In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of the Word of God in testing everything. He mentions that God has given us manuals and guidelines, but it is the Word of God that ultimately determines the truth. The speaker also discusses the main orientation sessions and how they are repeated multiple times for foreigners participating in Christmas and summer crusades. The purpose of the seminar is explained, highlighting the significance of being attentive listeners and the challenges of being a leader. The sermon concludes with a message to those who may be unsure of their purpose in attending the seminar, encouraging them to open their hearts to God's guidance.

Introductory tape for all those coming to the seminars and training sessions in Kathmandu. Let's unite our hearts in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank and praise Thee because You're alive this morning. You're alive whenever and wherever this tape is being played. And we pray, Lord, that You'll help us to be attentive, help us to listen. We know, our God, it's harder to be a good listener many times than a good speaker. And we pray, God, that You would just work according to Your power and teach us, prepare us for these days together here, that we may benefit from our time here. In Jesus' name, Amen. Now, this morning we, I think, finally have everyone together, or most of you who are coming to this next seminar. And I want to speak this morning on the purposes of the seminar and some of the goals we have. I think the word seminar originally came from the word, it has to do with week. I know in Spanish it's semana, week. And in French I think there's a similar word. And so seminar refers to a week of training. Ours is a little longer than a week. Between now and when we leave, it's about ten days. And some of you have already been going a few days. It usually takes us a few days to get everybody together. And I believe that God has brought this training program and this fellowship center into being in His purposes and His plan. For many years I have sensed that one of the greatest needs in the work was indeed to have more intensive training, to be able to teach young men not just the basics, although we have to continually learn the basics, but also to go on into other truths of spiritual evolution and of the word of God. Of course, each time I go to a month conference, I have to keep in mind that there are new recruits. Usually I'm speaking through interpretation, which literally cuts the message in half, and many other problems. And I've just yearned to be able to take young men who have been with us for some time and just pour out my heart in English without any reserve concerning things that the Lord has taught us. And I say us because there are many of us involved in this work over the years. Of course, this is one of the main plans behind the ship. One of the purposes, the main purposes of the ship, is to be able to train, teach, and move toward the target at the same time. How terrific it would be if this headquarters now, in the next ten days, could float toward Calcutta, or toward Jabalpur, or toward Ahmedabad, or wherever it may be. All during that time we're teaching, we're training, there's no break. And then, bang, we arrive at the target, and we just move off within five minutes out of the door, and there we have the place we're going to evangelize. And this is exactly what we're going to have with the ship. When that ship is at sea, there'll be teaching, training, orientation, tapes, language study. And yet, we'll be moving at the same time. The work will not be held back. And we'll hit our target, come back, continue our training, hit the next target. And this will give me an opportunity to be involved in evangelism, which is so much on my own heart. Because I know that God has called me to evangelism. And yet, at the same time, be engaged in this training. Of course, I've done this to some degree, even with trucks. I would take teams around India and all over the world, wherever I've worked, and teach and train as we'd move along. But you can only take, what, ten men, twelve men, twenty men. How any leaders can stand to have only six or seven men on their team, I don't know. But George Miley tells me that no leaders are really happy with more than ten men on their teams. Well, I want to tell you, I'm one that's not content with at least more than twelve. Because there's so much to be done, there's so many men to be trained. And if each one who's a leader can't take on a responsibility of twelve, how are we ever going to teach? So many in India need training. So many have made decisions for Christ. Millions have made decisions for Christ in India. You go down to Kerala, everybody's made a decision for Jesus Christ. And yet, no one has gone in there and trained them and taught them and grounded them. So, really, you don't know whether they're saved or not. And there are so many to be taught and trained. And, of course, my burden is that what you learn here, you may be able to go and teach others also. Well, on this ship, it won't be a matter of having twelve people with me, nor twenty, nor thirty, but a hundred. If we include the crew, at least at times. And, of course, this is going to give tremendous scope for teaching, for training, for sharing things that I've never been able to share for lack of time. Even at our month conferences, we have guest speakers, we have this speaker, that speaker. And sometimes the time that I get is limited. So, in some ways, this is a little seed stage of what's going to be eventually