The video emphasizes the need for dedicated individuals to drive the vehicles, run projectors, and cook food in order to distribute powerful gospel literature through film, video, and audio cassette. It highlights the importance of not only Bible teachers and theological graduates, but also dedicated arms and eyes to effectively reach the target audience in today's highly technical world. The video mentions the success of a certain cult in recruiting short-term workers and emphasizes the importance of recognizing the difference between reality and geography in world evangelism. It concludes by emphasizing the need to be good listeners and to prioritize sharing what God is doing in others' lives, as well as the importance of being witnesses to the whole world, regardless of their response.

In your Bibles to Acts 1 8, I know you all know this passage of Scripture It's just one of a number of passages We're going to look at Acts 1 8 but ye shall receive power After the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth. Let's just pray once again Living God take this verse and drive it deep into our hearts drive it deep into our minds and Enable us to take the steps of faith to obey for we ask this in Jesus name Amen, the Word of God says to whom? much is given Much will be required You may not think you've received a lot of spiritual food this weekend You may come from an outstanding church where you get a very heavy spiritual diet. Praise the Lord. We have no problem acknowledging that there are churches and fellowships that Are giving out more spiritual food than we may be able to give out. We are all one together. We're not competing We're working together for world evangelism You need wisdom even how you share what God has done in your heart this weekend The Word of God teaches esteem others is better than yourself You go back and the first question should be with your friends and others is what God was doing in their situation this weekend If you're not a good listener, you've already lost the first requirement for being a good speaker or a good communicator Take a legitimate interest in other people Somebody might have got blessed right out of their socks in your local church or in some other meeting or conference I believe that whole challenge of Philippians in regard to esteeming others as better than ourselves is one of the missing cords in the present-day success oriented scheme of things Personally when I think of operation mobilization my own fellowship that I'm part of I am more aware of our weaknesses and our problems than I am of our great successes We have not come here to present to you the ultimate in Christian service the ultimate in on-the-job training and it's so important to keep in balance what we have received this weekend and in a sense to take what we have received here and Contextualize it into our own situation back at university or on the job our own church and our own family May God give you great wisdom. May you appropriate great wisdom? While at the same time not being afraid to speak out what God is doing in your heart and life this first we have very very strong emphasis first I'm a Holy Spirit But you shall receive power When the Holy Spirit has come upon you as we stated last night We believe every Christian is indwelt by the Spirit, but we believe Christians need to be filled with the Spirit and I believe Regardless of some of your vocabulary problems that the Holy Spirit graciously filled many people in this auditorium last night and this morning again as you bat as you bowed before the cross and Asked God to continue that work in your own heart and life those of you who made commitments It would be do it would do well to get a copy of that cassette tape That was used of the Spirit the message to to bring you to that point of commitment and to listen to it a week from now And maybe a couple of weeks It was a message by Billy Graham on the subject of commitment that made a great impact upon me as a young Christian And I listened to that message Regularly for a long time for many years it was part of the orientation that every OM person in the English-speaking world listened to and The results of that one cassette tape. It's quite phenomenal Then we have the emphasis on being his witness now we could talk all afternoon about the Holy Spirit We dwelt on that last night not enough, but we're limited by time witnesses We shall be his witnesses Now one of the strong emphasis That God put upon our hearts as a fellowship is that we should share the gospel with the whole world We should witness to the whole world whether they respond or not. We want them to respond. That must be our goal we must constantly reevaluate what we're doing and try to improve in communication and Do everything through prayer to get a response, but we must not be totally manipulated by the response factor This is why OM was able to tackle the Muslim world Where the response hasn't come because we have men and women who stick to the task with or without response We've been almost 25 years in the land of Turkey with very little response there's been some have been answers to prayer We've had similar struggles in a number