In this sermon, the speaker shares two stories from their ministry experiences. The first story is about two women who found it difficult to receive encouragement because the speaker reminded them of Adolf Hitler. The second story is about an older man who was impatient during a long sermon and started waving his watch. The speaker used this moment to emphasize the importance of giving for world missions. The sermon also touches on topics such as the ministry of encouragement, the need for prayer and giving, the example of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13, and the importance of developing biblical wisdom and faith. The speaker also shares their personal struggles with discouragement and the need to rely on God's grace and the Word of God. The sermon concludes with a call to make a commitment to live in the highway of grace, develop biblical relationships, and have a biblical theology of suffering.

Many times we read from the Psalms, but we don't read from the Proverbs. As a young Christian I was selling books door to door. This one lady bought a lot of books for me. I was really happy. A lot of money, a lot of books. I was preparing to go to Mexico. She was a woman of wisdom. She could discern that I was big on zeal and weak on wisdom. So she invited me in. Have a seat. And she gave me something to eat. And this woman asked, do you study the Proverbs regularly? At 18 years of age I don't know if I got to the Proverbs yet. She said there's a Proverb a day, one for every day in the month. 31 Proverbs. Young man, read a Proverb every day. She said something I've never forgotten. A Proverb a day will keep the devil away. I've been reading the Proverbs almost every day for 40 some years. Three chapters alone. Three and a half chapters alone just about sex. How many of you men have read the three chapters on sex in the book of Proverbs? Raise your hand. That's pretty good. How many women have read the three chapters? Because women are involved. That's right. Because in those days these chapters were especially about prostitutes. But in some of our societies today there is so much sexual freedom people don't need prostitutes. It's not necessary anymore in some places. So I believe those chapters are still relevant even though the language may be different. What are some of the fiery darts stopping people from going to the mission field? We've talked about wisdom. Okay, let's get some wisdom. Let's think this through. We've touched on the fiery dart of immorality. These days for many young men it's pornography. Internet pornography. And as they take surveys of missionaries One society, twenty percent of all the missionaries on the field were having struggles with internet pornography because missionaries have to use e-mail. I don't have time to talk about this. I don't even want to talk about it. But if you're hooked into pornography in any of its forms you need to be set free by the power and the grace of God and you need to stay free by wisdom and the discipline of God. And you must understand the word of God. You must understand the grace of God. And beware of extremism in your own thinking. That you're going to get to some spiritual level where this is no longer ever going to be a problem. There may be a few people like that. They may have never had a big problem to start with. We need to understand. We are sexual beings. And we'll probably face struggles in the area of sexuality all of our pilgrimage with Jesus. The key is to get to see what the word of God says. Read some good Christian books on this subject. Have at least someone that you're accountable to you can pray with and talk openly and honestly with. Realize that even when you fail God just still loves you so very, very much. Now this is where I maybe had an advantage. I had strong love from both of my parents even though they were not Christians. They were in their pilgrimage. Once I was saved I got into some great books about God's love, God's acceptance of me. I seldom doubted God's love for me. We've counseled many, many people. They're not sure that God loves them. Is there anybody here tonight? You're not sure that God loves you? According to his word he loves you. He created you in his image. He loved you before you were saved. Now you are his child. His love is now covenant love. His love is now something just so beyond anything you can ever imagine. I love books about grace. Because I've seen legalism destroy so many people. Now I know that grace is risky. Even the great British theologian Dr. Lloyd-Jones said the message of grace is risky. And of course you can't have a strong message on grace without having some people abuse grace. That's why I've been talking a little bit about wisdom and about discipline. Because grace without wisdom and discipline can become disgrace. And I've tried to study the lives of hundreds of people. I've read through about a thousand books. And I've seen people destroy their lives and their churches and their families because they didn't understand forgiveness and the grace of God. And I've seen baby Christians in other cultures hurt because people were legalistic and therefore walked on people's culture instead of being sensitive to their culture and present the grace of God in a way they can receive it in their own culture. And