transplanted to the ship. And, of course, we know that it's only going to be by a miracle of God. And I believe we're only here by a miracle of God. Kathmandu is one of the very hardest places to get visas for. The Lord has opened the way to get visas. And to come here and find this house. And people talk about it being expensive. You can come here cheaper and visit me than if I were in Bombay. Much cheaper. Those who are in the Northeast. And Northeast India represents one-third of all the evangelistic effort in the entire country of India. The Northeast. And another large segment is the Northwest, which coming here is about the same distance as coming to Bombay. And so, though there are some expenses involved, they're negligible. You must realize that when I live in India and have to go around and visit all the teams and travel by air, otherwise I can't make the journey generally, although I've done it a lot by train as well, that costs more than running two seminars up here. Because, just to get me around the country. And so the expenses is no more really than my normal expenses. And if you realize the fact that I spend and live on about one-twentieth of any man who's in my particular position, whatever that is, I think that you can't think that this is costing a lot of money. I think of one particular group I know of in India. Sometimes their director will fly all the way from the United States for a 15-day visit. He'll fly jet into India, have 15 days, and fly back. And OMers in India don't know anything of wasting money. If you think OM wastes money, then you have not grown up yet. You're still living in a house that has no windows. Because it's true we have some money wasted. In any warfare there will be wastage of money. It's impossible to live without wastage. The man who tries to live without wastage generally ends up in a mental institution. Because you can't live that way. There has to be wastage. Wastage oftentimes is a sign of blessing and prosperity. Though we don't want to waste unnecessarily. But we need to realize just how tight OM does live. And beware of swinging the pendulum. I have had some people... Thomas Samuel takes one airplane flight. Immediately their hands go up in the air. They write me a letter. What's going on? OM wasting money. Here's a man that's got a desk full of letters. He's got urgent priorities. He has a family with four children. For him to get all the way around India and not use the airplane for even one hop is wastage. It's wastage. If he has to spend two and a half days traveling from Calcutta to Bangalore, when he arrives there, one mistake that could be made because he didn't answer this letter on time can cost us immediately four times as much money as an air flight. Why, the money that we've made due to mistakes in Bombay... Well, I just wish we had spent a few more thousand rupees to be a little more efficient. Although basically it was something out of our hands in terms of deception. So, it's true. Kathmandu will cost a little money. But actually very little. And when we consider the need to reach Nepal for Christ, is it not worth spending a little money to shake this nation for Jesus Christ? Ten million people. More unreached than almost any single part of India. Less than 150 Christians. And as we have the opportunity to come here and act as a catalyst toward the work in general here, already God has opened the door for me to be the main speaker at the coming all Nepal pastors conference. And as we go out in the afternoons, at least once a week, during our seminars in evangelism, and then also get our educational book program and Christian book program launched, this is going to lead to the conversion of Nepalese. And of course, this is going to cost money, but in the long run it's going to make money. And Nepal has proven in the past to be one of the ripest places for the sale of books. As you know, Vic and Peter, when they were up here, channeled down to Bombay more than 35,000 rupees in three weeks from sales in Kathmandu and the surrounding areas. And I hope that as you go back to your teams, and some people will have a few groans, you may be able to communicate. Unfortunately, some people groan about everything, no matter what way you turn. And I think most of us, and I hope we'll learn a little bit about this here, cannot realize how impossible it is to be a leader. Most people don't realize what a miracle it is that God has held this movement together over the years. So many movements have begun, Christian movements, and within one year, boom, split apart. Much less have gone on for almost 10 years, as OM has, more than 10 years now, from its early stages, without ever having a major disunity between any of the responsible people. And I just think of the fact that Dale Roton and I have now been working side by side for almost 12 years. And every one of those days in 12 years, just unity in the spirit. And Jonathan and I, about 10 years, and many others, I don't need to go and mention names. And this is one of the secrets. But this would not happen, and would not take place, if there wasn't this believing the best, this brokenness, this trust in one another. And this is what we need at times when we don't understand something. Just like you're asked to come to Kathmandu. Well, why should I go to Kathmandu? So many days travel. What am I going to do there? We need to evangelize. We need to, during times like this, look to the Lord and realize He has a purpose in this. And if there's any of you that are here and you're listening to this tape, you're not sure why