of countries in the process of working and praying for more fruit We have the joy of knowing we are obeying God Jesus said my meat is to do the will of the father and one of the missing terms today and we must have this as we leave here this afternoon is stick ability a young man came to me just the other day who was praying about leaving OM in the middle of the year and He shared with me and what a blessing it was that God had convicted him that if he couldn't fulfill his commitment to OM when? It was rough or tough Would he be able to fulfill other commitments later on in life's road including the commitment of marriage? We need stick ability Corinthians says Be steadfast, you know much about that Be steadfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord Galatians backs that up and says let's not be weary and well-doing for you shall reap if he faint not He shall reap if he faint not I Get that I battled discouragement to a great degree Discouragement from Turkey discouragement from Afghanistan discouragement from Lebanon Discouragement from lands where we've been praying my life 28 30 years perpetual praying nights of prayer prayer and fasting tears And yet we haven't yet seen the breakthrough But the words ring back into my mind we shall reap if we faint not I think most of you know my testimony but perhaps I could just share it in a nutshell that I'm here because a lady prayed for me for three years prayed for my High school for 15 years prayed that people would be saved and sent And when I went to that high school, she put me on her hit list and started praying for me Prayed that I not only be a Christian become a Christian, but that I'd become a missionary. I didn't have a chance from the word go Talk about the reluctant missionary Some of you don't feel called to the mission field you don't feel you're the missionary type You don't feel you're tough enough. You don't feel your mouth big enough. What is a missionary type? I'm not a missionary type. I Got a big yellow streak down runs from the top of my head right down to my toes The missionary, you know great courageous David Livingston type moving through the jungles with a giant Bible taking invading hordes of cockroaches By the band bare hands and dashing into the ground Just one cockroach is enough for me You serve on the MV do us and you're there, you know having your soup and suddenly from the ceiling There it is swimming around in your soup. I Tell you there's a real shortage on meat you need to learn to praise God There are too many people today who are living by feelings instead of by faith, they're waiting for some nice Feeling that they'll become a missionary Well, we got a lot of blokes who are waiting for little miss missionary to come along And if she's planning to go to the field and she's attractive enough He'll consider the possibilities after all life with her anywhere would be worth it, right? We need far more objective thinking Many of you who may not have the gift and the grace to be a long-term career missionary Cracking or do or Arabic in the middle of Saudi Arabia probably could make a major contribution By giving two years of your life to overseas spiritual guerrilla warfare and being his witness Literature is still a vital way to get the gospel out You don't need a PhD or a theological education to distribute powerful gospel literature Written for the mind and the mentality of the target audience We can now use film and video and audio cassette But you need people to drive the vehicles to run the projectors to cook the food We live in a highly technical world It's not any longer a matter of just getting Bible teachers and theological graduates. They are also needed But we need dedicated arms and dedicated eyes Isn't it interesting that one false cult has 30,000 on the field short-term two-year people How sad that some missionary leaders have written off short-term work as superficial Would you call the work of that cult two-year commitment people superficial they've got over a hundred thousand converts in Britain alone It's not superficial because they train nationals when they return to America. You've now guessed which cult it is They send another 30,000 to take their place It's about time that we understand the difference between reality and geography Of course, we call people to lifetime commitment to give the idea that someone who serves for two years and then returns hasn't made a lifetime commitment to Jesus Christ is false Because his commitment to Christ is not geographical Of course, we need life-term commitments to missions it's interesting how many of those end up back in Britain, so they shouldn't boast too much about those commitments a High percentage of life-term commitment people also died on the field in the first three years So I wouldn't want to write that off a short-term superficial work. It makes God look a little bit weak. I As part of your ongrowing growth in character in world vision in obedience to Scripture to consider especially if you're still single two years of cross-cultural communication on the front lines of the spiritual battlefronts around the world today Perhaps you could call that a Macedonian call