In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the past year and how it challenged the basic principles of Operation Mobilization. He emphasizes the importance of holding fast to the principles given by God while also being open to change. The speaker then delves into the teachings of James 1, highlighting the need to be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. He urges the listeners to put away filthiness and wickedness and receive the engrafted word of God with meekness. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of not just hearing the word, but being doers of the word, and warns against forgetting the teachings and not applying them in one's life.

I think we'll just make a start. I'm supposed to be giving a little welcome message, so I'll say welcome. I was just sharing with Nepali Christian leaders this morning. I had the opportunity to give them a little history of why I'm in Kathmandu. It always saves a lot of talk. People always want to know why I'm in exile here in Kathmandu. If you're as gifted as some other OM leaders, you probably have it muddled in your own mind, but I'm not going to repeat it. You know, I get attacked with discouragement sometimes when I think of sharing more messages with you, because it does seem so often in OM we're taking so much in, and only seemingly a percentage of it is ever getting down into our feet. I guess I know that from personal experience. I'm working on a message. It'll take me a couple of years to get it, and I think I'm going to put it into a book if somebody doesn't rob my title. It's called The Confessions of the Spiritual Blood, because compared to most Christians, I've had more spiritual food than one could ever even measure. Think of all these Nepali believers all over the nation, just the little tiny spiritual diet they get, and what we expect them to do in church life on the diet that they get in comparison to what you get in terms of what you give and what you really produce. Now we have Peter Maiden, the Bible expositor, feeding you more each morning. What does it really do to our lives? Are we really changing? Are we really growing? It's a great struggle for me. As you know, one of my texts, which I'd like to read again this morning, a way of remembrance, is in the book of James. Book of James, chapter 1. I keep a record of all the messages I give in Kathmandu and in Butwal. This is our fourth consecutive year. We've been here before. We had other meetings in other places. But if you remember, we were in Butwal together. I think it's the fourth consecutive year that Peter Maiden came to Butwal. This is our third year here in Kathmandu. I've kept a notebook of all those messages so I don't repeat. Some emphases might get repeated, but I hope the messages won't be repeated. I even thought of just giving a little exam of what I taught the last other years just to see how much actually went in. I know it is possible for things to go in and become a part of your life and not be able to put it on an examination paper. That's another little interesting, somewhat encouraging aspect of this. James 1. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger or wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, put away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror, for beholdeth himself, he sees himself and goes his way and immediately forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth in it, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. I'm not going to speak about that, but would like to use it just as a foundation for our thoughts. Let's just pray. Father, we thank you for bringing us together here in this unique place. We thank you that we have experienced so much blessing and breakthrough here in the past. We don't take that lightly. We believe that, again, in your purposes, you want to accomplish something here in Kathmandu. As we meet personally and as we share in the vision and the burden that you have given to us. We have so much to be thankful for. We see areas where we ourselves have disobeyed. We do at times seem to have so much ministry, tapes, teaching, books, articles, magazines, and somehow a lot of it we don't seem to always get into practice. Lord, help us in this area, though that perhaps is a feeble way of expressing it. We do want to grow in grace and a knowledge of you. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, a lot of things have happened since we were here one year ago. And I, in many ways, believe that 1984 was an epic year for Operation Mobilization. A year in which we were greatly challenged about some of our most basic principles. One or two major leaders surprised us by writing letters that they thought we should maybe go into fundraising, you remember? And a lot of other basic things were challenged. And somehow the Lord kept us together and enabled us to hold fast. The Bible speaks about holding fast to things which have been given unto us. I think it's a great thing that in our fellowship that we can continue to change any movement that does not continue to change will dry up in its own pride. We have failed many times, so we need to change. But in the process of change, we have to make sure that we don't throw away the basics, basic principles God has given to us. I personally always get amused by people who