you're here, you think maybe it's been a long journey for just listening to some tapes and all the rest, may God speak to your heart. I received a terrific tape from George Miley yesterday. And George Miley is probably one that esteems this training program up here higher than anyone. And it's because George Miley probably has the greatest or near the greatest amount of insight into spiritual revolution as anyone down there in India. And he knows how essential it is that young men involved in this work really get to know what the work is about and really have these principles and this message in their life. And that brings us to perhaps what we can list as the first purpose of our time here, our Kathmandu retreat. It's that we may really know these principles. That we may really know these principles. Now, it's easy to presume that we know what OM teaches. What George Verwer teaches is what OM teaches. Not because it's all my teaching. It isn't. I learned it from many other people. But because I act as the voice, the burden that God put on Dale Roton's heart, the burden of man-to-man strategy put out in his little booklet, Christian Strategy, I set this forth. Not because that was my original idea. Nor was it Dale's original idea. But because this is part of the OM message and many other phases of what OM teaches and what OM believes. And the average young man on OM does not really know what we teach and what we believe. Now, wherever you go, you're expected, especially if you're in any position of authority or leadership, you're expected to know that which OM teaches, that which George Verwer preaches. My name is now, unfortunately, known all over the world. I spoke at the biggest conventions in the world. My name's been pulverized and pilferized and picture flashed on magazines and all kinds of rubbish. And people are curious. They're curious. They want to know, what is this group? What's their new angle? What is their heretical teaching? Do they teach we must forsake our shoes? What is their little teaching? When they meet you, they'll probably never meet me. Most of these people will never meet me. When they meet you, they hear that, oh, you've been with George Verwer. You're in OM. Yes, tell us all about it. Yeah, tell you all about it. Well, we give out tracts. We have nights of prayer. And we believe that we must reach the whole world with the gospel as quick as possible. And we believe that we should live on the barest essentials. And they look at you. By your dress, of course, they see that you have that doctrine well down. And in five minutes, you've turned them off. They don't need to hear George Verwer anymore. They don't need to read anything about OM. They've seen you. They've heard. After all, you're a leader. And they're absolutely assured it's a lot of rubbish. And you don't think that hasn't happened. You don't think people have been turned off because they met some OM leader who didn't know what it was all about. And yet he was maybe even leading a team or something. And they've heard about this powerful movement. They've heard about these messages. Maybe they even heard... And then their first close contact with it, they're turned off. How many people across India have been turned off? Many times even people that have been turned on through a message. Maybe they did hear me speak. Have been turned off through a team member. Someone who was just living it halfway. Brethren, we need to know these principles. We need to know what the Holy Spirit of God has been saying and doing through this movement for 10 years. Because all of you are a vital part of it. In fact, the amazing thing is that even the newest person on the team is expected to have all the answers. We have Brother Mark here. He's just been converted and been out on a team. You can be sure if someone sees you, they'll expect you to be a complete authority on what the work stands for. And this, of course, is rather difficult. And so one of the purposes here is that we may really be sure and also linked to this that we may test these things. The second point, reason why we're here that we may test these principles. I don't want you just accepting these things because you've heard. You've read it in a manual. You've read it in a book. You've heard it on a tape. At meal times and other times, you will have the opportunity to ask anything you want. And when you have your personal interview with me, you will be able to ask anything you want. This is vital. We don't want people just to take it all in. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, Saab. Yes, yes, yes. No, we want you to ask. You have a mind. And we want you to search these things to see if they're in the scriptures. If the OM principles are not in the scriptures, then we cannot follow them. This has been our manual from the beginning. We had no other manual. And we only developed the manual just to consolidate our thinking. And I mentioned, I believe, in one of the other tapes how every spiritual movement has had its literature. Don't listen to these people say, now we don't need any other book but the Bible. That is the biggest pack of rubbish that can ever come out of the end of a man's nose or mouth. Because every movement has had its literature. Every movement has had its literature. And I mentioned something about that on another tape. And so God has given us manuals. He's given us guidelines. But of course, it's the Word of God that tests everything. And as you go through the main orientation sessions, some Indian brothers have never been through the main orientation