In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of young people not being afraid to take steps of faith, as God uses young people regardless of their age. The speaker references 1 Timothy 4:12, which encourages young people to be an example in their words, conduct, love, spirit, faith, and purity. The sermon also highlights the significance of regularly memorizing and meditating on the word of God, as well as maintaining a consistent prayer life. The speaker warns against presumption and encourages attendees to seek a personal encounter with God during the conference.

We've been talking for a long time about this very special occasion together. And we're very glad to be here. We've travelled here in a very old bus, about 20 years old, from London we've come. And we had no difficulty. And many, many, many people are praying for this conference. I've just been on a tour right around the entire world. And often I tell people to pray for Poland. Even in places like Australia and New Zealand, the other side of the world. People are praying for Poland and people are praying specifically for this week that we have here together. And we know God answers prayer. I've just come from our own training conference in Belgium. Where we had about 600 young men and women. And most of them are now out on evangelistic teams going from door to door in Paris and many other cities. Many of them have never done this kind of work in their life. They are scared stiff. So you can pray for them. Some of them are just young Christians who have just come to know Christ as their Saviour and as their Lord. Just previous to being in Belgium, I was in Chicago at the great Christian Rock Festival. This is a great controversy in some countries. Is rock music from God or from the devil? So I will not speak on that at this time. But we had about 4,000 gathered at that great conference. And hundreds surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. And they are also praying for Poland. So it's a joy to be here. Since I spend a lot of my life speaking in conferences, I thought I would just share with you some thoughts that I wrote in the back of my Bible many years ago. Just as an introduction. How to get the most out of a week together as we have here. In some ways, you will get as much from the Lord as you are willing to give. For those of you who are writing verses down, we are told not to just be hearers of the Word, but doers. Let's just look at what verse that is. James chapter 1, verse 22. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Can a Christian be deceived? I believe he can. And certainly in England, where I live, it seems that many Christians are deceived. Because they are hearing the Word of God, but they are not doing the Word of God. How can we get the most out of this time together? Let me just give you five principles. I've spent about 20% of my entire life for 30 years in conferences like this. People keep telling me I should slow down. So I've been trying to slow down. I used to take 900 meetings a year, now I only take 400. So I've learned these principles in the midst of these different conferences throughout the world. Number one, make God your goal. So basic, so simple, that as we come into a conference like this, we can be thinking about one another. We can be thinking about the speaker. Nothing wrong with that. But our goal should be God Himself. Try to get time each day alone with God. That's what I've done for about two hours this morning in order to prepare my heart and my mind for being here at this moment. Matthew 6.33 says, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Matthew 6.33 says, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Number two, ask God for a spirit of expectation. William Carey, that great missionary, said expect great things from God. God wants to do great things. He wants to bless us. He wants to bring healing to damaged emotions. He wants to bring the gift of salvation to many people. He wants to give us a greater biblical foundation for our Christian life. According to your faith, be it unto you, said Jesus Christ. A spirit of faith, a spirit of expectation, is absolutely basic to get what God wants to give in these days together. The third principle is not to neglect your own prayer time in the midst of all the fellowship and the activities. It's good to be able to be out here in the countryside. I live in the city of London. What a blessing just seeing the beautiful fields and the corn. I love corn. I don't know if you're allowed to eat this corn, or is that only for the cows. But be sure to get that time alone with God. That has been the practice of my life since my conversion to Jesus Christ 31 years ago, when I was just 16 years old. Almost every day, all these years, I've had that quiet time in the Word and prayer, and without that, I wouldn't be here. The fourth principle is to beware of presumption. Presumption, just assuming everything is going to go fine. I've been reading a book that shows the difference between faith and presumption. Some of our churches in other countries have got into great difficulty because they could not discern between faith and presumption. One church went very extreme in regard to faith for physical healing. Very extreme. So they said, we don't need doctors anymore. We just pray, that's it, healed. Sixty people died in that church. You see, that was presumption, not faith. The book about this subject is called From the Pinnacle of the Temple. Remember, Jesus was tempted to jump off the pinnacle. But Jesus wouldn't do it. A.W. Tozer, one of my favorite writers, he's now with Jesus. He said, the greatest gift needed in the church today was the gift of wisdom and discernment to be able to tell what is from God and what is not from God. That's why I was so excited when I discovered you had a book table with tremendous books in Polish. I brought a few English books, but great to see all these Polish books. There's a brilliant book dealing with this subject when bad things happen to God's people. Everybody needs to read this book three times. And God wants us to even here during these days not presume that everything is going to go well. Many people have worked hard to bring this event to happen. People sometimes in these conferences get under pressure because a lot is happening behind the scenes, at least in our OM conferences. Satan tries to attack and bring division within the work. Or maybe within your own group that you've been gathered with. So we want to exercise faith as we're gathered here praying for everything that's happening. Praying for safety for those people who have traveled here as we have. Even last night as we were traveling down the highway very narrow road a huge truck just suddenly pulled