think that the real, original vision is not the same as it was years ago. Let me just inform you, as I have in the past, that O.N. India, whether you go back 21 years ago or 19 years ago, always had a lot of messes. And a lot of sin. It hasn't changed in the sense that back then we really were the disciples shaking India for Christ. And today we're now all sitting on committees or fossilizing in the Bombay office, except when fires begin to attack us. You know, I think sometimes we don't change maybe as much as we think. And in the Christian warfare, some of the same problems we had 21 years ago we have today. People are people. The problems will often be the same. Overall, as a spiritual force, a spiritual movement, there's no question in my mind that O.N. is stronger today than it was 21 years ago or 10 years ago. The reason for this is that we have an army, a longer term, like-minded, committed people who have stood the tests, many tests, their own unity, false doctrines, total answerism, all kinds of different tests that have come upon us. And somehow we've kept the unity in the bond of peace, as one scripture says. And we have in the work today a tremendous foundation that we can build upon. And we want to build. We want 1985-86 to be a year of growth. There are many kinds of growth in O.N. and in the work of God. The first kind of growth is not numerical growth. Someone I read some time ago said that it was more of a product of just sociological change than it was necessarily some great spiritual increase. This is what he said. Numerical growth is part of a sociological process, not a biblical mandate. I don't even know if I agree with that. But I wrote it down as just something to get me thinking. Because, especially in the West, we're very infatuated with numbers. How many were in the Sunday morning meeting? How many are in the Sunday evening meeting? We never talk about the prayer meeting. How many were there? Except in a few places. But we want to grow. Quality is a form of growth. If we increase the quality of the work, there's more love, more fruit. It's sort of a growth. If we see a lot of fruit on the tree, we think, Wow, this is good. This is growth. The tree is growing. It's bringing forth fruit. Galatians 5. Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance, or self-control. Perhaps that's the greatest growth we need. In the work, more fruit of the Holy Spirit. A seminary may not necessarily be increasing in numbers, but it's growing in its influence because it's graduating people who are going into vital ministries. And so OM, as part long-term evangelistic thrust, part short-term training program, a lot of our victories will come for the people we graduate, people we train and send out into vital ministries. This is why we're trying to maintain our link with XO Emeritus. This is why some of our best men will graduate. The latest is Bert Kempis. Sort of shocked us a bit out of our shoes when he announced to us recently that he felt he should take on a position at the Prairie Bible Institute where he's spending his sabbatical study year. We've had quite a lot of discussion. Bert, of course, is completely linked with OM. There is no division or particular problem, but he feels that with the size of his family, pressures of life, that he shouldn't continue as coordinator of OM Canada. We, by the way, do not have his replacement, so that's something for you to pray about. Bert may remain another year or so, helping part-time coordinating Western Canada where he's now living. Canada, by the way, is a very large place. But I think that God is fulfilling the burden I've had shared with you many times, that each year we should see some of our best men being called out into other ministries. There's no way we can practice what we are preaching in OM unless that happens. And when it happens, of course, it's always sometimes a bit of a struggle. Neville Goodyear, the director of the exhibition, feels called into a longer-term work in literature in Italy. After going down there, he came back and tried to persuade us to start this work within OM. He got about as far as a baseball player on Red Square. And it looks like a new ministry will be born in Italy with Neville... Is it Goodyear, is it? Neville Goodyear in D. And there are many, many other things along that line that I would love to share with you. Maybe we'll get to some of them throughout the week. So I am greatly encouraged that God has given us this foundation to build upon. Three or four hundred leaders or people in responsible positions across the world, yet good numbers, moving on into other fellowships and other organizations. Linked with this is the increasing credibility that God has given us with other missions and other agencies. Very encouraging. Because that was one of our goals from the earliest days, that we would not be a renegade, exclusive type of group condemning other believers. I had the joy of visiting the former dean, my dean, when I was a student at Moody. He's 80-plus years of age. He remembers more about early days of OM at Moody than I think I do. And he's well on the 80 mark. But from those earliest days, God gave us this burden to build relationships. Pastors, church leaders, missionary leaders. It means eating humble pie. If you don't know how to eat humble pie, you're