sessions that all the foreigners go through. Most of them, two, three, four times before they ever come out on a year program. Because every Christmas crusade, every summer crusade, they have to go through it again. And you will notice on those main sessions that we go through the Bible. Verse after verse. Verse after verse. Never so many verses covered so quickly. And so you can search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. So we want to come here to test these principles. So that we can be personally convinced. So that we can be personally convinced. And that's very, very, very important. Because we don't want these things to be thrown away five days after you leave O.M. Or even after a few years being on O.M. It must become a part of our life. The third reason we've come here is to get away and to get alone with the Lord. This is so important. You men are grinding it out week in and week out. Evangelism, door, shop to shop, corner to corner. And you need, at times, to get away. Get into a different environment and seek the Lord. And firstly, above all else, we're here to seek the Lord. I'm not listing these things according to importance. Because if I did, this would be the first. To seek the Lord. And this is not a normal conference in which you're just going to have messages all day long. You will have free periods. And during those free periods, it's up to you. Now, I already noticed this morning. We had 15 or 20 minutes after breakfast. But how many of you were really redeeming that time? I didn't see many redeeming it. I saw people wandering around, this and that. And I don't believe you had that long of a quiet time before breakfast. Because some of you were extremely slow. I can't believe how slow some people are to wash. I never spend more than 10 minutes in any morning with all that I have to do before I get into God's Word. Now, you may not be able to cut it down to 10 minutes. But there's no reason to take a half an hour or three quarters an hour between the time you get out of bed and the time you get moving for Jesus and the Word of God. Because if you're so slow, soon you're just about getting into the second verse of your quiet time, somebody calls for breakfast. And then you go down for breakfast and you tarry a long time over the breakfast table. And then you come out and you have 10 or 15 minutes. You figure, well, there's nothing I can do in that. Pretty soon the first meeting of the day has started. You've not been with God. And then you wonder why you're not fruitful. You wonder why you don't see all that God wants you to see in your own life. But, you know, I'm not going to run around this house with a stick. I'm going to presume that by God's grace those who come here are mature or want to be mature. And you're going to redeem that time. And you're not going to infringe on another brother. If a brother is in that corner and he's reading the Word of God, you don't go over and tap him and ask him some ridiculous question or whether he's got your mail or some other thing. Always respect a man when he's with God. If a man is praying, you bump in, it's just like going, excuse me, Jesus, I've got really something more important. Do you mind going down the road a bit and you have your talk. And I have had people extremely impolite interrupting prayer. This is a part of our ego drive that we feel if we have something in our mind, doesn't matter what the Holy Spirit wants to communicate, bang, in we go. And, of course, we're living in a tight condition. This means that we're going to have to respect one another. If a brother is in this room studying the Word of God, and this is the quiet room, you don't barge in the door and disturb him. If you have something you must communicate, you go over to him quietly and speak with him or you give him a note or you nod to him to come. Because this is so important that God be given priority. And this is very revolutionary. Because most of us, we enjoy fellowship far more with one another. Well, we call it fellowship. Many times it's just gab. I'm guilty. Don't think that I have arrived in these points. It's a continual battle for me. But we so enjoy being with one another and fellowshipping and talking and we can spend hours together. But do we really enjoy that communion with God? And I pray that in the mornings we might, some of us, get out of here. I leave here most mornings and walk, speak to God as I walk. There's a hill up there. Down this road on the left there's a hill. You can look over the whole city. There are places you can go. One of the first things I do is find a place where I can be alone with God. I already have five places in Kathmandu where I can be alone with God. And to me, this must be the priority here in Kathmandu. Seeking the Lord. Getting to know Him. And I want to tell you, if you experience God up here, it's worth ten times of all we can ever spend to get you. This is the greatest need at OM in India. Unless this work goes deep into the heart and mind of God, it will blow away. It will blow away. Unless we have this deep, intimate communion with God, this fellowship with God, the work will not last. And I believe that this is the only real sign of revival in our day. There's so many different tangents. And as you go along, different ones will come to you. You've had them already come to you in India and they say, now look, this is the answer. Our particular truth or our particular way of doing it. Or this. You'll get those who come to you. They've got the church planting vision. Now this OM is superficial. You've got to plant