America is the prosperity doctrine. You know what that doctrine teaches? That teaches that if you're spiritual and you love Jesus, you're going to get rich. One man got into this theology. And of course, in his case, doesn't always happen, but there's a lot of money floating around America. Some churches have up to a dozen millionaires in one church. And there's a lot of money floating around, especially in Texas, where this doctrine is very strong. And he built himself a mansion as big almost as this tent. All in the name of Jesus. And he did it because he believes this prosperity doctrine, that God will prosper financially all spiritual people. And that is now one of the most popular, you can imagine, doctrines in the United States. People come and share how they were once a Volkswagen Christian. And they heard this message and they yielded their life to this very difficult message. And learned to really trust God. And now they're driving a Rolls Royce. And if you're just a Volkswagen Christian or a Ford Christian, we're praying that you just become more spiritual. And those of you on bicycles, well, you're just backslidden. It's a very subtle thing. It's a very subtle thing because God does prosper some people financially. Of course, he works in different people in different ways. He may prosper your business, but you can't turn that into a blanket theological rule. And this is where we make a lot of mistakes in the church. Is we see what God is doing in one person's life and we turn that into a theological sort of blanket rule and we try to copy that. We long, oh how we long for the Lord's people to understand that they are his witness. We're all missionaries. And that missions because of Jesus should be our thing. And though we may not see what's in it for us personally, if we study the New Testament, we will discover it is more blessed to give than receive. It's more blessed sometimes to do something when you don't think I can personally get anything out of it. I'm just going to do it to help others. I'm just going to do it because I love God. I love Jesus and I want to obey him. And you give and you give and you go. Without necessarily expecting anything in return. Often you do get much in return. Not necessarily prosperity financially, but you probably will get a great blessing spiritually. And I am convinced that if you will commit your heart and your life in a specific way to the task of world missions and get into God's race. In a definite, committed, active way to be his witness and to be involved in the operation world that we read about in the New Testament. That God will bless you. And he will bless your church. But it won't be without battle. As it says in that little book we've been mentioning, born for battle. Now let me get into some of these specific ways that I have learned over these past 27 years since my conversion to somehow survive in the midst of this. Because you see we want you to start in the race and to keep on running. Keep on running. We want to see some of you 30 years from now, 40 years from now with a big smile on your face to tell us what the Holy Spirit has done over the past 40 years. I get so many wonderful letters. And often they're from people I haven't seen for 10, 15 years. I just answered the letter while you were singing. I was actually just doing a letter to this young man. Wrote me from Togo. I haven't heard from him in years. Now he's married and he's a missionary in Togo. How many of you know where Togo is? Let's be honest. Raise your hand. I'm glad you've come to Operation World. And if you haven't yet got your map of the world, that should be the priority. And if you don't have the money to buy a map of the world, we explained the system last night. You get it on credit and then you later on pay me. But really we need to know where these countries are. And it was exciting to read that young man's prayer letter. And let me take another survey. You know I'm a bit of a nut on the survey thing. I love to take surveys. How many of you receive at least one missionary prayer letter? Raise your hand. That is really encouraging. Almost 90%. You get one missionary prayer letter. How many get two missionary prayers? At least two. We lost 50% of the heads. Probably all have one relative on the mission field. How many get more than three missionary prayer letters? Raise your hand. As I go on the numbers, you drop your hand down. More than four. Keep it up. More than five. More than six. More than seven. More than ten. Not too many left. Now I know I'm an extremist. I just love to get these missionary letters. I've been collecting them for 27 years. I still read most of them. I just think it's so great to be involved with people praying. My main job has to be connected with OM. I get my leader's letters and I get the leader's prayer letters and I get a lot of OMers' prayer letters. A few hundred. But it's so thrilling to get missionary prayer letters from other agencies. I get only about 200, 250. From different missionaries and agencies all over the world. Some of them are in Mexico. And I just find that so inspirational. You know, I was always told when I was a young Christian, get a hobby. Everybody's got to have a hobby. People were always saying I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I had people always prophesying, false prophets, all of them, you're going to have a nervous