if you've been raised in a very strict home, even some non-Christian homes are quite strict about certain things. Or if you were reared in a very strict legalistic 25 major rules kind of a church. You can be pretty sure that you have a legalistic streak. You can be pretty sure you have a legalistic side to yourself. Legalistic streak. And probably sometimes you're very hard on yourself. And sometimes you won't forgive yourself. You may know that God has forgiven you, but you have trouble forgiving yourself. And that sometimes leads to the inability to forgive other people. In God's work, we're all going to be hurt. We're in the battle. We're under pressure trying to reach the world with the gospel. And yet we're all so different. We will offend one another. We will under pressure. We may say something unkind or negative even about our best friend. And then somebody hears that and say, they go to our best friend. They'll say, oh, I thought so and so was a friend of yours. Well, yeah, he is. Oh, you should have heard what he was saying about you the other day. And pretty soon the friendship starts to break. What does it say in Proverbs? He who repeats a matter can separate the very best of friends. It's all here. I plead with you in the name of Jesus. Develop biblical wisdom. Hold up the shield of faith against the fiery dart of immorality. Another fiery dart that I've experienced a lot of in my life, what I call the fiery dart of discouragement. I faced discouragement all my life. I have these expectations and often I don't reach them. I have these dreams. They don't come to pass. My dream for Afghanistan. 44 year dream. Satan, through one of his little sub-trained demons, I'm sure has whispered in my ear, you are a total failure, Berwer, a first class failure. Just look at Afghanistan. 44 years, nothing. You got nothing. Sometimes I've been so discouraged. I had trouble believing that God was even there. And I surely wanted to quit operation mobilization. How did I get in this kind of a mess? But again somehow by God's grace, I sort of crawled back to the Word of God. And I've just told God the truth. Lord, I have very little faith. I don't know if my prayers are accomplishing anything. Plus I've got this problem and I've got this misunderstanding and I've made a mess with my wife again. Can you forgive me? Ladies, can you even imagine being married to me? Don't imagine. In the audience you could get a headache even thinking about it. I'm not a naturally good husband. Which means I was not a naturally good father. And my wife thought I was a dynamic man of God and agreed to marry me that one late that night when we were both very tired. Late one night she agreed to marry me. You see I had her in Ephesians as well. Ephesians 5. Not the whole chapter. Key verses. Submit to your husband as unto the Lord. She believed I was God's teacher. She just accepted that. She had a lot of money because her father was killed in the war. She gave me all the money before the marriage. If she had put that money in a big company like Walmart she'd be a millionairess today. She gave it to me instead. She's been broke ever since. We went to Mexico. And the marriage was wonderful for several weeks. Then she read the other verses. We've had 42 years of intensive discussion. Some of you are already married. After what I said a little while ago you may think oh maybe I have the wrong wife. Oh maybe I have the wrong husband. Let me just tell you real simple. It's too late. But here's the good news. You could marry, humanly speaking, the wrong person. And God can make it a great marriage. That's grace. Praise God for plan A. Get a totally radical, spiritual, dynamic Amy Carmichael wife. Amen. Plan A. But if somehow you end up with plan B and it's not really working out you're still learning somehow how to even kiss and you can't stand her food and she snores very loud at night. God is still alive. God can make that a great marriage. And one great biblical writer said that marriage is God's advanced training to prepare for heaven. Of course if you're single there's a special program for singles. And Bruce here has the best program for singles that I've ever heard of. Go live in the jungle for 40 years. Hallelujah. You'll hear about that tomorrow. Hold high the shield of faith wherewith we can stop the fiery darts of the evil one. Now I know a few of you are thinking this guy is speaking very long. After all this is Germany. This is a land of punctuality. I was not planning to speak this long. But before I walked in one of the leaders of this organization I will not point her out because she said something to me that hardly anybody ever says to me. She said please speak as long as you want. Forget your watch. Have you brought your calendar? One of my most famous German stories. This is the truth. 