In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of both sending and going in the mission of spreading the gospel. He highlights the need for teaching churches and God's people to understand the principles of world missions. The speaker refers to the example of Paul, who shared with the church what God was doing around the world after his missionary journey. The sermon also focuses on the command of Jesus to pray for more workers to go out into the harvest, emphasizing the need for deep fellowship with God and experiencing Him in one's inner being. The speaker shares his personal testimony and encourages the audience to walk day by day with the Lord.

And often I come trying to get everybody to purchase a map of the world. OM is known for selling thousands of maps in all languages all over the world. We're also always looking for something new. So now we have the map of the world prayer jacket. So we will start the world evangelism fashion show. I want to thank you for your ministry of prayer. When I was only a teenager shortly after my conversion to Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham. I became convinced that the greatest thing in the world was prayer. I had no plan to start any kind of mission. I just wanted to obey God day by day, to obey God and to know God. And even though Operation Mobilization has now grown to some 2,000 people and some 40 or 50 nations of the world, I think of myself just as a servant of the Lord that's wanting to walk day by day with Him. I want to share some of the things that God's doing around the world. I hope that will be an encouragement to you. There are a number of scripture verses that are on my heart. The first one is in the book of Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And I hope you'll try to perhaps memorize these scriptures. I had many problems, many struggles as a young Christian. One of the things that helped me the most in my Christian life was memorizing scripture, learning in my mind and in my heart the word of God. Let's just read these verses in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5. 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5 Let's just read in German. None of us want to believe that the world may soon be locked into another great war there in the Gulf. I have lived in the land of Kuwait, ministered there many times. I especially remember spending Christmas living in the back of my bus parked in the center of Kuwait city. And after that Christmas in Kuwait, we, as a team, with my wife, we traveled right through Saudi Arabia, that very area where all those soldiers are at this very moment. There was nothing in that place, just desert. And now, one of the greatest armies in history is located there, in this area of the world. Now, that war has not started yet. And we hope it will not start. But another war has already started. The war between the forces of evil in this world and the forces of righteousness. The war between the forces of evil and the forces of light. In some churches they don't like you to speak about these things. And I don't want to speak either. But the Bible speaks. And uses this terminology. Clearly showing that we, as God's people, are in spiritual warfare. Look at Ephesians chapter 6. Where we have a description, a further description of this great spiritual conflict in which we are involved. We won't take time to read that whole chapter. But notice verse 11 and 12. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of Satan. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And then it speaks in verse 13 about the whole armor of God. We're commanded to take the whole armor of God. So we are in a spiritual warfare, whether we like it or not. And you are here at a great college, learning many things. And I hope in the midst of the many things you learn, that you learn how to pray. And I hope in the midst of the many things you learn, that you learn how to pray. It's easy to take this for granted. Of course, Christians, we pray. But that's a great mistake. Because we don't all, as Christians, automatically give ourselves to the kind of prayer that we read about in the Word of God. Even many ministers in churches have acknowledged that they are discouraged in their prayer life and no longer pray. These are ministers in our churches. For some 33 years, I have been involved in missionary work, starting in Mexico, then Spain, then India. For some 33 years, I have been involved in missionary work, starting in Mexico, then Spain, then India. And our task has become more and more to speak to missionaries, missionaries from the UN or from other groups. And for me, their greatest problem was maintaining that devotional life, that life of intercessory prayer and worship. A survey was taken among pastors, among ministers, on their prayer life. A survey was taken among pastors, among ministers, on their prayer life. They discovered the average pastor in this survey prayed four minutes per day. They discovered the average pastor in this survey prayed four minutes per day. Many men of God, in years gone by, have said that for every hour in preaching, we should have at least one or two hours in prayer. Many pastors have said that for every hour in preaching, we should have at least one or two hours in prayer. Many churches that years ago had a dynamic prayer meeting as part of the life of the church, no longer have any prayer meetings in the church at all. Many churches that years ago had a dynamic prayer meeting as part of the life of the church, no longer have any prayer meetings in the church at all. And the average young man who claims to be a Christian does not attend any prayer meetings at all. And we're hoping for 5,000 to come again this summer on Love Europe. Our first burden is not to get them all to run around evangelizing. That's not our first burden. Our first burden is to teach them to pray. This year the Congress again will be back right here in Offenburg. And each day there'll be those prayer meetings. And then there'll be that great concert of prayer, four or five hours, six, seven hours of prayer on into the evening, waiting upon God, praying for the nations of the world. Every year we are amazed how many of those young people say, I've never done anything like this before, this is unusual. Then you always get someone who says, well, prayer