breakdown. Some people have been waiting for years, you know, 25 years is a long time to wait for some bloke to have a nervous breakdown. Some have already broken down waiting. So I took up this hobby. Missionary prayer letters. Filing them, reading them, praying through them, writing back, sending out books to all these people. And it's really exciting. Why don't you develop that hobby? Some of you, instead of getting one prayer letter, you can take a huge step of faith. You know, just, I know it's going to be hard, but somehow just take hold of yourself and just launch out one more missionary prayer letter. You know what some people tell me? You know, if there's ever a nation in the world where they learn how to squeeze the penny, it's right here. And really it's, you know, don't take that as criticism because my ancestors came from here. But I've had people literally write and say, well, we couldn't think of taking your prayer letter. It's going to cost 15 pence or 12 pence to send it. What a poor use of the Lord's money. Listen, my friends. I doubt if there's many of you that live on less than my family lives on. And so I agree with you. I'm also a tightwad. I was extreme. I wouldn't give my wife any money for anything. I thought all money was committed to World Evangelism. I haven't bought any clothing hardly in 25 years. We get it out of Charlie. You heard of Charlie in O.M.? I tried to, you know, update it a bit. Call it Charles of London. Charlie is the used clothing department of O.M. People, you know, the missionary barrel. You know, that's where we get stuff like this. That's why I've got shoes on that don't fit. Because we were a little extreme. We wanted our money to go for Bibles and for Gospels and for World Evangelism. Why? Because we really believed what this book said. And I became extreme. And I hurt my wife through this. Probably hurt my children too. And I had to come into balance some years ago. And I gave my wife a pound. I said, look, feel free, whatever you want. You keep praying. I'm working toward even greater freedom. If we are going to evangelize the world, the money we put into the prayer letters, getting that communication out to interceding people is the greatest investment we can ever make for God. And I'd be happy to pay it out of the money I've been able to save through not buying clothing or not buying this or that thing that I'm supposed to have bought. Give us the privilege. Give us the privilege of paying the postage. But you have the great responsibility of interceding and praying and standing against the forces of darkness as they try to wipe these missionaries right off the front lines of spiritual combat. We need to double, triple the number of intercessors in Britain if this job is ever going to be done. And it seems to me that we should sign up for every single prayer letter that any missionary offers here. Let's get around to these booths. Let's get involved. Let's hug these people, spiritually if not physically, and sign up for prayer letters. Take missionary prayer cards and start really becoming serious about missions and intercession. And as you do that, and as the battle gets hard, these are some of the other things you need to remember. Number one, in the midst of the battle, out in the field or home in your intercessory prayer closet, you need to constantly remember that you are forgiven and that you are accepted by God. Now, young person, the devil is going to counterattack your week here. This is an emotional high for some of you. Fellowship, prayer, praise, songs. And when you go, some of you go back to lonely, difficult situations. And the enemy is going to come in. And at that time, especially in a moment of failure or disappointment, you're going to need to just get right down to the basics. Right down to the basics. You're forgiven. And really, if you're forgiven and on your way to heaven, the other things, it really doesn't matter that much. Just stop listening to the enemy. The Bible says Satan is the accuser of the brethren. And a lot of people are not involved in missions because the devil has been accusing them for years that they're no good. So many young people that write to me or that I'm able to talk with, they get in this put-themself-down syndrome. Have you ever been in that? Where you put yourself down and you feel you're no good and you've failed the Lord so many times and you've done so many dumb things and you can't really communicate and you keep offending your mother and you keep getting in difficulty with your dog or whoever else is hassling you. And so you're putting yourself down. A lot of people put themselves down. And they're not able to evaluate themselves properly and understand God's forgiveness and God's love. You know that verse, Ephesians 1, 6? We are accepted in the beloved. Really, in my Christian life, it's the basics that keep me going. You know, I'm forgiven. Jesus loves me. I love that little chorus. We sing it in Sunday school. You know, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And we go out and live as if we never even heard it. The basics. Number two, if you want to press on long term in the spiritual army of God, learn how to cast every care upon him. 1 Peter 5, 7. Memorize that. How many know that verse? 