Because in fact People are coming to me people from Pakistan people from other nations and they're saying to me even National church leaders. Look we need more people We have a program in The subcontinent area. I'm especially involved in Bangladesh Pakistan Nepal India called eastward bound This provides a fantastic opportunity, especially for British young people to to spend two years in that part of the world serving our national brothers and sisters It's one of the most unusual and challenging open doors I know anywhere in the world today There's scope for highly educated people and the scope for very ordinary people There's scope for mechanics the scope for women and the scope for men Some of you ought to write in and find out what eastward bound is all about Because if you spend two years out there, there's a high chance that you're never going to be the same once you come back here it's not a total guarantee because living for God is a day-by-day walk and Going on OM doesn't guarantee that you're going to walk with God all of your life In fact, it may guarantee that you become a greater target on Satan's strategy program The Word of God says be not ignorant of Satan's devices. The Word of God says Satan is a roaring lion seeketh whom he may devour The Bible says Satan sometimes even comes as an angel of light And one of my greatest burdens are exo emers We're having a special conference this summer in Holland for exo emers For spiritual renewal and fellowship to take spiritual inventory to see each other. Some of us haven't met in 20 years because we believe that in many ways the 40,000 exo emers have a greater potential for evangelizing the world than the people who are on OM at this present time Because the key to world evangelism lies in the hands of the local congregation And that's why I wish I had time to give you a course or a seminar on how to relate to your local church how to understand pastors and elders and deacons how to understand what's happening on a local level the pressure on the local level that sometimes keeping a fellowship from sending out missionaries from sending out finances and We need to work together in partnership with our local churches in our local congregations He are my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and the utter no uttermost part of the of the world of the earth Why do I so strongly ask people to read operation world because this is one of the few books That talks really about the unreached people How many of you ever pray for the Kurdish people? It's one of the largest unreached people's groups in the world 20 million Kurds with no nation They're the people who were destroyed in chemical warfare just last week How many of you pray you've seen it on television you pray for the Kurdish people 20 million souls raise your hand there's good enough reason right there God raising up a loud mouth movement like operation mobilization Even if all we do is hold weekends like this which represents about one one hundredth of what we do We need to be alerted to this This need of the unreached people the uttermost parts of the earth if you act if you want acts 1 8 Terminology the Kurds. What about the Baluch? What about the Patons? What about the Turkman? What about the Wolof people? What about the Uyghurs up in China? Where they have almost no witness for the Lord Jesus Christ How can we how can we gather Sunday after Sunday in our churches? Britain with one of the livest largest per capita church movements in the world You've probably never heard anything like that before. Have you? Because I tell you most of the people who speak in our churches have never been out in the 50 or 60 countries Where we are involved therefore, they can only measure Britain with Britain And if you measure Britain with Britain, you realize there's enough work here for all of us to remain here Nobody needs to go, but you must understand my brothers and sisters That there are nations there are people's church groups people's groups Out there where the church doesn't exist. It doesn't exist You know, you had a prayer meeting here in Birmingham just last week or so Do you know how many came to the prayer meeting? 15,000 people now if you can have a prayer meeting with 15,000 people then you should be able to send out 1,500 missionaries out of Birmingham within the next year or two or somehow something is wrong with the praying Maybe it's overly introspective. Maybe someone has forgotten what the Bible teaches Because we are not just to pray for revival You can't find one scripture in the New Testament that says we just pray for revival We are to obey the whole Council of God We are to pray for revival and we are to live in revival and a lot of people are using this revival thing as a cop-out for disobedience We need the whole Council of God we've got churches that can praise the Lord they can sing choruses They can have all kinds of wonderful fellowship times But if you call for an hour of intercession They look at you as if you were some kind of dinosaur that came out of the Bible book of Acts. I Want to ask you what do you know of intercessory prayer? Have you ever read about a man of God a woman of