churches. You've got to plant churches. And then you've got those that come over now. You need the power vision. You need a special power. Just running around OM, you're not operating in the power. You've got to get the special power vision. All kinds of tangents. Now if you study all this, and I've studied it for 10 years, you'll find that all of these things, basically, unless they're really of God, end in dead ends. If the Lord is calling a man into a church planting ministry, then of course, that's wonderful. But if he's just moving because somebody's pushing him, you know what I mean? They're pushing their little particular truth so he feels guilty about what he's doing, feel he must get into a better ministry. And all over the north of India, we have guys pretending to plant churches. Have you seen the churches that are planted? Some of them you can hardly call churches. God has to put his hand on a man for that ministry. That's an apostolic ministry. Speaking in one sense. And the Lord has to put his hand on him. How many years did Bakht Singh just sow the seed and just preach before God finally put his hand on him and said, now I'm going to use you to start New Testament assemblies. And of course, we want to see God's power come upon us in any way that he pleases. But if I just start seeking that because of some egocentric drive or because somebody's pushed some set of doctrines on me, then generally it'll just end in a foolishness and in a tangent. Whereas in God's sovereign power, I wait upon him. My heart is open forever he wants. And he gives me a special anointing for whatever it may be. Then it's something that's wonderful. And from him. And you'll have different movements and they'll say, we are the way. We are the way. Join us. We are the way. Well, I say with all my heart, there is no such movement. And I don't believe OM is such a movement. I don't say, and I'm never taught, OM is the way. Sure, I could do this. It's a subtle way of gathering people around you and getting them to be loyal and getting them to think in one narrow way. We have some of this in India today. People get into one little particular set of doctrines or in their denomination. Some that don't call it a denomination are worse than those who admit their denominations. Their thinking is so narrow that everyone is not crossing the T on the same space doesn't know Christ and all kinds of ridiculosities. But I believe, basically, the same as Tozer stated when he said this, in this hour of all but universal darkness, one cheering gleam appears within the fold of conservative Christianity. Within this fold, there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities. They will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct interpretations of truth. They are a thirst for God and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the fountain of living water. This is the only real harbinger, remnant, remaining part. This is the only remaining part of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. And the secret in O.M. is not that we are the movement. The secret in O.M. is that by God's mercy and grace there are many in this movement who as individuals are a thirst for God. And you will find even within O.M., even within full-time people in O.M., people that are so different one from another that you hardly believe how they got in the same movement. You must realize that when someone is slipping along in O.M., he may even be a leader. We don't suddenly turn around and bounce him out the door. Some people have said to me, well, how is he a leader in O.M.? Because we believe in patience. Because we believe it takes time to make a leader. Because we believe in love. And love doesn't bounce a leader out the door because he's made a few mistakes or his own spiritual life isn't up to par. We must wait. We must pray. We must battle through. And so we realize that even within O.M. there's a great variation of spiritual life. I'm sure there are some people within O.M. whose spiritual lives score plus ten. And there are others who are plus ninety. But you know, we're all flattened before the cross as sinners, aren't we? And we can't go around judging one another's spiritual life. And the thing that I believe marks the movement is the fact that there are an increasing number who are hungry for God. It's not that we have arrived. You must not communicate that we are the group that has arrived. We are the ones in India with the truth. We are the ones with the evangelistic zeal. We are going to reach the nations for Jesus Christ. We have forsaken all. All this is rubbish. Anyone who thinks this way has not even got down yet to A.B.C. of what O.M. is teaching. They couldn't have. We're sinners. We're a thirst for God. We're only learning what it is to forsake all. And there's a tremendous definition of commitment. I think you'll come across it on one of the other tapes. But it's been a tremendous help to me. In Miller's book Taste of New Wine he says this, So the totally committed life or Christian life is a life of continually committing oneself and one's problems day by day as they are slowly revealed to his own consciousness. Did you get that? A life of continually committing oneself and one's problems day by day as they are revealed from our own consciousness or to our own consciousness. In other words, there are many things we don't even know about. Things in our life that will only come to surface through some pressure, through some difficulty, maybe through some criticism. And when it comes to the surface, only then can we commit