1 Peter 5, 7. That's good. Say it together with me. Casting every care upon him because he careth for you. You know the verse that, what does it come just before it? The devil is a roaring lion, seeketh whom he may devour. Ever have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning? Betty Elliot, that great missionary writer, she was preaching to 10,000 students at Urbana and she was emphasizing the need in the morning to get out of bed as quickly as possible when you wake up and get your feet on the ground. Alan Redpath said, he was preaching here last year, one of the closest friends of O.M. I don't know if those of you who were here last year know how close Alan Redpath is with Operation Mobilization. He's going to give us a whole month this year. We met in Chicago 23 years ago. But he says one of the greatest problems is, you remember it? Blanket victory. You know what that is? Get the blanket off in the morning and get up and get that time with God. And I believe that's just so important. Satan is a roaring lion. If you woke up tomorrow morning and you looked over the side of the bed and there was a gigantic lion. There was a film on television some time ago about a young lad who got a bit upset by the local zoo and so he went around the zoo and let all the animals out. I don't know if it's a true story. It's a good program. We recorded it to send it to the doulas for the children. We usually announce the film. You know, children's film. Children can't even get in the door. All the adults are in there. You've got to hold the seats. That's how it could happen, you know? The local zoo, something goes wrong, you wake up. What are you going to do if you wake up tomorrow morning and there's a huge lion on the side of your bed? One thing for sure, you're not going to just roll over and say, excuse me, I'm going back to sleep. You can laugh. But according to the word of God, there is a spiritual lion. There is an evil one who seeketh whom he may devour. And we need to get up in the morning. We need to put on the whole armor of the Lord. We need to make sure we're filled with the spirit. We need to make sure somehow the screws are tightened on the armor so we don't drop it when we walk out the door and realize we are in a battle. And therefore we will daily deny self. We will daily fall into the ground and die so that we won't abide alone. Life comes through death. We go up by going down. Victory is through identification with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it means daily casting every care upon Jesus. I'm a specialist in carrying around cares that should be on Jesus' shoulders. And I think it's one of the greatest messages in the New Testament. Some of you may be sitting here today and you're not hassled by the problem of stealing or the problem of adultery. You're not bothered by the problem of lying or the problem of hatred. But worry has been eating away at your spiritual life for years and you still somehow haven't brought it under the crucifying power of the Lord Jesus. Would you do that tonight? Thirdly, if you want to continue to press on, make God your goal. Make God your goal. It's one of the reasons I like these books by A.W. Tozer. He so emphasizes God. And Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Attributes of God. Knowledge of God. He has a tremendous chapter in this book on dealing with feelings. We'll talk about that in a minute. Make God your goal. Not God plus. God himself. We become success neurotics because of all the various influence from the media and the pressure to be successful. We can become extreme in the desire to be successful. And our joy comes each day depending on how successful we feel we've been on that day doing what we're supposed to be doing instead of knowing the joy of just being in the presence of God. That's why sometimes the Lord allows us to be laid aside for a while. The Lord put me aside in a hospital a few years ago. The doctor said, You may never speak again. He said, You may have cancer of the throat. Lovely little noose. He had me within 36 hours on his little, you know, little table. Operating table. Went down my throat with some microscopic type of operation and cut something off one of my vocal cords. And later on he gave me this advice, You need to learn how to just keep your mouth shut a little more. You didn't need much wisdom to tell me that. My mother always told me that when I was a kid. And I've had to learn how to speak less and to listen more. Andrew Murray has a book, Waiting on God. Do you know what it is to wait upon God? When's the last time you had a half day alone with God? You know, when we fall in love, I remember when I fell in love, I won't tell you the story, it's just to get into the ridiculous, but I fell in love and man, I wanted to spend time with her. Half days, whole days. Because it was a love, you know, it was a big thing. We ended up getting married. We've been together now 22 years. And I believe that as we have a deeper love relationship with God, we're going to want to spend time with Him. We're going to want to get out into some beautiful woods. Think of all the beautiful woods around Chester. What a lovely city this is. Surrounded by woods. Go out there for a half a day. Be alone with God. Just take your Bible. Be alone with God. Make God your goal. Matthew 6, 33. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All these things shall be added unto you. And then number four. We're going to get into some very practical things. I think it's all practical. Learn how to be hurt. Now this may be the most important thing I say tonight for some of you. Learn how to be hurt. You say, what are you talking about? The last thing we want is to be hurt. Do you want your preacher, your pastor in your church, your vicar, next Sunday to meet you at the door and to say something to you that's going to hurt you? I don't think so. In fact, I know situations where when the pastor has hurt someone, they just quit the church. You know, there are more carnal Christians in our churches than we'll ever know. And when they get offended, or something doesn't go their way, or somebody steps on one of their spiritual corns, you never hear the end of it. Some people all they have for Sunday dinner is roast preacher. And gossip is doing more to destroy the work of God than we'll ever know. We'll never know. Far more than fornication or some of the other so-called heavyweight sins. And I don't think we can live on planet Earth without getting hurt. And I enrolled some years ago. I'm still a failure. I enrolled in God's university of learning how to be hurt. People hurt. They hurt us with their words. They hurt us sometimes with their actions. And sometimes we hurt others. That hurts me even more. I became extreme in this. And I was almost neurotic about never wanting to ever hurt anybody again. And I shed more tears because I hurt people than I can tell you about. And I had to learn that in this life, as we walk together with Jesus, at times we will hurt other people. If we know about it, we commit it to Jesus, we apologize to them, but we don't allow ourselves to be depressed and to somehow then throw in the towel. Maybe you've hurt your own mother, your own father. Maybe you've hurt your little sister. It's easy to hurt your little sister. How many of you are big sisters? You've got a little sister. You're a big sister. Raise your hand. Come on. All right. Have you ever hurt your little sister? Ever hurt her? Anything you ever said? Keep your hand up if you've ever hurt your little sister. Oh, good. You're a great, honest crowd. Sometimes we hurt people, and they never recover totally. And yet even that we can put in the hands of God. Shortly after I was a Christian, I hurt a young girl who wanted to marry me. I was just sort of dating and fooling around a little bit, late adolescent, you know, I don't know. And this girl, you know, she was only 16. She wanted to get married. Finally, one day, I said, you know, you know, I'm not going to get married. I'm going to college. Now Jesus is in my heart, you know. And I think we're going to break this off. I thought she was going to commit suicide. She immediately turned around and married within the year her half-brother. And often I think of that girl. I hurt her. I can't forget that memory. But I have been able to commit that to God. You cannot carry the failures of your life, the hurts you have received or given. You cannot carry those around with you the rest of your life. You must cast them upon the Lord. You must understand that is part of living on this planet and somehow learn to be heard and to forgive those that hurt you. I wonder, does someone here tonight, if you're honest, there's a root of bitterness in your heart against someone, maybe against some group. I meet people who are bitter against police. You know, I have such a respect for the police and the British are the top of all my, the list of all my national police. I think they had one of the toughest jobs any person can have. They're human. They make mistakes just like anyone else. But I believe the police in our nations need our respect and encouragement. Have you ever thanked a policeman? Just try it. The guy's liable to pass out. Someone comes up and says, I really want to just thank you for the job, the work you're doing here in our town. You know, we often are ungrateful people. Britain is only my adopted country. But I have come to love this country in a way that I cannot explain. To appreciate the freedom we have. I almost wanted to enroll in the army and go down to the Falklands, but you know, I couldn't quite put that one together. I got a lot of friends down in Argentina. But I really, really, so, so come to love this country and what God has done here and what God is still doing here. And sometimes I get angry. I'm often on British Rail. You get a lot of mumblers on British Rail. They're always mumbling, oh, the train's late. You know, and I often say, I say, you know, you're complaining about the train. You know, I like to take people straight on. And I say, you're always complaining. You know, people often complain, and I said, how many other train systems in different parts of the world have you traveled on? Have you ever been on the trains in India? I said, have you ever tried the Egyptian train between Cairo and Alexandria? What about Pakistan? And you often find people complaining about the trains that have never been on any other train outside of Britain. And I say, well, look, are you thinking about some perfect system in heaven? Well, by the way, are you going to heaven? You can open up for a word of witness. But, uh, I really believe that, you know, I have to watch you. I'll get on, I'll get on my British message and, you know, we'll get into politics. But, uh, I really believe Britain is one of the most organized, sane, down-to-earth, peaceful countries in the world. And