probably disqualified as a leader. You probably just haven't discovered it yet. Apologizing, basically saying the same thing. And going the extra mile to keep those relationships. The Lord led me some months ago to just phone Lauren Cunningham, the director of Youth with a Mission in Hawaii, and talk with him on the phone. Because we were having a united effort, OM Youth for Christ, YWAM, and Buzz Magazine, in these Keith Green Memorial Concerts in Britain. And so I phoned him and asked him to pray and let him know what was going on. He, of course, knew something about it. So I believe as we launch into this year, we're already in the year, we've got a solid foundation. And it's very, very encouraging. Increase of unity and like-mindedness. That doesn't mean everybody is happy about everything. I don't think it's possible to be an OM and be happy about everything. I don't think we even know ourselves well enough to know how to be happy about everything. If you're happy about everything in your life, you are really an unusual character. But I think that we sense the ship is going in the right direction. You know, Dulas is a very slow ship. It goes 10, 12, 13 knots. So it's actually coming to India. It's just going to take about two years. It's ready to get here. It won't come to Nepal. Forgive the, you know, I know that's almost a statement of unbelief these days, the way some people are teaching. Wise is a man who knows the limits of his own faith. But when Captain Isaacson takes the ship out of port in Southampton, the last British port, and heads toward Africa and Asia, we don't expect him to arrive next morning. Or even next week. And I think this is also true about our meetings here in Kathmandu. When we leave here with fresh vision and fresh burden and recommitment of our hearts, we don't expect to arrive, you know, at the places we're aiming at spiritually, you know, next week. But I hope that with the Dulas, you can at least know that you're going in the right direction. OM has not arrived. We have many areas of need. We have many things that still need to be sorted out, as we work on our famous policy manual and try to get unity. I'm one of the most pluralistic, wide range of people that have ever come together in the history of foreign missions to try to work on a like-minded basis. Some might think the simple thing is just let each country do whatever it wants, just cut the whole thing off. A number of groups have operated that way. But we in OM don't feel that is the way ahead. We feel that the way ahead is a high degree of like-mindedness and unity about basic biblical principles. You know, if you lose your basics, you end up recruiting people into something that is nothing more than a Christian service experience. It's just sort of something you use because you want to get on and, quote, serve the Lord. There's no real sense of oneness of purpose. There's no real foundation of biblical principles. The fact that most of us have read similar books, we all to varying degree believe the message of Calvary Road. It doesn't mean every single OMer, but in general, we believe the message of that little book. We tend in general to believe that true discipleship by William MacDonald is a relatively correct challenge about what discipleship is. Certain books in OM bring other books into balance. We believe that what's written in the discipleship manual is something that we all want to see happen to varying degrees. And the leadership manual. And the endless memos. I don't know if many movements in history have launched out so much communication, so many memos on such a wide range of subjects. I think many of these memos are in considerable demand by other groups. What happened to the prayer meeting has gone into endless languages, magazines all over the world. Well, what good is it to produce these things? There's no group that's an example that these things can work. And you must understand that the powerful thing about OM is not that you have a loud-mouthed international leader, sometimes called founder, which I don't really like. In any movement, sometimes too much attention is paid to the leader. The one thing that would cause me not to come to Kathmandu, certainly not to go to Butwal, is if it brings excess attention to me. On the other hand, just my stepping out of the picture really wouldn't resolve that problem, because we do tend to have a desire for some kind of spiritual leadership. We have been influenced by the writings of Hudson Taylor, by the writings of Dr. Schaeffer, by the writings in the example of Bakht Singh. There's no way we can sort of separate ourselves from influential Christian leaders. And it's hard to keep it all in balance. But I can tell you the thing that makes a greater impact in OM is the Holy Spirit using ordinary people, like perhaps you feel you are. Some of you perhaps haven't got the faith to believe that you're going to die as a great Christian hero, and publishers will be fighting over your biography, and thousands will be coming to your funeral. Well, if you do dream about those things, well, the Lord help you. But I think the thing that really speaks to people through the ministry of OM is an army of ordinary people who are being used of God, who want to be better disciples, who want to go on for Jesus, who want