God that didn't know about intercessory prayer Have you ever heard of such people as David Brainerd? Probably one of the most mighty men of God that ever crisscrossed the world Who had spent whole days even in a log a hollow log crying out to God who shook North America like few men What of Jonathan Edwards? What a Whitfield and Wesley Do you think these men would tolerate the kind of superficial evangelicalism and charismania that we propagate in Great Britain today? You say hey, wait a minute you're getting angry. Yes, I am And I see a place for anger and righteous indignation in the Word of God. I love his people I love the church. I serve the church. Most of my ministry is not, you know, and it is in the church Brothers and sisters we must obey God Word of God teaches that obedience is better than sacrifice in the Old Testament The prophets cried out against religious form people were dancing people were praising people had all kinds of forms They had all kinds of little things. They went through they became taboos and they became very important, but there wasn't justice There wasn't righteousness. There wasn't love. There wasn't purity and there wasn't obedience and because of that the judgment of God fell upon those people We need to obey God's whole counsel and if we do intercessory prayer will become a vital part of our Congregational life and we will not be embarrassed again in a meeting when we discover that only ten people even Pray for a whole nation of 20 million souls who have been on television all week This is not some extracurricular activity for a few missionary nutcases who hold weekends conferences to get young people excited or challenged or committed This is the Word of God that is preached at all of our conferences and all of our churches throughout the country and let me bring This into balance by saying that Britain has some of the greatest missionary sending churches. I have ever been in They may be a minority, but they are here and I might also add as I shared in my seminar That many of the new churches and new fellowships are acknowledging I met together with many of the leaders that world missions must be a priority in this coming decade That's encouraging in that same meeting of Christian leaders from the new churches It was a humbling experience to be asked to lead an intercessory time of several hours Many of those men had never been in that kind of intercessory Touched the nation's and the unreached people of the world time of intercession in their life They're planning a similar conference in a much bigger conference center. I Pray that intercession will again be part of that conference How many of you have ever been in a in a night of prayer? We're not saying that's the answer to spirituality We know if the Holy Spirit isn't in it could be the height of hypocrisy How many of you have ever been in a night of prayer even up even just a midnight, you know in India sometimes they go right through to 5 in the morning and Find it difficult when you get up the next day, but you know just to midnight Most of us had watched films to midnight. I went off to see that film when I was in Australia The last emperor of China have you seen that thing long man? That's a long film Nobody walked out even though it was dull part of the time Have you ever seen dr. Zhivago or Reds or some of these other epic films? People don't generally fall asleep walk out So many of our churches we want to always finish dead at 12 o'clock I always get the little notes dear brother. Be careful of the time Be careful time our service is accustomed to finishing here 12 o'clock dead at 12 o'clock And most of the people are dead at 12 o'clock Isn't it interesting when we fall in love we like to spend time together I remember when I fell in love I tell you Chicago shook when I met this little chick behind the desk renting films And I tell I did everything I had it timed from where she was living to where I was living in the YMCA I had a cut through a park I think I had to jump over a bench in order to get the timing back because a moody Bible Institute They have some kind of rules about when you should get in there Just every minute I was with this lovely little beautiful gift. He spent hours together We googled in each other's eyes We sat together looking at Lake Michigan Doing nothing Can you imagine the pain of a character like me doing nothing only love to do that? But somehow with Jesus all of our talk about love Somehow we like it short and sweet. Let's have a little prayer Little talk with Jesus then even our choruses sometimes have a bit of a shortness to them that somehow leaves you feeling that something is missing When did you last have a half day alone with God as a teenager I started the habit of spending half days with God then days with God. I Often went into the hills of the mountains people didn't know where I was gone It wasn't all success My life is sprinkled with failure I'm more aware of failure than I am of the success in my life But failure can be the stepping stone to success Erwin Lutzer wrote a fantastic book Failure backdoor to success. What a fantastic book Haven't even read it that the title just broke my