is really very personal. I mean, we don't need to go to prayer. And that sounds good, because we don't want to practice our piety before men. Oh, what a great man of prayer I am! But the fact is, the Bible teaches as much about prayer meetings in the New Testament as about personal prayer. It's not either or. Both are in the Word of God. Let's look at the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter nine. Because I want to share with you this burden I have to pray and to see more workers going from Germany into other parts of the world. As you know, here in Germany there's a group of missionary societies, about 50 societies, that belong to an evangelical missionary alliance. I was with my friend Friedrich Henssler for a number of hours this morning for lunch. And I asked, how many missionaries do all of these 50 societies, how many missionaries do they have? I was surprised that there are only 1,600 missionaries from all of these groups together serving Jesus Christ. Germany is not a small country. And the German church is not a small church. It's not the biggest church in the world. But it's not a small church. And I think of the many great meetings. I have had the opportunity to speak at many of them. In different parts of Germany, tens of thousands come together for these great meetings. Now we know, apart from that 1,600, there of course are other groups that may not be part of that. And then, praise God, there are quite a few now who are short term, maybe one, two, three year people. I don't think they're included in that statistic. We praise God for each one of them. But we believe God wants to send out more workers from Germany into the missionary harvest field. And I want you to pray about this. I'm not firstly asking you to go. Some of you look a little bit nervous at this point. You're praying, oh Lord, don't send me to the mission field. Lord, don't send me to the mission field. You know the prayer of a Bible student, Lord, here I am, send my brother. God's primary concern is not that we go somewhere. His first burden is that we know Him. It's not geography, it's reality. Knowing God, walking with God, experiencing God in your inner being and in your mind and heart. As a young man of 17 and 18, I began to experience God, deep fellowship with God, and that's what changed my life. Some of you may know my testimony. Let me just share it briefly for new people. My father and my grandfather came from the Netherlands, from Friesland. Very stubborn, difficult people. And my father, my grandfather actually was an atheist. He didn't believe in the existence of God. And actually in Dutch Friesland, many people are communists. They were communists back in those days. My other grandfather was a drunkard from Scotland. And that marriage, sad to say, it broke into two pieces. And my mother went through many difficult experiences as she saw her mother go one way and her father go the other way. My father went to New York as a very small boy. And he worked very hard, but he was a materialist. He didn't know God. But at least when I was little, he sent me off to Sunday school as he worked in the garden. But God spoke to him one day as he was working in the garden and I was in Sunday school and told him, You need to go to church. And so he went to church. Sorry to say, it was not a church where Jesus Christ was presented as the Savior and Lord. It was not a church where they believed that the Bible was the Word of God. And of course people were wandering in this religious fog. So by 16 years of age, I was very much living my own selfish life of, no need to go into details, living for myself. And then something happened that changed my whole life. A woman of prayer put my name on her prayer list. That was the end of me. And she prayed not only that I would become a Christian, she prayed that I would become a missionary. And she prayed not only that I would become a Christian, she prayed that I would become a missionary. There wasn't even any discussion. Just, bang, on her list, save him, send him. And then she sent me a Gospel of John through the mail. The Gospel of John. And then Billy Graham came to New York City, not for a campaign, just for one meeting, one meeting. And I went to that meeting and I heard that Jesus Christ died on the cross for me. He loved me and he died for my sin. And that night I believed on Jesus Christ with all my heart. And as I received this peace and assurance of my forgiveness, I wanted to tell everybody about it. It soon became my dream that somehow the whole world, every person in the world, could hear about Jesus Christ. We knew God wanted us to start, right? We started prayer meetings in this high school. And we saw different people coming to Christ. And I believe the high school, young people between 13 and 19, is one of the best ages to reach people for Christ. Between 13 and 19. Even when I was only 18, the door opened to speak to 600 students. That lady had been praying for that high school for 15 years. And we had also been praying. And when I gave the invitation for those students to come to Christ, 125 students stood up, and also my own father. And it's what I saw as a young Christian, God answering prayer, that convinced me this is God's way to carry out God's work, prayer. That strengthened in me the conviction that this is the method that people find Jesus through prayer. Soon three of us went to Mexico, 3,000 miles away. And we saw God answer prayer in Mexico. And by learning the language, by working with the missionaries, we saw that we could be a help to the work of evangelism. Later people called this short-term missionary work. We never thought of it as short-term. We were planning to serve Christ our whole life. Since those early days, over 52,000 young people have gone on these campaigns, from one summer to a couple of years, almost throughout the entire world. Since those early days, over 52,000 young people have gone on these campaigns, from one summer to a couple of years, almost throughout the entire world. And thousands are serving Christ, overseas or in their own countries. There are 2,000 in OM, but more of our people, our graduates, are serving in other mission societies. And we know God has sent workers out from Germany as well because of this vision. And we know God has sent workers out from Germany as well because of this vision. Some of you pray for the ship Dulles. The director of that ship is a German booker. Some of you pray for the ship Dulles. The director of that ship is a German booker. 