to reach the world for Christ, who are demonstrating the revolution of love to some degree and making an impact. As you probably know now, quite a few outsiders speak too highly of our work. A man came to India recently, quite a well-known Christian leader, and when he came back to the West, he was saying things about OM. He must have had just a superficial view. He also met some ex-OMers. He was amazed that we had trained up such gallium dynamic. And a couple of the ones he mentioned, I thought, were actually some of the ones that we weren't too proud of in terms of what they were doing. But it is a problem at times when people speak too highly of us. And I think most of us within OM have a fairly down-to-earth view of ourselves. If anything, we get a little too introspective, seeing our problems and seeing our failures. That's always something that has to be kept in balance. And I believe here in India also God has done a real work. One of the Christian leaders this morning asked me, he more or less asked whether there was anything left in India now that the new law had come in, asking whether foreigners could not stay longer term, people like Mike Wee. He's a man who just had a very superficial understanding of what OM was. And he was quite amazed to discover that the Lord had led us 20 years ago to build the work on Indians, and that actually that law that took place has not changed OM to any great degree. Of course, it has been a hindrance. We've had many hindrances. We're used to hindrances. So this is one more hindrance. But in fact the work is going on as usual. And he was really quite amazed. I think God has put a further stamp of approval, it's not the best way to express it, on the fact that in His sovereignty I was removed from India, in His sovereignty most foreigners did not come back, even when we asked them to, and that the work has been built on you men. Most of you in this room have been quite a long time in the work. We thank God for that. Another miracle, as you know, that we're rejoicing over is the provision of finance. I think most of you realize that operation mobilization is not well known in the United States where there is seemingly a lot of money for Christian work. Let me just say that certain groups have an enormous ability to get that money, and other groups can try for ten years and go bankrupt. So do not misunderstand the USA and all the so-called money that is there. Money, in any case, as we've looked at this week, is the root of many evils. I think one of the things the Lord showed us this year, that the deeper roots of OM are in Europe. There are Canadian roots, Mexican roots, and certainly quite a deep American root. Don't deny that. And there are deep Indian roots, especially as we travel out here. And now there are South American roots. You know, there are many roots. But as far as the foundation of OM, where it sort of exploded and spread out, it was in Europe. And this will have many practical implications that sometimes I know people don't always understand. The final thoughts that I had just to share with you in this little opening time are linked with those words in Thessalonians, where it says in verse 12, And we beseech you, brethren, to know them who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake, and be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, support the weak, and be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore. I love that. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the spirit. How easy it is to do that. Despise not prophesying. Prove all things. Hold fast to that which is good and abstain from all appearance of evil. Wow, what a great passage. I think the burden I had the most for this first opportunity to share with you is something that I haven't quite done before in this same way. But it's just deep conviction that in Alfie and Ray and Chaco and Diva and Joseph, that God has given us the men who are to lead this work in India. If you think for a minute that I am leading this work in India, I feel sorry for you because you just do not understand what is happening and you must greatly lack spiritual discernment. I am involved in so many things, mainly people, that there is no way that I can lead this work in India. I don't even know a lot of things that are going on. And without going into India and living among you and having much more fellowship than I can have here, I cannot lead this work in India. And I haven't been leading it for many years. Now, I can be a help. I can help you if I see you going completely astray into false doctrine on one side or departing from the principles of the work. I can muster up my forces. I work by persuasion. I have no dictatorial power. But I can persuade. I hope spirit-controlled gifts of persuasion. I'll try to persuade Peter and then I'll try to persuade others and then we will move. If we see you doing something really off, we will move and try to persuade you that this is not right. You decide you're going to build a gospel skyscraper in New Delhi, 100 floors, each floor with a different ministry, with a giant cross on the top. We are going to move. That doesn't mean that we are running the work in India. It means that we are part of this work of God and if we see you going into error or into something wrong, we are part, we're