heart But I remember once going for a time of prayer in Spain And I you know, I I decided if the Lord Jesus could pray through the night alone I could you know, I was going to go through the night alone now I'd been in nights of prayer with other people, you know, it helps get somebody else praying and helps keep you awake and Usually, you know and when we talk about a night of prayer, it's a half night of prayer or extended prayer and there are other people But it's good to have a night of prayer or extended prayer alone with God in your Bible So in great boldness, I went outside the city of Madrid for this night of prayer went out in the afternoon And I was gonna fast I'm gonna fast I brought this piece of bread with me that I would I thought I would Eat in the morning when I finished breaking through and taking Spain for Christ. This was under Franco We needed a lot of prayer I can tell you But you know, it didn't work I about 2 in the morning or 1 or 12, I don't know I fell asleep Out there by the river, of course It was very hot in the day, but it said and got very cold at night and I wasn't dressed properly real understanding of the culture So eventually I woke up cold I Decided I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna eat. I looked around for my bread. I never forget. This is gone To this day. I don't know what happened. I think Perhaps a wild animal came along looked at me didn't see any meat and took the bread Don't be discouraged because you fail in your prayer life. Don't be discouraged because your mind wanders Beware of super spirituality beware of becoming impatient with your spiritual growth rate Don't feel you're an extra evil person because in a prayer meeting some beautiful girl walks in and blows all your circuits Now some people think well that kind of experience that just happens to young carnal Christians Well, I'll tell you not many years ago. I was in a prayer meeting in Switzerland that I'll never forget It was an extended time of prayer and I was trying to get through to God and I tell you a Swiss woman walked through the door that blew every romance last circuit right out of my head and She sat down in the prayer meeting. I Actually, I think I began to physically shake I'm sure none of you have this kind of problem, but you know, you can pray for me. I Found myself praying I learned years ago a way to pray where people think you're praying and actually you're trying to check up on what's Going on, you know in in real travail, you'll hold your hands over your face Looks like you're praying and then you open there And I found You know, I found that I kept trying to pray and kept looking at this girl and oh god, forgive me Forgive me forgive me, you know, forgive me for telling the truth I know in our society you can get real real problems for telling the truth But you know the Lord gave that victory in that prayer meeting and I Never saw the girl again much less ever touched her and I can't even remember what she looked like You know infatuation is tearing the Church of Christ apart Married men married women getting infatuated with other men and other women. Do you think it's just in America among the TV stars? It's going on up and down Britain There was a character in London had a word of prophecy that he had the wrong wife And so he divorced his wife and he took on another wife. That was more inclined to his present particular religious gymnastics Satan is a liar He comes as an angel of light a man in one of the biggest churches in an Asian country Took verses out of context and took on some concubines to meet his needs Did you ever read this read the story of the children of God now called the family of love one of the most sinister ugly? cults in the history of the church I'll send you the full hardback book written by David Moses Berg's daughter She was crowned queen of the children of God in a warehouse in Bromley when I was living in that town and that night was Supposed to commit incest with Moses Berg, but she refused and eventually she was she left and was delivered from the children of God Unbelievable things have happened in that cult people sometimes wonder why You know when we get a little nervous about extremism and we preach out against extremism Because if lukewarm this has taken her thousand then extremism has also taken her thousand We must avoid both Extremes Being God's witness to the uttermost parts of the earth Realizing God uses all kinds of people Realizing we are living in 1988 not 1888 in the subcontinent of India alone There are 1 billion people 1,000 million people It took until about 1830 for that many people to be living on planet Earth Try to understand this Around 1830 we got the first thousand million people billion people on planet Earth Now we have that many in India and the surrounding countries. We have the same number in China therefore there must be There must be a forward advance for the gospel That is in line with world population and what we are really facing in terms of the task Do you think some of us Characters like me want to get in ourselves a replacement ship for love. Do you think this is something? We're worse. This is sort of a little