In this sermon, Martin Lloyd-Jones discusses the importance of aiming high in our Christian lives and not settling for small ambitions. He emphasizes the need to preach the gospel in regions beyond, highlighting the urgency of reaching tribes and people groups who have not yet heard the message of Jesus Christ. Lloyd-Jones challenges the audience to consider the contrast between the dedication and determination of mountain climbers in conquering physical challenges, and the lack of effort in reaching the world for Christ. He encourages the audience to read books such as "Spiritual Depression" by Michael Griffith and "Give Up Your Small Ambitions" to gain a deeper understanding of living a life of discipline and purpose in serving God.

Our God and Father, we praise you for the reality of this hymn that we have been singing. We thank you for the privilege of being together here tonight and ask that your word may go to our hearts, that we would not be hearers only, but doers, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm very grateful to God for the opportunity to be back once again with you. I will never forget my last visit here. We especially praise God for the two young people who you have sent out to the land of France and for others that are praying about going. And I feel very burdened tonight to just to some degree share a little of what God is doing in answer to your prayers. I think it is such an encouraging thing that God has given you such a vision for world evangelism in this day when so few people seem to be able to see much beyond their own nose. We just praise God for that. We have brought our little extra book table. We didn't bring many books because you have so many of your own books, but we've chosen just a few other books that you'll find in the back. Look for the big Swede, a young man from Sweden named Christian, taking care of the books. You will want to get some of these items that we have brought with us from London. Someone asked me if I could only choose one book to have with my Bible. Suddenly I were in a prison camp and I only had one book to go with my Bible. What book would I choose? And immediately I said, Spiritual Depression by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Not that I agree with every single line. I don't agree with that in any book, not even my own books. But in the past 50 years, I believe this is the greatest book put in print in Great Britain. And it's a desperately needed emphasis at this hour. The title really is misleading. It is not a book about depression. It covers that subject. It's a book about discipline, about dealing with feelings, about living a life of reality, about handling most of the major problems, like growing weary in well-doing and trials and what happens when you get in God's gymnasium. Here's 300 pages at a price of 85 pence, and books now of 300 pages are charging two pounds for. So I would challenge you to get a copy of that great book on spiritual depression, Michael Griffith's book, Give Up Your Small Ambitions. I am amazed at the low, puny, Mickey Mouse goals of the average British Christian. Now I know we Americans, we're known as loud mouths, and we've got a lot of ideas that never get carried out. That's why in OM we've mainly filled the movement with British people. But really, really, some of you need to give up your small ambitions. And this is a book about that. And it's a dangerous book to read, because I'm convinced if some of you read it, you'll probably end up coming up here to get hands laid on for Japan or China or somewhere else. There's a lot of other books by Roy Heshin, by A.W. Tozer. For 10 years we've negotiated to publish this book by Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy in paperback, originally only available in a very expensive hardback. Now it's off the press. The whole edition is almost sold. The Knowledge of the Holy, Tozer's classic book on the attributes of God, and it will be a great challenge and blessing to your own heart. You know, I get excited and revived just looking at the titles of these books. Just one of my own books. I never know what to say about my own books. They're not very good. I get a lot of good quotations, however, from other people's books. This is one that is actually four messages that I have put together called A Revolution of Love and Balance. When a person commits himself wholly to the Lord, begins to know the power and the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the reality of the Lordship of Christ, then the devil's next strategy is to get them off balance, get them to become some kind of a religious nutcase. Not in the good sense, like Malcolm, but, you know, an extremist. And there is a great difference. And so, I'd like to present this copy to Malcolm at this time of A Revolution of Love and Balance. Can you come up and receive this as a gift? If you don't agree with something in the book, just write to me and we'll change it in the next edition. I'd like you now to open your Bible to the New Testament to a verse I know you've all read before, and I tend not to want to read it because I know it's too worn out by missionary speakers, but I want to read it anyway because I want to look at one part of this verse that is especially neglected, and that's Acts chapter 1, verse 8. I'm really grateful to my wife for being able to be here tonight. I've just come back from a month or three weeks of being away, and my wife only found out about this meeting. She was very looking forward to being with me all day today back in Bromley. She found out about this meeting a week or ten days ago and wrote me a six-page letter about various things. And she asked me, why in the world do I book meetings one day after arriving? Because often you have this jet lag and your days are nights and your nights are days. And she wanted me to see the family