you can't even answer that until you go around and visit some of the countries that I've been in. Now, I love a lot of other countries as well, but we have so much to be thankful for. Imagine pitching a tent in the middle of the racecourse. Go try this in, uh, in the Sudan. Go try this in some other country. You can't even get permission to speak in the open air to ten people in many countries in the world. Let's thank God for the freedom we have here. Let's thank God that the churches are open. Let's thank God we sell Bibles in every bookshop in the nation almost. And that we can even protest and take our cause right to the, right to the Prime Minister. It's amazing what you can do in this country. I have a letter. I don't know if it's here in my Bible anymore. I was waving it around America. It was a letter from Princess Diana. I was in my office the other week and I knew she was going to have a baby. And I had this book on natural childbirth. It was a Christian book. And I'm, my wife and I have closed down production so I was wondering what to do with this book. And, uh, so I said, I'm telling you the truth. I said to my secretary, I said, look, send this book to Princess Diana and give her my compliments. And this particular secretary, she's from Malaysia. She's a bit of a, a bit of a sinner. So, uh, she gave it to another one. He was American. He's a bit naive. She gave it to the American and he wrote a nice letter. Dear Princess, sent the book. And I got this tremendous letter back from Princess Diana from her secretary. And the Princess received my book. Thank you. Appreciate the work of Operation Mobilization. Thank you. Of course, she never heard of it, I'm sure. And, uh, and she thanked me and I got this letter. I've been carrying it around in my Bible but it seems to have, have disappeared. And I often mention that because it shows what we can do with a printed page. You know, you can take a book from that table and send it to, send it to the Queen. She might get it. She might read it. Who knows what can happen as Christians start to put books in libraries, as Christians start to lose literature. I think the losing ministry is great. You know, in places like Turkey, it's very, very hard to distribute literature openly. So we find little crews of absent-minded people. You know, there's hope for some of you. We send them down to Turkey. Some of them cut holes in their trouser pockets. Some of you, some of you are already ready. And they put Gospels of John in their pockets and they sort of... We've lost five million pieces of literature in Turkey. Now, I know, I shouldn't, I shouldn't tell that because people think, oh, well, that's the strategy of Operation Mobilization. You know, it's amazing. You do one little thing, which is a little sideline. It's not your main work. It's some tiny little thing you do in passing. People think that's your main work. There was one Christian leader who actually thought the main ministry of the ships was to come into a port and sort of shoot, you know, tracks. You know, most ships, British ones have, you know, cannons. And that was the main ministry of the ships. And he was really down on this method. I'd love to talk to you about that ship ministry because I'm convinced after seeing that ministry in Operation East 11 or 12 years that it is one of the most down-to-earth practical ways of helping the church. That's the main ministry of those ships. Helping the church do her job. Training, evangelism, a catalyst, motivating, Operation World Conferences, 15 ministries all going on at once, but all so easily misunderstood. Well, through misunderstanding we learn to be heard. And I pray that in these days if there's a root of bitterness in your life, you'll just by faith just yank it out. Some people say, well, you don't know what that person did to me. And then they say, you know, if they come to me and apologize, I'll forgive them. That's ridiculous. That's the method of the world. The world says, you come and apologize. You know, you were down in the pub the unsaved character and somebody got fooling around and instead of throwing the dart at the dart board he threw it at your neck and, you know, it just went in there. So he threw another one. But somehow if he really comes and he apologizes and, you know, then you forgive him. But that's not the way it is with us as believers. We forgive the moment it's being done. We don't have to wait for apologies. We don't have to wait for people to put it right or say I'm sorry. Yes, if they do they'll get the blessing and we pray they will. But we just forgive and forgive. We're loaded with forgiveness because we're filled with the Holy Ghost and when you throw a spiritual dart in us just love and forgiveness and a fruit of the spirit comes out. And when that kind of forgiveness spreads through the body of Jesus Christ and spreads even through operation mobilization because we need that touch every year then I believe the work of world evangelism is going to go on. You want to know something that's very sad? There's a lot of unforgiving on the mission field. In every nation I have gone to minus very few I've found missionaries who've held things against other missionaries and I believe it is one of the great hindrances. We get caught up with our work and our strategy our way of doing things. Somebody else disagrees they do it a different way. Pretty soon