ego trip. We like we're into ships. We're sort of spiritual anaesthetist. I mean We're into ships We've had enough of us ship some of us Rex Worth who was the chief engineer on Dulles He'll tell you about what life on a ship is really about what it is to work in a stinky smelly hot boiled over ancient relics engine room Literally sometimes risking your life I'll tell you the reason we went into that second ship, which was in the doulas an enormous step of faith for OM We're still shaking from it Was because we believe that men and women needed the gospel Because we saw that God had given us open doors and God was giving us people and God was giving us Expertise and God was giving us credibility and prayer partners God was doing incredible things that we could not deny and we felt compelled to take that step of faith as hard as it was Do you think we want to go into love Europe at all sounds wonderful love Europe? OMS greatest largest single initiative into Europe in the history of its work Maybe up to 5,000 people Attending a teaching Congress getting involved in a night of prayer and launching out across the shake Europe starting in the summer of 89 Do you think we want this? This is we need more to do. I know I'm right We're all sort of sitting around looking for work I go around most of OM and see what people are doing and I will tell you we may have a lot of weaknesses But we don't have too many lazy people and the ones that are lazy are often working harder because they feel so bad about it We are short staff in our offices We sometimes don't have people even to make out the receipts when the gifts come in We live in a complicated world with tax laws. We need accountants Our vehicles one-third of them on OM need to be replaced. They're broken down. They're old We need mechanics or new vehicles in our desire to identify with the poor and relate to the international scene We don't feel we should get a lot of new vehicles. We have a few therefore We need mechanics who will keep these old vehicles four hundred of them across the world mobile for God That's somehow in the next decade We may have the greatest forward thrust united with other mission agencies that the world has ever seen. Do you believe it's possible? I believe it is especially with the likes of you I've grown to like you in the last two days I have a real hang-up in this area and I somehow believe if you will let God have his way in your life I somehow believe if you will obey what the Spirit of God gave you last night day by day through Through difficulty through trial through discouragement Then you will be part of God's great plan to reach the nations of God's great plan to build the kingdom I'm not going to argue over the terminology I Want to see the task that Jesus Christ gave us in Acts 1 8 and in the other passages of the Great Commission Become a reality. He shall be my witnesses. I wonder how many of us Would be willing to make a real change in direction in our lives as a result of what the Spirit of God is saying You're going one way you think you've got God's plan I Wonder if you'd be willing to make a right turn and become a spiritual guerrilla fighter for King Jesus When the government of Britain called for men to go into the army in the first war in the second war in every other war There were plenty of volunteers and people counted it a privilege Do you know what's going on in Iran right now as hundreds of thousands of men and women now many women volunteer to be martyrs Thousands have been martyrs Eleven-year-olds are sent across the minefields to personally blow up the mines with their feet their mothers dance at the funerals that I had given another son to Allah as Islam increases in its fanaticism beyond anything historians ever imagined. I wonder if there are some today That would be willing to go out across the devil's minefields spiritually speaking Maybe risk your future Maybe risk that lovely little retirement program. You've already been thinking about in that lovely little coastal cottage in Wales Maybe risk even your life even your health that one more nation may be reached that one more unreached people's group may be Penetrated that one more soul every soul is of unbelievable value may be with God in eternity Do you think it's easy for a character like me to even believe this? You think I'm some super wound-up man of faith You're wrong I'm a struggler. I'm a doubter My grandfather was an atheist. My father was materialist And from the day of my conversion to this day the things I haven't understood about the Christian faith the things I haven't understood about the Old Testament There are doubts that I fought with to the point of weeping But brothers and sisters I can tell you what an old Scottish theologian once said that great faith Is not in the absence of doubt and questions great faith is as we battle through with our eyes upon Jesus Christ If I'm not on the right road, then maybe you can tell me what the other options are Because I see in the light of the world condition in the light of the Word of God in the light of creation in the light Of the prophecies of Scripture in the light of the great infallible truths and the