and spend time with the family, which we did. I immediately phoned her from New York, a little family crisis I felt was worth the expenditure, and told her that really we were going to be together. I was counting on her to come with me. She's just got out of hospital actually, not supposed to be roving around too much, but she's with me, and I know that she, after seeing this great congregation and this great church, she knows why I couldn't resist this meeting. Family is a big priority, and we're happy to also have a little rendezvous with our son from Swansea. And it's true what our brother said, that without my faithful wife, I just wouldn't be going very far. And I just praise the Lord for her. Now this text, Acts 1.8. But ye shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth. The uttermost part of the earth. There are many things I would love to talk to you about tonight. I'd like to talk to you about the Lordship of Christ. Like to talk to you about the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I'd like to talk to you about relationships, how to relate to people on the subject of love. I'd love to talk to you about the all-sufficiency of Christ. I'd love to talk to you about so many different basic subjects of spiritual life. And when someone comes on OM, they hear more about those things than they hear about missions, because we believe that missions and evangelism grows out of a life that is going deeper with God and that is understanding God's way. But I believe your own pastors and teachers here in this church can teach you on those subjects probably better than I can. And so in my limited time, I want to talk to you about something that perhaps I know a little more about. I want to talk to you about the uttermost parts of the earth. Because I have just returned from Nepal just a few months ago. I've just returned from Sudan, from Iran, from Bangladesh, from these regions beyond where there is so little witness for Jesus Christ. And I feel that it would be right to share with you something of what I've seen, something of the need, something of the challenge, realizing, of course, that what I say tonight must be balanced out by other messages, other revelations, other verses. Needless to say, it needs to be said, keeping in mind this important word from the Lord Jesus Christ himself just before his ascension into heaven. Let us look at 2 Corinthians 10, 16. These are amazing words from the Apostle Paul, to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hands. Here was one of the goals, no small goal, with the Apostle Paul. One great preacher said to me once, the problem with the average Christian is not failure, it's low aim, low aim. We need to aim high. And Paul said to preach the gospel in the regions beyond. That was before the jet plane, huh? That was even before the O.M. 15-year-old truck that the Apostle Paul wanted to preach in the regions beyond. Then, if you'll look for me, look at Romans 15, verse 20. Romans 15, verse 20, Paul again is speaking, yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation. So we see it is very biblical to think about the regions beyond. We make a great mistake in the church, and I know this church is not making it, but many are making it. We think a lot about our own personal blessings. We think a lot about praising the Lord and having a wonderful experience with the Lord, and all that's good, I believe in it. Sometimes in O.M., when we start a prayer meeting and we start worshiping and praising Jesus, it's six hours later before it's finished. In fact, on the ship, that happens every week. Praising the Lord, worshiping the Lord. But when we do this in spirit and in truth, it will lead us into having a vision as the Lord had as he looked and wept over Jerusalem. When the Lord Jesus looked at Jerusalem, he didn't praise, he wept. There is a time to praise and there is a time to weep. Of course, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we're always rejoicing. We are a strange paradoxical people that can weep and still know the inner joy of his presence and his upgirding and undergirding power in our life. But in this day in which there's a great renewed emphasis on praise, perhaps we have begun to neglect the doctrine of weeping. Jesus wept, Paul wept, and it's time Christians wept, especially for the state of the Church and for the state of the laws. Both of those things broke the heart of the Apostle Paul and caused him to weep. The uttermost parts of the earth are on the heart of God tonight. Tribes that can't even listen to a gospel recording because no one has had the courage and the discipline to go to that tribe and to get that language down even into a few simple messages. How can it be, since Jesus gave the commission 2,000 years ago, that we have failed to do such a relatively simple task? Think of what men do in the world. I was just reading this morning about all these expeditions to the Himalayas over the past couple of months. Have you read about that? Three more men, top mountaineers, all killed. Japanese expedition, American expedition, New Zealand expedition, most of them all failures. Three died trying. No low Mickey Mouse goals for these mountain climbers. No game of words for these tough-minded agnostics and atheists who do more to conquer a snow-covered mountain than we do to conquer a world for Jesus Christ. It concerns me, I must confess. Sometimes when I read such things, I have to recommit my heart to Christ, almost like reading a missionary biography. Nepal is a land that's on my heart. I'm thrilled to hear that you have contact with a worker there. A land of 12 million people. Nobody knows how many Christians. Optimists say now, because God has been working in Nepal, there may be 1,000 or 2,000 Christians. Is that many among 12 million people? They're scattered across this mountainous country that