out right in front of our car. I guess he was operating by faith and expected us just to go off the road. Which we did because he was bigger than we were. And we want to be resisting Satan's effort to bring confusion as we're here together for a whole week. You know, often as Christians we expect too much from one another. Maybe you don't have this problem in Poland. Maybe this is an English problem. We expect so much from our pastors. We expect our pastors to be sort of miracle men who just have everything completely together in their lives. And many of our pastors have problems because they are just ordinary people that God has put his hand on. And for us in our culture the pastor's wife that is even more difficult. The pastor's wife. Operation Zoot. Everybody's looking at the pastor's wife. Ooh, she has a new hat on for Easter. Or she's changed her hairstyle. I wonder how much money she's spent on the beautician. Probably 50% of our churches in Great Britain have gone through division and tension in the past three or four years because Satan is a specialist in bringing confusion. So let's be praying for one another. Let's be praying for our Christian leaders. Let's realize the battle does not begin when we leave here. The battle has already begun the moment you have come to Jesus Christ. I call it some of us have different jobs to do during these days. Maybe it's just picking up papers. Maybe it's washing dishes. Praise the Lord! What a privilege! Washing dishes for Jesus! Hallelujah! When we first got the ship Lagos as a family my wife and I my wife is with me we sailed on that ship. We sailed around Africa and I had the privilege of operation dishes. Every week I had this operation. It usually took over one hour. I never wanted to see a dish again. I became a great I became a great believer in paper plates. When we got to India and I sat down with these Indians to have food This is the country where I was. We had the food on an old leaf. Just reach up to the tree and you have a leaf. Eat the food with our hands like this method. And at the end you just threw it away. Well the Bible says and I was reading this word this morning in the book of Colossians Whatever you do do it with all your heart as unto Jesus Christ. And you know as you're faithful in small things God will increase your responsibilities in the work of the kingdom. I did not start out as the director of a Christian organization with a two ocean going ship. That's not how I started. I started serving Jesus when I was 17. I gave out a few tracts. I recorded the messages in my church on a tape recorder. I did a few other very small things. Very slowly God just added the responsibilities one year afterwards. Well there are some principles that I have tried to practice when I come to conferences like this. And I know that God wants to meet with us during these days together. Let us turn now to the gospel of Matthew chapter 9. I've been asked this morning just to make this a sort of introductory time. And since most of us have never met before I thought I would just share a little of my own testimony on how Jesus Christ found me when I was your age. Of course I see people here from many ages. But it looks like most of you may be between 15 and 25. God found me when I was 16. I'd like us to read Matthew 9 the last four verses. 35 through verse 38. What a great passage of Scripture. What a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus. Let's just pray for a moment. God help us to understand your word. Thank you for bringing us here together at this time. Thank you that we are from different nations. We are one body in your Son Jesus Christ. Father fill our hearts with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Fill our hearts with faith in these days together. Open our eyes that we may see your Son the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us. We thank you for this great gift of salvation. We worship you together in the name of Jesus. Amen. I was a somewhat religious person. But I didn't know Jesus Christ as my personal savior. In fact, I was a materialist. My grandfather and my father both came from the Netherlands. On the way here we stopped in Amsterdam to deliver a large quantity of literature. I want you to pray for a great conference going on in Amsterdam right now with Dr. Billy Graham. 8,000 evangelists are there from all over the world right now in Amsterdam just as we're here. I want you to pray In fact, I was sent an invitation to go and to speak there in a small group. And I had the joy of writing back and I said, I'm sorry, I'm already booked. During those dates I'm going to Poland. But we sent three of our other people there with a special table of free literature and that literature will go all over the world from there in Amsterdam. My father was born not so far from there and his father was an atheist. So my own father did not know Christ. When I was very small he didn't even go to church. But he sent me to church. To Sunday school for the children. But this was a church that didn't have very much of a proclamation message. More of a social institution for teaching, dancing and other activities. Dancing and women was the big thing in my life. I fit quite well into the church and the pastor made me a Christian. And I even became the president of the young people's group. And so Saturday night I was in the nightclubs in New York because my father immigrated to New York City. Sunday morning I was there with my little gospel Christian smile. I was living a form of spiritual schizophrenia. I think my book about this subject has been distributed all over Poland. Maybe some of you have read that. One foot in the world one foot in the church. Very hard to walk that way. And yet this was the story of my life. But into my life came a dear praying woman who believed Matthew 9. When I went to secondary school high school she heard about my bad reputation. I just had a little bit of difficulty with the police and with the principal and a few other people. And so she started to pray for me. She had been praying for that school for 15 years. She knew that a high school was one of the greatest mission fields in the world. And she not only prayed that people would be nice and be saved but she prayed that people would be saved and sent. That was the vision God gave her. And so she put my name on her hit list her prayer list. Let me just tell you something. If you've got any elderly ladies praying for you you could be in serious trouble. The sooner you get your life sorted out with God the happier you will be. Then she sent me through the mail the post A Gospel of John. I'd encourage you to read this week read The Gospel of John. I'd encourage you especially if you're not sure of your salvation. So