tremendous evidences for the Christian faith That there is only one way to go Absolute total commitment to Jesus Christ to world evangelism to loving and giving ourselves to others. I Want to ask you to examine the scriptures and see if this be so and if it be so Then make an irrevocable commitment to obey the Great Commission to reach the unreached To take the gospel to every nation every people's group Yeah We go further than that to every individual to be his witness and also through prayer and faith to see living churches born in each one of these people's groups that can multiply and reach the rest of that people's group with the Word of God if you go out even for only two years and Disciple a few nationals who know the language already and carry on in that country For 20 30 years planting churches, would you call that a superficial experience? I don't think so Borden of Yale was one of the richest most brilliant graduates of Yale University His vision was the Muslim world He gave his fortune to God. I tell you it was a lot of money and he was highly misunderstood and he launched out to the Muslim world And within a few years yay, maybe a few months Borden of Yale was gone But there's no one that studies missiology or the Muslim world that doesn't know the name of Borden of Yale Well, anybody know your name a hundred years from now Will it be one soul one church that's going on because you obeyed because you were willing to go the extra mile because you were willing to take God at his word and So a hundred years from now Someone in a missiology course at a seminary or theological school will read about so-and-so who was turned around in Birmingham in 1988 and Reached another character who reached another character who maybe who maybe reached a Billy Graham and brought a million souls to Jesus Christ the ricochet effect the multiplication effect the teamwork principle The domino effect with Holy Ghost pushing the dominoes is one of the most exciting principles. You can ever get involved in it Will you do that? Will you take some steps of faith will you follow through as you leave this place Will you write to us and let us know how we can help? Will you be honest about where you really are and learn to confess your faults one with another and pray for one another that you May be healed We are aware that great healing must take place here One of our favorite books is healing for damaged emotions But the Holy Spirit has been healing people long before any of these books were ever written Because the Word of God has a message of healing So few people today even memorize scripture It seemed somehow today we want the blessings without the responsibility We want to be spiritual even if it's a quasi spirituality at minimum cost We're quickly told that if we have any discipline that somehow we're getting into bondage I heard someone mouthing off about people who feel they must have their quiet time every day, you know characters like Billy Graham In bondage I confronted somebody once who's going on about that and I said, excuse me Are you into this eating breakfast every day? Oh, oh, yes. Yes Bondage brother. Let me lay hands on you and have a prayer. I don't believe we should be superstitious And I have some pretty skim slim quiet times times And sometimes with my kind of mentality, I am naturally unspiritual I'm a natural backslider. If God doesn't meet me every day. I get a sour attitude. Just ask my poor little wife. I Need the touch of God the kick of God the thrust of God every day That's why I love to read these dynamic sermons in print That's why this morning when I went out for a walk in the country. I was listening to a challenge ministry tape and music tape I'm just a kind of character. I got big leaks. Some of you got small leaks Don't be judgmental And I need to be filled again and again and again And it's not just spiritual things that keep us going and I just throw this in in these last few minutes beware of super spirituality Beware of getting to the place where you no longer read a secular magazine You're no longer enjoy a good concert or a good movie or a good game of tennis or chasing your wife around the garden in her bathing suit or whatever else Because if you deny the human factor you will deny a part of you that God has created very important we don't want anybody standing in the streets out here after this meeting to get 100 gospel tracks and 64 sermons within the next two hours It's not what you do in the 10 minutes when you leave here that counts that's important But it's what you're doing tomorrow in the next day and next week and next year Learn God's pace for your life Don't try to run at someone else's pace There's so much more we would like to tell you some of this I've shared in my book. No turning back You're unable to buy one right to me and I'll send it to you free But I share in that book basic principles of survivalship perseverance how to bounce back when you're discouraged how to bounce back when you're angry and you just hit the vicar in the nose how To bounce back when you feel like running off and getting for other women how to bounce back when you failed Because our burden as we bring this