part of the body. We can do everything we can to try to persuade you not to build that gospel towers of Babel. Now I have never sensed to any great degree that you men out here do not respect me or accept me as your international leaders. You know, Peter and I more or less work together. We are part of an area leadership team and even in the area leadership, because we had to divide OM into areas, we in the area leadership, people like Dale Rota, I wish you could know this brother better, just how much of a coach, how he works so much on the basis of persuasion and love and unity, how sensitive he is about other people's feelings and needs and yet how firm, as we saw in 1984, Dale Rota can be when he feels convinced about something. But even those of us in this area leadership, we feel very much we are like coaches. Did you ever play any sports? You have a coach. We very much feel God has called us to be servants. Of course, most of us in that position of leadership, we do have a desire to see things done right. So we are going to be constantly exhorting and preaching. I do the same thing when I'm preaching with other groups. I just spoke to Nepali Christian leaders. I speak the same way. I burden them. They do things right. This morning we talked about integrity and dealing with money. We talked about Luke 14, counting the cost, before you go ahead with this project and that project. We talked about building on the basis of relationships, which takes time. And I gave them the real story of the ship and the amount of time and effort and relationships that took place before there was ever any ship whatsoever. So I've sensed, of course, here in India, a loyalty. I've sensed a linking with you. But I think it just needs to be reaffirmed that we, those of us on an international level, feel that this group of men are God's leaders for this work here in India. I may not come back here next year. That's not the purpose of this talk. I'm not needed to come back here. We don't have to come to Kathmandu. The Lord opens the door. It seems to be a good thing. God has given me a ministry of teaching and exhortation. I'm linked with you. I love this part of the world. If I don't come to Kathmandu, I'll probably just go over to Pakistan or Malaysia or Bangladesh. But let's make it clear that God has put his hand on these five men. And I think one of the greatest struggles all of us will have in the work of God is whether we really can give our loyalty and whether we really believe in those men who are the leaders over us. It's always a major thing in the work of God. It's true in churches. I'm involved in local churches almost as much sometimes as OM. What's the greatest task that a pastor has? It seems to be just winning the loyalty of his people. Many pastors have at least one man in the congregation who has as his committed goal. I mentioned this this morning. They all laugh at pastors because they know. Their committed goal is to get rid of the pastor. They've just worked on it. Seen it happen? See, it's much more difficult. A local church can be much more difficult than OM because OM is a training movement. People come, people go. We're not a church. And basically, we've got a terrifical momentum. And people generally don't come on OM unless they seriously want to do what we're talking about. Evangelism, street work, preaching, nights of prayer, all this kind of thing, generally speaking. God has given us a tremendous group of people around the world. These people aren't getting their salaries from OM. Not that there'd be anything wrong with that. But oftentimes if people are seeing their own finance come in, as many OMers, there's even higher motivation. I'm not saying that people who get salaries have no motivation or that they're wrong. No. Great works of God operate on a salary basis. But when it is volunteers, and they're trusting God for their own money, and it means they can leave, they can leave, and they do. And when they leave, they take their money with them. And they join another group, or they start their own organization. About over a hundred different groups are born, directly or indirectly, out of OM. Some of them very small. But this means that generally the people in OM are there because they really want to be there. To me that's great. And you know, if you are in OM, but don't really want to be there, if you're there for some other motive, or you're there because there's nothing else to do, or you're there because of this or that, well, you know, I'm not going to hit you on the head. God may. But how much better in a Christian work when everybody's there because this is what they want? You know, sometimes in India, people have got in a certain property with a certain mission. The whole thing is caved in and come apart. They wouldn't move out of the property. Have you ever come across any of that? It's called vested interests. That was their house. And there were other vested interests. And so they stayed long after their motivation was gone, long after the zeal for what they originally started was gone. They stayed because that's the way life is. Moving is a problem. Vested interests. So I would just commend to you again. You may not think it's necessary, but I think it is. I would commend to you again these five men. They work very closely with others. And