has only a few roads in the whole nation. And this means that if some of these unreached people are going to be reached, we need tough, disciplined men who can get a pack on their back with maybe 60 pounds of gospel materials or a record player or records and willing to trudge out 10,000, 15,000 feet. These people live in the mountains. Talk about mountaineering for Jesus. Maybe some of us ought to read Len Mole's book, Some Like It Tough. You may say, well, I'm not naturally tough. I'm a weak type. Well, I tell you, you're looking at a weak type. If I turn sideways, some of you won't even see me. We're not talking about human strength. We're not advertising for men who have taken the Charles Atlas muscle-building course. I heard a joke about that just yesterday. Somebody took this course, they went through it for six months, and then they wrote back to Charles Atlas, I finished your course, would you now please send me the muscles? But it's not quite like that. It's not a matter of human strength. It's knowing God. It's walking with God. It's knowing the power of the Holy Spirit. It's knowing what it is to enter into the spiritual warfare as described in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 4, 5, and 6. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty unto God, to the pulling down of strongholds. This is the kind of men we need. This is the kind of women we need. And it's a challenge. I wonder if there are some today, some tonight, who would pray about the land of Nepal. Of all the countries I mention in my tours, I speak about 600 times a year, I find hardly anyone ever asks me about Nepal. It's just too far out. It sounds too distant. Nepal. I mentioned already that we have more people in India than all of South America and all of Africa combined, but you've got more missionaries in Brazil than you do in all of India. Brazil is about the size of one Indian state. And I believe one of the greatest responsibilities on the British Church is the land of India because you don't need visas. I cannot get back to India. I got three-month visas, six-month visas for five years. Finally, I ran into some red tape, and they wanted some bribes, which I don't believe in, and a lot of other complications took place with evil men, and I was out. I cannot get a visa back to India. But as a British person, you don't need a visa. You don't need a visa, but you need a love for Jesus to go out to that land. The Mormons have 24,000 men on the move right now. They've won 124,000 people in Britain alone to their false cult of Mormonism, even though they even preach that you must forsake tea drinking to become a Mormon. Can you think of such a message to preach in the British Isles? And yet these slippery, well-dressed, well-groomed, friendly Americans cut British lawns, trim hedges, paint doors, and they've won 124,000 Britishers to their false cult of Joseph Smith, who every historian knows was a second-rate reprobate. But they believe in short-term work. We, on the other hand, have been bound too long to traditional methods of reaching the world for Christ. One-third of all of our missionaries are on furlough. Most of them have big families. They have to spend a lot of their time just surviving on the mission field. They're battling all kinds of difficult problems, and one-third of them quit after the first term on the field. Now, I'm still in favor of the traditional missionary, and we're training men and sending them into almost every major society in the world. But as I believe in that method, I believe also we need an army of short-term people. When I say short-term, I mean a year or two. I'm not talking about an O.M. Summer Crusade. That is just a training program. That isn't even short-term. That's a mini-crusade, a mini-exposure. Well, you've got to start somewhere. We praise God. Many young people who came on O.M. for a summer, frightened to death, legs shaking. They thought they were joining this super-dedicated, dynamic, on-marching movement, and they found out that 70% of the people were as weak and as frightened as they were. Together, they fell at the foot of the cross, were filled with the Holy Spirit, and went on not only to lead souls to Christ, but to see churches planted, to see people discipled, and then to see many more going on for a longer term. In France alone, 13 churches, new churches, have been born in the follow-up work of the O.M. teams. How easy it is for some people who don't know what they're talking about to say, oh, well, young people, what can they do? This is soulish. They get that word from watchmany. They like to pronounce it. It makes them look spiritual. This is soulish. This is youthful zeal. You cannot believe the criticism we have had to battle the past 15 years in just trying to keep going. People so quickly say things, giving out tracts. Isn't that superficial? And we need more theological content. That sounds good. We need more theological content. These young people need to go to seminary first. Seminaries have become cemeteries and buried more pastors than the world could ever count. Many of our young men are not uneducated. Many of them graduated from Cambridge and Oxford, but they spent their summers on O.M. during their four years at Oxford, so they didn't come out just another intellectual twit. And I believe that what we have in our heads somehow must be transmitted to our feet into action, or otherwise we become lopsided. You'd look funny if you walked in here with a head that big and a body about as big as mine. That really would look strange. And yet this is the way many Christians are. Their heads are filled. They've read more books. They've listened to more cassettes. They've gone to more conferences. They've tried Filey. They've tried Keswick. They've tried every different kind of movement you can think of. They've got more and more and more