conference to a close Is that you may be a marathon runner for Jesus? And I got back to the home where I was staying last night the finals single women's ice world championships were going on You say how do you get a spiritual challenge watching that kind of worldly event I Will tell you When I see people in the secular world the discipline that they go through the commitment They have to sports to the arts even film people When I read about tennis players and and rugby players and football players, not all of them, but many of them discipline zeal Perseverance downright fanaticism and amazing. It's admired by our society They give me I'm even admirer of your prime minister Maggie Thatcher, I don't agree with everything I don't even understand everything But I will tell you she's tough and she's rough and if we don't have some tough-minded Optimists within the body of Christ. We're not going to evangelize the world I remember when they almost blew her to bits in Brighton and then she was on the way to Indira Gandhi's funeral in New Delhi and these little wheezy reporters pushing the microphone in the phone Well, don't you get a little nervous about going off to New Delhi? And she said she said something along the line of well, you know, we just learn to live with this or something like that Often as Christians we are so we are so thin-skinned a little bit of criticism Oh, haven't you heard someone in the church doesn't love you? Many a man of God many a man of God many a woman of God with all the preaching with all the teaching with all The zeal has gone down in flames when the first little criticism has come up Young person if you do anything for God, you're gonna get criticized Don't revel in it learn from it But I will tell you if you go from here and burn out for Jesus Christ to do his will and to evangelize the world You're gonna get criticized. You're gonna make mistakes in the process But how else are we going to learn? How else will the job be done Learn to use criticism as a challenge as a stepping-stone Learn to forgive people now when they come to you the world does that all the time we get Christian Oh, I'll forgive him this guy really double-crossed me and If he comes and apologizes, I will definitely forgive. Oh, I'm just so impressed What is God's way you should forgive at the moment of impact if you hit you on one cheek you turn the other That doesn't mean you can't speak up. That doesn't mean you can't confront but it means that you're developing Revolutionary forgiveness toward all of God's people and people in general For I thank God for my critics For they had so often been the ones that God has used to drive me closer to Jesus I Challenge you be a fighter for God and when you're knocked down just get no big deal Did you see Rocky for terrible film? Only in a cinema could they do that he was hit so many times by this Russian gulag Who's actually a sweet that no human being could have ever lived but there it was was it around the 14th or 15th round? He was getting up and up and up and he won the fight good old Sylvester still No I know most of you probably can't relate to that film But I can relate to that film because I had been knocked down by the dirty devil and by some of his friends so many Times that I thought I might as well bring my cot to church But I learned how to get up and if you're down even yet I pray that you may get up and get back in the race and start running Last night on that ice skating program the thing that touched my heart wasn't the East German woman who won It was the American girl a brilliant skater who fell And my heart just went out because though she fell there was immediate Her hand just touched the ice and she was back and skating in perfect poise Dear old John Haggai in his book how to win over worry and care that helped revolutionize my life said prayer plus poise plus praise equals perfect peace Hallelujah, I've known that every day in my walk with God and that's your inheritance in Jesus Christ When you fail when you fall get up When you feel your hand touching the ice get up, you know what to do. You know what God can do And you'll discover that someday 20 or 30 years from now just like me You'll be still running the race a few arrows in the back black eyes Knees are wobbling need glasses just to see the Bible, but somehow you'll be pressing on for Jesus Christ Hallelujah, let's do it together for the kingdom of God and for world evangelism. Amen. Let us pray living God Forgive me if I have gotten too excited this afternoon, you know, I have a real need in this area But Lord if I'm too excited, I know there are people here That suffer from the lack of spiritual excitement in their lives. They've got spiritual myopia They've got the blues and the goose and the ooze and they need a Holy Ghost kick to do your will and go your way Be it to the ends of the earth or to the ends of the street Father do a new thing in our midst as we examine ourselves as we fill out these little evaluation and commitment papers That we may take steps of faith Even if it be with fear and trembling for we ask we ask with all of our hearts in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord Amen