I got this Gospel of John through the post this summer and I decided to start to read it. And faith slowly came into my heart from that Gospel of John. Now life in New York City is very fast. And I'm sorry to say that at 16 I was already hooked on pornographic magazines and a lot of other bad habits that came into my life. Yet as I read God's Word and she kept praying and she was not only praying that I would be saved I would be saved and sent as a missionary across the world. Now you may pray that for a Bible school student. No. It was an ungodly high school where a third of the students were drunk most weekends. But God had put this burden upon her heart. Kelly Graham came to New York City I didn't even know what a name the people that I went to considered religious extremists. Perhaps he was a hypnotist. But I went to that meeting and I took my binoculars to watch him. To see if he was a hypnotist. And I took this girl with me who was some religion. I was alright. I was the president of a young people's foundation. I even knew how to pray. It happened in my mind and in my heart that there was such a thing as repentance having your life turned around and putting personal faith in Jesus Christ. For people to specifically respond and give their lives to Christ. I had never seen anything like this. He was going to ask people. In my church nobody got. And he called people to come forward. And then he said please pray for your non-Christian friends. But I decided to pray for this girl sitting next to me. So I bowed my head and started praying for her. And as I prayed I took my seat and I went forward and sin lifted. And a peace of God came into my heart that had been there everyday ever since. I want to say something very important. They were reared. They may have made a commitment to Christ when they were very young. They hardly to be reminded of exactly how it happened. And he changed their lives. He had been thinking about Jesus but he had not made a decision. And he gave his life to different people in different ways. God works in different people in different ways. In England we have a lot of problem with judgmentalism. Judging, always judging other Christians. Each church feeling that they're better than the other church. And different Christians criticizing and judging other Christians. And it's so sad. And it's not God's way. He can write something else down. We need to know how to judge. We have different churches, different emphases. A friend of mine was just speaking here in Poland. You should listen to him. His name is David Wilkerson. He and I have a similar ministry. And we have learned how to just compassionately disagree. And I'm always afraid when all of a sudden in a country more foreign speakers are coming in from overseas. I always get a little nervous about that. And I was very hesitant to come here for that very reason. Because we come from different churches. We come from very different social and cultural situations. We often do not know what you are facing in your situation. I will speak here this week and give and contextualize it into your unique beautiful Polish situation. And you will not be afraid to disagree with me. Actually I am not going to be dealing with controversial subjects. That is not the burden that is on my heart. Different people in different ways. And we need to know to disagree if there is something we don't experience with Christ. We started some prayer meetings and God poured out His Holy Spirit. One meeting alone where I just shared my testimony. 125 students came to profess their best faith in Jesus Christ. After that another 75 gave their lives to Christ. Providence, God's sovereignty became the first birthplace of what today is a worldwide spiritual movement known as Operation Mobilization. I love to tell this. It encourages people. My main emphasis throughout this week that we may become men and women of faith and of prayer to be used extensively by the Holy She's praying for me. She prays for me every day. Her husband is dying. She's now in a special home for elders. She's way beyond 80 years of age. She was the human instrument that brought this movement that I've learned over the years. We have been able to take the gospel to over 350 million people. Tens of thousands have come to Jesus Christ. In the beginning it was just one old vehicle. Three of us went into Mexico inspired by this woman and her faith and her reality. I was only 19. I learned the Spanish language. I love to see you all writing something. And so often today young people are afraid to take any steps of faith. They feel they're not old enough. To one of the most important verses in the Bible for young people, verse 13, Christ your youth, or make fun of it, but be an example of the believer in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. First Timothy, 4, 12. I want to ask you something. How many of you already memorize the word of God, even, even one verse a week? How many do that? Raise your hand. I take a survey all over the world in meetings just like this. I want to just tell you some bad news. That's the lowest score of any nation in the world. No problem, you know, many, many young people, but then many of those people and everything we talk is going to be linked with how is learning to meditate. I've said, I've hid my word, not sin against you. When Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan, he quoted the, and it wasn't long after my conversion, when I had fallen, I think I also started kissing the girls around me. Some of the same problems came back. I began to meet some of God's chosen people. A real pain in the neck. Do you have an expression like that in Polish? And I had many, many struggles. began to study different philosophies, including atheism. And I almost completely overthrew that I had learned something as a baby Christian. One verse a day, I put into my mind and in my heart. I remember sitting in my university class, studying physics and chemistry. I hated the subject. I want to challenge you to memorize. It will do good. You can start even with a small verse. Jesus wept. Let's all say that together. Just see how easy it is to learn. The Bible says the word of God is able to cleanse our hearts. You know, in some of our churches, we have what I call spiritual midgets. And they're Christians. Maybe they become Christians twenty years ago, ten years ago. And they still need milk. It's like a little baby baby. And they are Christians. They are Christians. They are Christians. They are Christians. They are Christians. They are Christians. Christians. They are Christians. They are Christians. They Christians. They are Christians. They are Christians. Christians. They are in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.