truth, and their heads are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and their bodies are about as thin as a pencil. They don't have any feet. The Bible says, Blessed are the feet of those who preach the gospel. I was so happy to hear about your action group. When is that, tomorrow night? That's what I would join if I were here. What a joy it was just last week, two weeks ago, banging on doors in the back streets of Minneapolis among the black people and some poor white people as well. If you think everybody in America is rich, you've obviously never been there. There's more poor people in America than there are poor people in Britain, I can assure you, especially among some of our black friends. What a joy, what a joy it was to be out sharing Jesus Christ house to house and in the streets. I hope you're a member of that action group. I know some churches, they think, well, they're an action group. That's for a little odd group of super spiritual ones or a few extremists who've got excess energy and zeal or they don't like television or something else and want to go out in the evening time and bang on doors. I believe every Christian should be a witness. That's what I see in the book of Acts. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Do you believe in the Holy Ghost? I'm sure you do. Well, the Holy Ghost brings a holy go and if you're not going, you don't know the Holy Ghost of the book of Acts. You may know some other spirit and I wouldn't want to get too near you, but you don't know the Holy Ghost of the book of Acts. And I believe that every Christian is either evangelizing or fossilizing. You have to tell because I can't judge any man, not in this short visit. My heart is burdened to see book of Acts reality, not just book of Acts words. And I believe this will lead us not only to dynamic witness right here in Bristol and throughout all of Britain and then throughout Samaria, that's France, that's Belgium. Think of little Belgium. You know you can get in a jet foil. Have you heard of the jet foil? By Tower Bridge you get in this souped up speed boat. It takes the British to develop these things. It's incredible. Jet foil down the Thames. Four hours later you pull into Belgium. No more these silly fairies dilly-dallying around. Get the jet foil from Tower Bridge. There it is. A land of nine million Belgians. One of the most un-evangelized lands in the whole world. More evangelized than any African country south of the Sahara. More evangelized than any Central American country, any South American country. The land of Belgium. Do you think you can find workers for Belgium? The only thing people think of in Belgium is some place they got to pass through to get to Germany or further to do their skiing in Switzerland. Belgium is one of those unreached lands. That's part of our Samaria. Think of Spain. My heart is so burdened for Spain. ¿Hay algunos aquí que hablan español? ¿Algunos que pueden hablar español? Anybody speak Spanish? Praise the Lord. Two people. English are great at languages. Yes. They compete with the Americans. Really. Some of you could pick up Spanish in a couple of months. I just visited my Spanish teacher. She taught me 20 years ago. I stopped in her house. I've been praying for her. She doesn't know the Lord yet. But I remember she used to just shake her head when she thought of my Spanish. Then I took Spanish at college. It was just as bad. I went to Mexico. And one month I was preaching Spanish. I've been preaching ever since in the Spanish language. You can learn a language. People always ask me. We have a question and answer session. And they tend to think, Oh, we're mainly just giving out literature. We don't bother learning the language. So they always ask this question. It's sort of a loaded question. Oh, what do you do about the language? The answer is simple. We learn them. We learn them. And many young people in OM are bilingual, trilingual. We have people who speak four, five, even six languages. We had one real dull brother out in India. And he was having a lot of difficulty. We finally put him on the ship. He was mainly washing dishes. But he was a beautiful brother and he loved Jesus. He learned one language a year for five years. So those of you who are a little bit dull. Terrific scope. Why not tackle Spanish and go down to the land of Spain? One of the most unreached nations in the entire world. 35 million people. There's now complete liberty. The communists are beginning to move. They now have freedom in Spain. It's a whole new day in Spain. And Spain needs a thousand missionaries right now. Right now. Jehovah Witnesses have grown in Spain. From a few dozens 20 or 30 years ago. To 25,000 strong. And have put their kingdom halls in almost every major city in the entire nation. Whereas there are some whole provinces with as many people as Bristol. Without a single witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we've got to reach out to our Samarias. And Spain should be included. But as we move on. And with these cards we can visualize some of these places. As we move on we get to the regions beyond. Let me just mention some of the countries using these cards. That I consider part of the regions beyond. I've already mentioned Turkey. Some of you are writing some of these things down. That's good. That's great. And if you have any questions you'd like to ask me. Please write it down and give it to me. Or someone at the literature table at the end of the meeting. We have a little OM newspaper. That you can pick up free. And there's a big coupon on the back. You can write any questions or prayer burdens that you have. And give it in to us. But I hope that you'll begin to put the land of Turkey on your prayer list. Then there's Tunisia. The ship was able to visit Tunisia last year. What a great time we had. Sitting in a great concert. Listening to gospel. A