there's a little gossip. Pretty soon there's a fight. Then somebody's hurt. Let's pray for revival on the mission field. Let's pray we may root out every root of bitterness as we're told to do in the book of Hebrews. And then number five learning the reality of praise and worship. Oh, that's so wonderful. To praise the Lord. I was listening to Keith Green today. I'm caught up on this Keith Green. I was listening to his latest tape. I wanted to play it. I don't know if you can play a cassette tape over this sound system. You could play it tomorrow night. This fellow who's usually known for some of his pretty pretty heavy Christian music has come out with a new more tame album for some of God's more tame people. And this album ends with holy, holy, holy I tell you my heart just lifted in praise of God. I was thinking of having a concert playing the whole tape. Late night concert. How many of you get ministered to by Christian music? Raise your hand. Maybe I'm the odd one out. Oh, look at that. When's the last time you gave someone a gift of a lovely little Christian music cassette? Somebody in the hospital. Someone in prison. What a blessing we can be when we get a vision to give. To give. And to give. I have a great burden for the elderly folk. If you know anybody in this town that can't get to the meetings because they're too old you let us know. We'll pick them up. I'll pick them up if I have to. Or if they can't come let's get a cassette tape. You tell me their address and I'll send them a cassette tape. If they like music tell me their address I'll send them some music. God's put a burden on my heart for the elderly. I often go and just visit the elderly. I'm so sensitive. Sometimes I walk in and all I do is start crying. They look at me and say, hey man, what's happened? And I say, no, it's just, you know, I just love you. How the older people have been neglected. And the average young person often is so insensitive to the elderly. Yet I'm sorry to say sometimes elderly ones are a little insensitive to the problems of youth. We need each other. I thank God for this meeting tonight. Half of you young, half of you middle age, half of you not sure where you are, praise the Lord. What a wonderful meeting. Learn the reality of praise and thanksgiving. And then lastly, and we'll continue tomorrow night because I've got ten more points. Realizing that God is easy to live with. You know who said that? A.W. Tozer. Do you know where he got that from? I don't know. Somebody else. Some old mystic. That really helped me when I read that in the writings of A.W. Tozer. God is easy to live with. I find a lot of dedicated Christians, you know the so-called dedicated ones, the committed ones, I find them religiously jumpy. So sensitive. You know God has seen their every movement. They've had some little lust trip or some little jealousy trip or some little mixed emotion towards somebody and now they're condemning themselves and I noticed this on the phone when I was talking to Brother Jonathan today, that he's been going through struggles and he's been getting down and feeling he's a terrible Christian but Jonathan of course he knows how to get back up. We all of course at times see how terrible we are and we see the ugliness of our own hearts saying God the Holy Spirit didn't reveal all of the self-life to us at one blast when we were saved. We wouldn't have stood the sight. He reveals it to us bit by bit. Bit by bit. And oh the mercy of God that He is quick to mark the simplest thing that we do. Don't go away from this conference condemning yourself. Don't go away just feeling you're a world's most miserable Christian. But go away realizing that our great God is a God of love and mercy and forgiveness and He's easy to live with and He's ready to mark and to note the simplest thing that you do in His name. If a cup of cold water has a reward with it what shall we say? Of giving out tracts of witnessing of helping others of praying over prayer letters of sending in gifts for God's work. I mean it's exciting. God knows all about us but He loves us still. Even at that moment of utter failure. Have you utterly failed the Lord at any time in the past weeks? I have. But I know that even at that moment of utter failure He loves me and He's still there commuting and wanting to pick me up and throw me back into the race again. That's why I'm still running 27 years from my start at conversion because God is God and whatever your problem your burden your failure your sin God is greater. Let's live in the light of that. We'll never be the same if we do. Let us pray. The old bus has come and some of that special literature like love covers and a few other items will be brought out of the bus and some more magazine books and let's thank the Lord that old 10 year old bus made it. That old bus can make it all the way across the Middle East and all over Britain and bounce back again from its last ordeal and every one of us can make it also in the Christian life. Father we thank you and praise you for these simple basic principles of your word. Help us not to forget some of the things we've heard tonight but to apply them in our practical life that we may be the kind of missionaries the kind of witnesses the kind of intercessors you want us to be. Never giving up constantly pressing on knowing the reality of personal revival. Grant it Lord we pray in Jesus name. Amen.