30 other Germans are serving on that ship. It is now in Thailand. It is the largest group of people from any one nation. The second group are the Filipinos. This is all tied in with this basic teaching of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 9, that I would like us to look at. This is all tied in with this basic teaching of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 9, that I would like us to look at. Where it says that Jesus, verse 36, was moved with compassion because He saw the people, they were faint, they were scattered as sheep with no shepherd. What did He say? Verse 37. He said unto the disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the workers are few. And then He says, pray ye, pray ye. It is a command from Jesus Christ to us, even this night. And I want to ask you to pray, that more workers would go out, not just from Germany, of course, but from any country, wherever the Lord chooses to send them out from. As I take meetings in churches all over the world, I find many people are very ignorant about missionary work. What is this actually all about? The devil is well able to use ignorance and the lack of information to hinder the work of the kingdom of God. Young people are making wrong decisions about missions because they only have part of the information instead of all of the information. In all of Germany, there are not so many churches that are really sending out missionaries in a disciplined, biblical and compassionate way. In fact, my experience, these almost 30 years coming to Germany, is that more young people are willing to go, but they can't find churches and people who will help them financially and through prayer to make it possible. This leads me to another scripture that I want to read to you, in Romans, chapter 10, and verse 15. Here we see something very, very important. How shall they preach except they be sent, as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. If we want to see the world evangelized, that's the command of Jesus Christ. We have to find not only those who will go, we have to find... That means teaching churches, teaching God's people basic principles about world missions, about the situation around the world. After Paul went out on a great missionary journey, he came back to the church and he shared with them what God was doing around the world. And in a sense, what we are doing in this meeting tonight is very similar to what they did in the book of Acts, where a missionary came back to a place of prayer and shared what God was doing. Let's try to think in terms of different kinds of countries. Because this will help us understand what we are praying about. First of all, there are countries where the gospel is well established and there are many churches. And when we hear about these countries, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Kenya, a number of other countries, we think, wow, I'm going to stay here in Germany. The German church is small next to Brazil or Korea and some of these other countries. The German church is small compared to the church in Brazil or the church of some other countries. And sometimes people, in trying to stop young people from going into overseas missionary work, they only tell about these countries and they say, look, we have much less in Germany. And if you want to stop young people from mission work, you say, look, there are much more Christians than here and the church is much bigger and more alive. But there are only a small number of countries like that. They, of course, still need missionaries. So, those countries will also now send out missionaries. Praise God. This summer I was in Korea. I spoke every night for five nights at the largest student missionary convention in the history of Korea. What some of the most amazing meetings I have ever, ever attended in my life. After every message, we had this tremendous time of prayer. Koreans, many of them, are committed to the prayer ministry. The churches I ministered at were very big. They were mainly Presbyterian or Reformed churches. Sometimes they have six services with people just going in and out all day long. Different congregations all day long. And I met with Korean pastors of these big churches who were absolutely committed to evangelize the world. In Operation Mobilization, the fastest growing country in our work is Korea. As far as number of workers going overseas into world missions. And when we hear these things, we may think, well, therefore, we don't need Germans anymore in missionary work. That is such a great mistake in our thinking. Because we have other countries where the church is very, very, very small. Where there are millions of people who have never had one Christian book or one gospel tract. And then there are countries like India, that are so big, there are like many countries within one country. So parts of India, there are many churches in the south and other parts. But there are other parts of India, where the church is so small. I want you to remember, one hundred million Muslims in India. I wonder if you would even give two years of your life to work among such people. At least I would hope that you would pray for them. Because among the one hundred million Muslims of North India or of India, the church does not exist. Now, how can we compare that with Germany? Or England. Or even France. We are very committed to Europe. Europe is still OM's biggest area, with the greatest number of people. And Europe is more difficult than certain parts of India, like the tribal people. But Europeans, winning them to Christ, would be ten times easier than Muslims of North India. Do you hear what I'm trying to say? Do you understand the complexity of this big world, with all different kinds of people, all different kinds of situations? We must not make statements like, missionaries are no longer needed. Or, Germany is really the most needy mission field in the world. If God leads you to work in Germany, praise God, that's all you need. Just to know that God leads you, that's the most important thing. And then, I lived in India for a number of years. That's where I wanted to work the rest of my life. Or