gospel ministry of music. With mainly all Muslims in the meeting. We saw the Lord open the door in Tunisia. A land of five and a half million people. A land that has just a handful of national believers. We think of places like Syria in the heart of the Middle East. Again with just a small population of believers. A land basically closed to missionary work. But there are many ways to go in to these countries. Think of the island of Sri Lanka where there's so much political difficulty right now. Sri Lanka has 13 million people. I was just there a few months ago. In the whole island of Sri Lanka. Among 13 million. There are only two Christian bookshops. Can you imagine that? Only two Christian bookshops. We need literature workers. Literature is one of God's tools. The CLC is looking for workers. We like to channel them into that great work. Open bookshops. What a challenge the land of Sri Lanka is. People often ask, they say, Well, you know, you get any definite results after the ship goes to a port? Most people do not understand the ship ministry. They think it's just for travel. Or they think it's just for literature distribution. There are 15 major ministries based on the ship. Is your church just for coming to on Sunday morning? Of course not. You have many, many ministries going out from this church. Probably 10, 15, maybe more. All week. And with this ship, it's similar. There's the ministry of music that's reaching hundreds of thousands of people we can't touch in other methods. They get on television, they get on radio, and big concerts. Even in London we had 1,500 or something like that at the concert we held. When the ship was in London. Then there's the ministry of mass literature distribution. And we've reached about 16 million people through that. Then there's a ministry to the schools. Teams go out to the schools. Then there's a ministry to the universities. Teams go out to the universities. Then there's the pastors conferences. We've had pastors and lay leaders conferences. Then we have women's conferences. Then we have youth conferences. So there's the conference ministry. Then there's the teams that go into the interior. They go by vehicle. We carry our own vehicles. They go by boat. We carry our own landing craft. And that moves up the rivers as it has been in Africa. And then there's the ministry of the book exhibition, including educational books. And many people come to that who wouldn't ordinarily come to the ship at all. They buy only an educational book, a cookbook, or something like that. We give them a Christian book free. We've had 2 million people go up the gangway of the Lagos to the exhibition. In fact, in West Africa, where the ship just visited, touching down in Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and the Cameroons, we had 200,000 visitors. Then we have mass evangelistic rallies. We have marches of witness through the streets. We even did that in Liverpool and in Glasgow and Dublin. And then we have a lot of open air ministry, teams going out into the open air. Then we have the teams going out door to door. Then, in some ways more important than all that, everybody on the ship is in training. It is a training ship. There's the encounter program for new people coming on the ship. There's the intensive training program for those young men who want to be really stretched in a 15-hour-a-day, mind-bending, and sometimes back-breaking, physical, spiritual, and mental training program that some people are now calling intensive torture. There are many different programs all going on at once. And when the ship is at sea, they're into the Word of God. And we have gifted Bible teachers who come to the ship and get us into God's Word. In Africa alone, there have been some 3,000 professions of faith in the last four months. Now, we're well aware many of these are not conversions. Sometimes we don't even give an invitation. People are so responsive in West Africa. But maybe that gives you a little idea. And when I was in Sri Lanka recently, I was following up. Well, what happened when the ship was there? I found out about a Methodist pastor. He was a Marxist. Many Methodists. They make very good Marxists when they get away from Jesus. Some of them never got to Jesus. And this Methodist Marxist came to the ship, and someone met him, talked to him, and they led this man to Christ. And this Marxist has been converted and is now preaching the Gospel in his church. Who can measure what can be done through that one man? There was another Anglican. I never like to pick on the Anglicans. But I sure appreciated that prayer for the Anglicans tonight. I'd like to get a recording of that. But one Anglican who didn't know Jesus Christ, never been born again. He came to the ship, bit of a skeptic. And he had surrendered his life to Christ and has gone back to his church. He is now one of the leaders in the small but live evangelical Anglican movement within Sri Lanka. And I could keep you here all night. I know that's what some of you are worrying about. Sharing with you what God is doing because, not because of the ship, not because OM people are special people, but because He is a great God who answers prayer. And we believe that as the ship perhaps goes into the Sudan again and then back to India after the Suez Canal, that we are going to see even greater things. And we are looking for people who are willing to become intercessors with us and with this ministry. Who will phone in to that number in London, who will sign up for our prayer letter, and who will intercede and who will pray because there are endless problems in operating this ship. We need an army of intercessors if we are going to see this ship continue, much less see another ship launch. Lagos is about twice as long as this church, the length of a football field. But this second ship will be twice the size of Lagos. Lagos