we still within India highly esteem and want to highly esteem every longer term person in the world. We want to move on the basis of unity. We don't have to have you men up here. You know, we can run this thing with an iron hand. George Berwyn is faithful. Five, you don't like it? No problem. Bye-bye. Lots of groups operate that way. Lots of groups operate. Churches operate that way. I was in a big church in Akron. If any assistant pastor disagrees with the philosophy of a senior pastor, they have a very easy answer. The door. Out he goes. OM has gone to the extreme to keep peace and to work on the basis of unity so that not only do we invite all of you up here to get involved in major decision making, though we hope somehow in the midst of it all God will give his mind and that basically we're here to seek God's mind and God's will and then somehow come into unity in a way like saying amen. To me, Christians coming into unity is like saying amen at the end of the prayer. Yes, we sense this is God's will. We've had terrific confusion in Europe because people got talking too much about how decisions are made. It let us down a dead end street. People got hurt. They got confused. They got even fighting over who is making the final... Is it the board? Is it Burwer? Is it the new recruits? Is it the old man's club? Is it the Baldies or the Beardies? Who is making the decisions? As if whoever was making the decisions, we must then bow down to that group. And we had people come in from the outside world, from different corporations, and OM blew their circuits. They went around trying to figure out who is making the decisions. It must be Burwer. He's got the biggest mouth. Maybe others thought it's Roton. He's got the biggest brain. They finally got tired and they realized that OM has worked on the basis of seeking the will of God. Different ideas have come from different places. Sometimes new recruits. Sometimes quite a few ideas have come through. We have to acknowledge that. But we moved on the basis of unity. That takes time. You see, some have been upset because they felt OM was going too slow. But it's worth slowing down to get unity. It's worth slowing down to get like-mindedness. It's worth slowing down to get the will of God. There's not enough time given to prayer and waiting upon God. Many of you spend more time reading than you do in prayer. And I don't think that should be. I think there should be more time in prayer. I don't mean reading. If your particular work, like mine, demands reading, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about reading Christian books and Christian magazines. And I think that we need more waiting upon God and getting His mind. And if you study the book of Acts, that is clearly what you will see there. And I hope that somehow, by God's grace, that He will continue to give His will and that we will accept it, realizing that generally in the work of God, not exclusively, but generally, the Lord works through anointed leadership. Otherwise, we have to have twice as much manpower and we have to start a full-time democracy with all the bureaucracy and all the departments and all the voting procedures. We're not O.M.'s parliament up here in Kathmandu. There are brothers down there that are just as important as those of us who are here. But we're here as a representative body seeking God, crying out for His will, talking about things, debating things, even sometimes arguing the Lord doesn't eliminate the human factor. They had to go to Jerusalem and have quite a big ding-dong over whether Paul could even be accepted. And you'll find plenty of other discussions going on in the New Testament. We'll never eliminate the human factor. It's not a matter of coming here, having four hours of prayer, and then there's a revelation written on the wall over there. God's strategy for the next two years. Some people operate that. More confusion has come in the last few years by all kinds of superpower, will of God finding, you know, waiting for somebody to get the exact prophecy. Zoom. Everybody's dead. That's it. And if you resist it, wow, you're speaking against God. We don't have that type of guidance system. You know, maybe we got the wrong telephone. Ours just is a little more tied to the human factor. We have to discuss. We don't always agree. We have to take steps of faith. Sometimes you do, in God's Word, you work on a trial and error basis. Does finding God's will eliminate trial and error? No. Because as long as you and I are involved, there will be trial and error. Ray, and Alfie, and Diva, and Joseph, and Chaco, and you will make mistakes. And of course, when a person makes a mistake, the higher his position of leadership, which is supposed to be low, the more people will talk. And this is why we're having more leaders with nervous breakdowns. We're having more leaders who want to quit. And I tell you, one of the reasons I'm sharing this, because I know in my heart that all five of these men are willing to leave OM. And some of them may leave. And if they are going to go ahead with this impossible task we have in India, so many people, so many problems, such a pluralistic society, so many voices, and plenty of criticism against OM today. It only takes one bitter OMer to create a holocaust of gossip, and criticism, and lies, and