35 years ago 35 years ago I first came to Germany. I remember I was speaking in Heilbronn. And I was pouring out my heart I gave an invitation and some people responded two women walked up to me I'll never forget said we found this a real struggle. You reminded us of Adolf Hitler. Real encouragement. Talk about the ministry of encouragement. But the other story was in another meeting I was preaching for about an hour and a half and amazingly young people were listening it was mainly young people. But one older man was in the back and I think he wanted to go home and watch the news. He started waving his watch at me I was preaching about world missions the need to go the need to pray the need to give then I saw this watch I stopped the meeting bless the Lord look at this man God's tricking him he's donating his watch for world missions in Acts 13 five men were praying it included Paul and Barnabas and the Holy Spirit spoke and said separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work that I have called for them please if you can read my book I'd like to give it free but I don't have enough copies so we're selling it I prefer to give it free and if you're broke and you can't buy one send me an email and I'll send you one free through the post but I share this Acts 13 vision in this book I want you to grab this I want you to have an Acts 13 prayer meeting back in your church let the Holy Spirit have his way then I believe we'll have many more of you then we'll stand up and make that commitment to go even to the ends of the earth when you make this decision many of you have already made it there's a price to pay Luke 14 count the cost there are languages to learn there are cultures to understand you cannot take this lightly if a person's going to become a doctor serious, serious preparation if a person's going to become a Lufthansa pilot serious training and preparation it's not a matter of going to a few meetings pilot, I'll just be here in a simulator and I'll read a few books and then I'll go fly I prefer not to fly with those pilots I like people who really are trained who really are serious we know a huge obstacle is finance far easier to find the people willing to go than it is to find the finance to send them and to keep them there years later when they've got three kids who all need education and the financial factor is considered the second or third major discouragement that stops people going into missionary work but there are books about this there are tapes about this there's a lot in the word of God about money and what about faith believing God to supply finance as that famous German George Muller did for so many decades is one of the great examples of God's way of faith so let's make a commitment tonight to become more serious about the commitment we've already made make sure we are free from legalism and living in the highway of grace to make sure we know what to do when we sin so that we can grow stronger and stronger in the Lord to be his men and to be his women whatever the cost let's develop biblical relationships but beware of premature romance let's keep singing the psalm but let's get into the proverbs and then what about Job developing a really biblical theology of suffering and what it's really about on planet earth because it's another area where many people have been so discouraged because they thought the Lord was going to do this and the Lord was going to do that and when it didn't happen they questioned God does God really love me soon they were away from the Lord let us pray together let's just take a moment to pray I've just tried to be very honest if I've offended anyone with my method of speaking you can forgive me the work of the Holy Spirit is for you but this treasure is in earthen vessels none of us can share from our heart without some of our own personal mud getting in the way don't let George Verver mud keep you from the reality of the Holy Spirit in your heart I believe with all my heart some of you want to make a re-commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight you're not sure about geography you're not sure whether it's Germany or some other country but you want to be a radical disciple of Jesus you want to hold high the shield of faith to stop the fiery darts that are coming at you you want to be God's man you want to be God's woman you want to go where He wants you to go you want to be filled afresh with His Holy Spirit you want to hear the voice of the Spirit as Paul and those praying men did in Acts 13 and if you'll make that kind of step of faith if you want to be a radical, Spirit-filled disciple of Jesus whether it's in Germany or some other part of the world whether it's a goer or a sender or both I'm going to ask that you just stand up as an outward expression of an inward transaction and I want to just pray for you it's a step of faith it's saying yes to the Word of God this message of biblical discipleship and balance God's Holy Word God's promises God's fill you afresh right now anyone else? stand up I can pray for you God bless you Father, you have prepared us for this meeting tonight many of us are here because we're already so hungry to do your will in terms of missions we've seen some of the obstacles we've realized some of the complexities and we've seen ourselves and so we just come to you we confess our sin we confess our legalism we confess our judgmentalism we confess our false guilt and we say to you, O God, we love you we thank you that you've saved us and that you live within us we commit ourselves to your Word and to the way of wisdom we commit ourselves to the balance of grace and discipline and we will not give up we will keep on giving on in the power of forgiveness and your Holy Spirit for we pray in Jesus' name Amen