handles about 142 people, about 1 to 2,000 tons of cargo. But we need a bigger ship for these bigger cities. We cannot handle the people. It is chaos. More than that, we need two ships, whatever the size might be, because we want to move into Latin America. We want to also emphasize the whole Mediterranean area as well as Africa without in any way neglecting our main target of Asia. The only way we can do this is with a second ship. In ourselves, we don't want this. In ourselves, we run the other way. We already, we feel inadequate. Already we feel that there's so much to organize, so much to pray through. But we are gripped with this great truth from God's Word that we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And tonight, half the people, half the people in the world have never once heard the gospel, at least half. And the enemy is attacking. As some of you may have heard in the last weeks, the Seychelles radio station has been temporarily closed down. The Ethiopian big radio station has been permanently closed down and is now being used to broadcast Marxist doctrine. I believe that some of these setbacks are a result of prayerlessness in the church. Praise God for those prayer cells on Tuesday night. I believe that's one of the most important functions in your church and the prayer meeting when you have it here. I am so convinced about this. Last weekend I was speaking in a little church in Iowa, about one-third this size, one-fourth this size. And I found out, I didn't realize it, as I was hammering home about prayer and the need for a prayer meeting and missionary prayer, I found out that they had stopped having prayer meetings two years ago. No one came. Bible-believing church, believe all the doctrines, no prayer meeting. The pastor was so touched by this past weekend, so burdened that he stood once again before his congregation and he said, we've got to start a prayer meeting again. And we're meeting here on Wednesday night at 7.30 or 8 o'clock. And I phoned him. I was in New York on Thursday night just before coming here on Friday. And I phoned him and I said, it was fear and trembling. I said, did anybody come to the prayer meeting? And he almost came through the telephone, praising God, 50 people had come out to pray. And that church has been put back on target in their prayer life, at least to some degree. Just a brief study of the book of Acts will show us the importance of prayer. Acts 1.14, they were all together praying. Acts 4.31, when they prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. And they went forth and spoke the word of God with boldness. George Muller, by the end of his life, had 30,000 answers to prayer. I had a meeting some time ago here in Bristol and I had this little book with me, George Muller of Bristol. And I just figured, you know, of course I'm a bit ignorant, naive and all the rest, but I just figured everybody in Bristol had read George Muller of Bristol in Germany and Switzerland and in the United States. Tens of thousands of this book gets sold. This is the main way people know Bristol. George Muller. Many people. So I took a survey in Bristol of how many have not yet read this classic George Muller of Bristol. How many have not read it? Raise your hand. Raise your hand. Look at that. I know illiteracy is on the increase everywhere. But you may want to get a copy. Whether you agree with everything he teaches or not, that's not the main point. Here's a man of faith. Here's a man who is going strong like O.J. Smith. I'm going to preach in his church in a couple of weeks. Over there in Toronto. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to standing next to this man 80 years of age who's still going on for God and for missions. The end of his life. 30,000 answers to prayer. We're not all going to agree. Actually, Oswald J. Smith doesn't agree with George Muller. I read something he said against George Muller. It doesn't bother me. God's got plenty of room for all kinds of eccentrics. How do you think you got in there? And I believe with all my heart, God honors faith. A lot of people, and listen to this young people, a lot of young people get confused because they meet someone who they feel has some error and yet God is using them. How can this be? And it is my conviction, and I feel very strongly about this, that no movement, no man on this planet has been ever totally free of some error or at least some area of off-balance. Truth and error travel together. As long as truth is basically dominating, God will work. And so don't be so black and white in your thinking. Some of you are not moving for God because you have some problem in your own life and you feel, until I get this problem all resolved, how can I really serve the Lord? That's a lie of the devil. I would have to resign right now. You think all my problems are resolved? Invite me back again, I'll give you my really strong message, my 10 major difficulties in Christian living. I was preaching in a big church in Chicago six months ago on my way to Mexico. They were all getting ready for one of these very hot missionary messages, dedication, commitment to the uttermost parts, whatever the cost. They spread the word around that I'm some kind of a pied piper and I come in and young people go off, never come back, which isn't true. Many do come back. And I was in this church and I just didn't have any burden to speak about missions or to speak about dedication. I just opened my heart and I shared seven or eight of the problems I was having after 22 years of living for Christ. Some of my failures, some of the struggle I have in the area of lust at times, with all these magazines literally jumping out the walls at you. Some of the problems I have with patients as I try to manage my little home with my lovely wife and three interesting energetic children. And some of the failures I've