innuendos. And I picked some of it up even back in England. But if there's anything that I want to do in your midst during these four or five days, and I don't think it will take long, it is to somehow get your wholehearted support that God has his hand on these five men. And that you will give them the same esteem that you would give me if I had stayed on here all these years. Now, of course, maybe after all these years you wouldn't give me any esteem. That's another problem. But, you know, I am very, very microscopic with the leaders that I work with. I know these men's lives. And if there's any accusation against these five men, we treat that with absolute seriousness. The Bible speaks clearly about bringing accusation against a man of God. It should be in the presence of witnesses. And if there's accusations against the moral lives of these men, corruption in the area of money, family life, you know, they want you, they want you to share that with them, or if you feel it's too complex, you can either talk to Peter and myself. We, in turn, of course, are subject to others who are in subject to others. So I am excited about what God is doing here. I don't believe that the devil won a victory the day I was pushed out of India. I don't believe the devil won a victory the day that some of our other brothers had to leave like Mike Wheat. Of course, these things are hard to evaluate. The enemy was certainly involved in some way. But I believe the Lord has given five men, all with Indian citizenship, one of them a little bit unique, to lead this work. And if you're not going to give them one whole heart of support, then I would like to deal with it here in Kathmandu together, because I think it will be an enormous hindrance to the work if there isn't that loyalty. You know, whenever I find a man talking against me, disloyal to me, I go after him like bee to honey, and we fellowship. I don't demand 100% loyalty. You know the motto of Operation Mobilization. I've been reading it for the last ten years. Let me read it again. Because of world evangelism and the reality of the spiritual warfare, we need to agree on a plan of action and a strategy and policy to carry out that action. That, of course, means we've got to agree on who is going to lead. Even when there are things we don't like or even agree with. You think I agree with everything going on in India? I don't even agree with everything going on in my own home. But because of world evangelism, because we want to get the job done, we agree on a plan of action. We agree that Thomas Matthews is to be the state leader in Gujarat. We agree that these five men are to be the overall directors of the work, that Alfie and Ray are the co-coordinators, and we go forward on that basis. Sure, there'll be things we don't like. Sure, once in a while we'll get upset. But this is the plan of action we agree on. And I believe if we can continue to follow that route, it's unlimited the number of people we can reach in India. God is supplying finance. God is still giving His foreigners who are willing to come out here on a two-year basis and do whatever you tell them. Never have there been so many foreigners come out to be servants of Indians. And you say, some of the ones on my team aren't very good servants. Well, give us. We've got to keep working on them. But generally speaking, most of them come here with a desire to serve. And to me that's very exciting. It's quite unique in missionary history. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this challenge to our own hearts. We thank You that You've raised up these five men, just as there were five men, I believe, in Antioch, to be the spiritual pillars of this work. Not that there are not other great men, you know, in India. Even men who may have greater spirituality. Even men and women who may have greater discernment. But because You anoint earthen vessels, and because Your work has to go forward, and there have to be leaders, and You have, by Your grace, given us the wisdom to choose this group and to get unity about them. You think of the hours and hours they've got to meet together to wrestle with things which, among other things, if we all had to be constantly involved in all of these issues, it would be an enormous waste of time. Far less evangelism would ever take place. We'd end up some kind of jungle of democratic circus acts. So Lord, we want Your wisdom as we go forward. Help things to come lovingly to the surface here that need to be prayed through and dealt with. And Lord, may we not panic when some things go wrong. May we not swing the pendulum when we don't get our own way, when mistakes are made or sin gets in, in one way or the other. By Your grace, help us to keep repenting and to keep dealing with different issues and to press on together. Lord, as each one of these fives gets offered other jobs, other opportunities, give them wisdom, Lord. We know that You may lead some of them out someday into something else. But Lord, may it be very, very clear because we believe that You have put Your hand upon them for the leadership here. We pray that there be no heavy handedness but that there would be firmness and love in dealing with problems and in discipline. Lord, You know more than we do our own needs at this time. We're cast upon You, in Jesus' name. Amen.