at least for many years. And then things went wrong and I no longer could get a visa. So I lived in Nepal. And then I lived on a ship, traveling around the coast of India. Wow, I was a real missionary! Now I live in London, England. Oh, can I be a missionary in England? But I am just as happy in England, with the knowledge that I'm in God's will, as I was in Kathmandu, or Bombay, or Bangkok. I was living in Spain when I first came to Europe, 30 years ago. My real vision for Operation Mobilization came in the summer of 1961, when I came out of the Soviet Union. And here in Germany, God gave me those tickets. Those two words, Operation Mobilization. And I knew to mobilize large numbers of people, I had to leave Spain. That seemed so strange, because I was finally speaking fluent Spanish. Now the Lord tells me to leave Spain. And it was only the fact that I spoke English, rather than German, that I ended up evasing myself in Spain. In Great Britain, rather than Germany. Work in strengthening the church, training young people. Our greatest passion is to reach the unreached people. And we need your help. You may think, well, we can't do very much here, we're stuck here in the woods in South Germany. That is a great mistake. Because from this spiritual base, through prayer, we can touch every nation, every people's group in the world, right from this place. Through prayer, we have the power to do something for every nation, for every group in this world. I hope that every one of you has a copy of Operation World. Pray for the world. If not, you can go to the bookstore and you get a copy. Thank God, this book was translated into German. It was a very big task. This is not a book to read, it's a book to pray through. You will become some of the most informed people in all of Germany, concerning the world situation and the church. You will learn about the Kurdish people. They had no official nation. But they are an unreached people. They have a language, they have a culture. They live in Turkey, Iraq, Iran. Some of them live in Germany. They are an unreached people, where the church does not exist. Surely, if we believe the Bible is God's Word, and we hear about these people's groups, we are going to pray. And after we pray, we are going to want to give. We want to give of our lives. We want to give of our financial resources. I can hear some of you students saying, give of our financial resources, doesn't this guy know I don't have any money? In America and England, when I speak to Bible school students, most of them haven't even paid for their fees yet. They can't even leave the school, because they haven't paid for their fees. I must honestly confess, I also don't have any money right now to give. And I have 500 projects that I could give to around the world. There are so many needs, so many opportunities. And we have 52,000 OM graduates serving in almost every nation in the world. And many of them are writing letters to me and saying, please help us in this country. Please help us in that country. But I discovered that something very, very important, that we can release finance for the work of God through prayer. There was a man named George Muller, who had orphanages in England, and through prayer and faith, he fed those orphans and did a great work of God. Hudson Taylor followed that same principle of faith, and had one of the greatest missionary works in the history of China. And I know you have based this work here on that same principle of faith, that God hears and answers prayer. It's often when we have nothing left upon God to do a miracle. I hope you will read the book about the ship Lagos. I think you also have that in your bookstore. Seventeen years of amazing ministry of that old ship. And then we lost that ship on the rock off the coast of South America. And at that time we had no money, and we had not paid for the books that were on the ship, and because of our very tight financial situation, we had no insurance. And all over the world, people prayed. Ten years ago, we knew that ship was way too small for what we wanted to do. And as we prayed that God would replace that ship, he heard our prayers. He gave us a ship worth 12 million marks. Not because some rich person said, Oh, operational position. Oh, give them a million dollars. No, that's not how God works. No, but thousands, tens of thousands of people who had been blessed through the ministry of O.M. in India and South America gave their love offerings, and that ship became a reality and is sailing in these coming days into West Africa. God's work, yes, is done by prayer. Don't wait until you're as old as me and say, Well, I think maybe now I'll learn how to pray. Now, as a young woman, make prayer, knowing God the absolute priority of your life. You can never go wrong if you do that. And let all of us who are a little bit older, let us be careful. Midlife lukewarmness can creep into our lives like cancer. And we can find ourselves getting discouraged because some prayers have not yet been answered, and many of my prayers have not yet been answered. That dear woman who prayed for me never stopped her prayer ministry. And only just two years ago, at ninety years of age, she went to be with her Lord. What is big with man is not necessarily big with God. That woman is an unknown person. But I believe she has a great reward in heaven. I don't know how many of you are famous people in Germany. I don't know much about Germany. Forgive me. Maybe there's some famous movie star that has come in here. I don't know what talents some of these women have, these lovely grey disguised outfits, what this is, what they are, maybe some famous people here. But I will tell you, there's people who are big in heaven sitting here right now. And that's what really counts. Let us pray. Our God, we thank you for all that you're doing around the world. We want to pray more workers out into the harvest fields of the unreached people of the world. And so we obey you, Lord Jesus Christ, and we ask you to send out workers from this very place and from this very nation. And we would also ask you, O God, for the financial resources to send them out and to keep them out and to supply them with the tools, the literature, the tools to do the work. And we'll give you all the praise and all the glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.