had in trying to help to lead OM and in trying to become more Christ-like. And sometimes I become so depressed when I think of the areas in which I'm not like Jesus Christ I just never want to even put my head out of the water again. But then I go back to God's Word, forgiveness, grace, love, the indwelling Spirit. And I remember those words of Tozer again and again that have ministered to me. God knows all about us and loves us still. It's not a matter of waiting until you're some perfect little super-sanctified Christian before you can be used of God. We have an extraordinary God that uses ordinary people and He wants to use you more than you've ever dreamed. He has a plan for your life. He has some purposes for your life that perhaps you haven't even touched on yet. Maybe it will include the regions beyond. Sri Lanka. Many of the parts of India, if not all of India, have to be considered the regions beyond. Think for a minute about Uttar Pradesh. When I say Uttar Pradesh, how many know what I'm talking about? Uttar Pradesh. Does it ring a bell? Any bell? Uttar Pradesh. U-P. Yeah. I know Hindi very well. But most of you don't know. But Uttar Pradesh is a state in India. And it is a state of a hundred million people, double the population of the British Isles. How can it be? We don't even know what it is, where it is, what does the name mean? Here is an area of the world forgotten, neglected, as far as the preaching of the Gospel. There are some beautiful Christians there. Our work in India is 75% Indian. In fact, we have Indians now leading other parts of our work in other parts of the world. But most of the Indian Christians can be found within three or four states. Even great works like Bhakt Singh, it's limited to just three or four states in any size. He has no assembly in Rajasthan. 30 million people. Nothing in Punjab. Almost nothing in U.P. Uttar Pradesh. Next to Uttar Pradesh is Bihar. Bihar is not as big as Uttar Pradesh. It has only 70 million. We are talking about tens of millions of people who have never had as much of the Gospel as you have on that one poster, where it says, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. We had a man push through the crowd in Bihar. He heard the name of Jesus Christ, as we do a lot of open-air preaching. And he heard the name of Jesus, and he said, I want some. And he pushed his way through the crowd. He thought that Jesus Christ was a new soap, and he wanted to get some, if there was any less. Yes, they know about Coca-Cola. They know that America put a man on the moon. They don't know that God put His Son on the earth. I believe this demands serious thinking. If the Gospel is good at all, if it is good for people in Bristol, if it is good for you, and I believe you know it's good because Christ has changed your life. And if He hasn't, I hope you'll do something about it tonight. But if the Gospel is good at all, it is good for all. Maybe you've heard that many times, but are you acting on the basis of it? The regions beyond, so many other countries that you can pray over as you go through these cards. Somalia, with only a few hundred national believers. Senegal, with only 200 believers. Saudi Arabia, with no believers. The Persian Gulf states, many different countries, very few believers. Niger, with 200 believers. Mongolia, with no known believers. Mauritania, no known believers. Mali, one believer out of every 250,000 people. Libya, with just about two or three believers. And on we could go. It seems impossible. I believe this is a priority. I believe this is why God has brought me here tonight to ask you to begin to consider the commands of Jesus. You don't have to worry about my words. But the commands of Jesus concerning the regions beyond, concerning the uttermost parts of the earth. For it was 2,000 years ago that he gave us this promise and he gave us this word. Sure, for many modern Christians, it is an unpleasant aspect of the Christian faith. There is an increasing amount of universalism being taught today. Even among evangelicals. Well, all these people will eventually be saved anyway. Do you mean that Jesus Christ, God's Son, gave his life on a cross when there was some other way that men and women could be saved? If there was another way, God would have found it without having his Son butchered and slaughtered and beaten. And he suffered more before he got on the cross than when he was there. That is my view. They beat him and they smote him until his face was blood and red and they put that crown on his head. He was suffering in agony the whole time. The nails, that was just the final touch. You believe all this that we remember each week in our communion service took place when really there was some other way God could have done it? He's a great God of love. Just wave the magic wand of heaven and all men could be saved. Hitler and Mussolini and the Apostle Paul and all the rest, all in one big happy family. No, sure we'd like to believe that. I'm not one of these persons that finds Christianity exactly intellectually easy having studied under agnostics and communists in Mexico University and other places. But I am convinced that we are on shaky ground, very shaky ground biblically if we get away from that truth that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Eternity, of course, belongs to God and there are many things I do not understand and do not believe I should probe into but the clear commands of scripture are there. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. There is no other salvation. And though intellectually we may not feel this is very sophisticated, God has a different way of measuring. And if you and I believe that men were lost, we'd never be the same again. Many, many, many times I have wanted to quit. Do you ever get tempted to quit the Christian life? Do you ever get tempted to throw the whole thing in? It all seems like a bad dream to some of us who have intellectual questions from time to time. Maybe some of you never have that problem. Your faith is very simple. It may be very simple or it may be untested. You go out and stand in the streets of a Muslim country and preach the gospel for seven years and you might find some new intellectual problems coming into your mind. But I believe the Word of God is true. Men are lost and I believe the hour has come to mobilize. I know that when I speak automatically some people will be turned off. They'll be switched off. Some by the American accent. Some by the... my voice is too loud. Some by the strength of my conviction and the feeling that this is too much. This is too much for them to handle. I want to tell you it's too much for me to handle. But God can handle it. And if somehow this challenge and this burden somehow switches you off I can only pray let God switch you on. Go to God's Word. Go to the book of Acts. Go to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Take some of these books like this one. Give up your small ambitions. This is a scholastic and intellectual approach to these great problems. We can't fit all of this in to a one hour message. But as you read, as you search the Scriptures just as Malcolm had seen this so you will see it that missions is the priority task of the church. And I would say there's not one evangelical church in 20 in Britain today that has the vision that God has given some of the leaders here. Not one in 20. And I've been preaching in this country that I've adapted as my homeland for 17 or 16 years. Lost the vision of missions. We're caught up with other things. We want new church buildings. We want this. We want that. We've lost the vision of the regions beyond. We've forgotten what great men like O.J. Smith have said to us. We feel it's more important to ecumenicalize and fossilize and have some kind of church union which is a grotesque monster right from the pit of hell. Then obey the great commission of Jesus Christ and evangelize the world. Oh may God give us men of vision out of this meeting tonight. Women of vision. Men of action. Women of action. C.S. Lewis said we have the tendency to think but not to act. We have the tendency to feel but not to act. Maybe even tonight there are some who are thinking and some who are feeling. What about the action? For many it costs too much. A great man of God said we're unable to transmit ideas and emotion into action because the sacrifice that it will take costs too much. And I believe, I believe that's the greatest mistake you can make in your Christian life. It's the mistake of the rich young ruler. You hear the call of God, the command of God, the will of God because he loves us and he woos us to himself and yet we begin to count the cost and we turn away having loved this present world. I would ask of you in the name of the Lord Jesus to consider the claims of Scripture. Not allow any further token commitment to God or to God's work but make it a total commitment. Not everyone is going to go. I believe many, many more could go short term. I really believe that. Professional people. We've had an announcement tonight for secretaries. In our work we need 30 secretaries right now or we have to postpone the second ship at least two more years. We can more easily get people to work on the ship than we can get secretaries in our office in Manchester or Bromley or Bombay or Brussels. We need mechanics. We got vehicles broken down. Hard to get them fixed. No mechanics who want to give their time and their tools to God. We need bookkeepers. People are willing to add up for Jesus. A lot of people are willing to add up to buy their color television. We need people who are willing to add up for Jesus to print another million tracks and to handle the gifts. For a movement like OM most of them come in between one pound and ten pounds. And you think a movement of this size doesn't need an army of bookkeepers to keep that kind of thing going. All kinds of people are needed. And I believe God wants to be very specific with some tonight. The evangelicals specialize in being vague. In other things we're very definite. In the area of food we're very definite. We don't want a plague of vague shadows when we go to breakfast or we have tea or supper. We're very specific when it comes to food. We're very specific when it comes to an automobile and petrol. You're not going to put water in the tank or anything you feel led to give. You want petrol the right kind. In so many areas we're very specific. When it comes to our girlfriend we get rather specific. But when it comes to some of the claims of Jesus Christ about evangelism, about prayer, about dying to self, about taking up the cross, about enduring hardship, we become incredibly vague. It's all some kind of a cloud floating up here that we sort of sing about on Sunday. And so we go in and out of our churches singing onward Christian soldiers and we're no more marching on to war than a group of turtles, tortoises on retreat. May God have mercy on us. May we repent. May we repent and come back to the cross and say to Jesus, I'll go. If it's Bristol, if it's Bombay, if it's England or if it's Africa, I'll go where you want me to go. I'll do what you want me to do. Let us pray. Lord Jesus, You know all about us. You know how we can defend ourselves and how we can give our excuses. And Lord, we just cry out together. Have mercy on us that we may obey You, that we may do Your will. We pray, Oh God, hide the speaker, hide my old loud voice behind the cross and may we see Jesus tonight and obey Him in prayer, in witness, in going, in giving, in being, in doing. Deliver us from the game of words that we may be men and women of action. We may know the reality of living very close to You. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.