it to the Lord and bring it under the blood. And so we are those who are growing. We are those who are hungry and thirsty for God. And this is what must mark our lives. And I admit that many times this doesn't mark my life. I have to admit many times I'm not a thirst for God. I'm not hungry for God. And at that point, I just repent. I just come to God. He knows me. He loves me. And I say, Look, I'm not hungry for you today. I'm not thirsty for you today. I don't have any great hunger for the Word of God today. Just forgive me, Lord. You know the wretchedness of my heart. And you know, I usually discover at that time it begins to give my hunger because the hunger for God often comes most at the foot of the cross as we take the sinner's place. And so this is our main purpose in being here. To seek God. It's so easy to get down on our teams in what I call activism. We're so busy going from village to village, from place to place, fixing the truck, moving the literature, preaching, and somehow, sometimes we get moving so fast that the Lord Himself is way behind. And He's calling out to our teams, Please, please wait for me. I want to go with you. Wait with me for a while. Terry here. God says in the Psalms, Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. It doesn't say, Be active and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Spirituality is not measured by how much we do, how many books we sell, nor how many souls we win. Beloved, I know men who are complete reprobate, living in sin and are winning souls to Jesus Christ. Soul winning is no proof of spiritual life. You'll probably hear me say on one of the tapes, a man I know in Europe who after his evangelistic meeting sleeps with a different prostitute each night. And he sees many souls come to Christ. You say, How is that possible? It's possible because God honors His Word. And even if a donkey go down the street and shout out John 3.16 and a passerby may hear it and be saved. But I wouldn't want to call that donkey spiritual. And there are many ungodly men preaching and even seeing some souls saved. Certainly not what God would want to do through a clean vessel. Certainly most of them and many of them will not go on. But you know, God is so sovereign. And so, you know, never make as a basis of spirituality apparent fruit. Your team could be selling piles of books and could be as carnal as Joe Blow's team all sleeping in the chai shop all day. And all these outward things are not necessarily evidences of spiritual life. The first and primary evidence of spiritual life is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. That man who's going out and committing adultery, you could hardly say he knew much about faithfulness, could you? He's a married man. You could hardly say he knew much about gentleness. You could hardly say he knew much about purity. And these will be the marks of the real Christian. So it's not the number of souls we win. It's not the amount of literature we distribute. It's not the number of villages we cover. But it's God. It's God. It's God's life flowing through us. And this takes time. There's no shortcut to holiness. God may give you a crisis in your spiritual life. We'll be talking about that. But any crisis that's not followed by a process will soon become an abscess. An abscess means a poison. I want to try to define some terms. I know some of you don't know all of these terms. But an abscess tooth is when you get a tooth and it aches and a poison is coming out of it. That's called an abscess. And so a crisis not followed by a process. What is the process? Continual brokenness. Spiritual growth. Love for God. Repentance. God working through us in our daily life. If we don't have that process it soon will become an abscess. I've met many people all over the world who've never had any great crisis experience in their life but who have a life filled with the Holy Spirit and power. But I've never met anyone who didn't have the process and had that. So one comes to some people and doesn't come to others. It comes in different ways. But the process of brokenness, daily revival, repentance, digging into the Word, meditation, prayer, worship is absolutely essential for all those who are going to grow and become spiritual revolutionists. Next point, why we're here is that you may have time alone with God. This is linked in with what I've just said. That time from 6.30 in the morning when you rise up to 9 o'clock when you're in this room gives you ample time to seek the Lord. Every morning minus very few mornings here and wherever I am I get that time with God. And it's one of the most important phases of my life. If I have to run off and hide, if I have to miss the breakfast, I get that time with God. It's so absolutely essential. Billy Graham said if I miss my morning quiet time I discover my whole day can go wrong. If Billy Graham has to say that, what do some of us need to say? Maybe it means getting up earlier. It seems to me those of you who go to bed so early at 10 o'clock, it's about the time my children go to bed. They shouldn't actually, they're supposed to go to bed earlier. It seems to me you could be getting up at 5.30. Young men between the age of 20 and 30, unless you have a particular problem, that's fine if you do, then get the necessary sleep. No one can judge anyone about sleep. Everybody's different. But most of you should be able to easily live on 7 hours sleep. But you know, sometimes it will mean breaking through the sleep barrier. Do you think it's easy for me to stay up late at night? I tell you about 9 or 10 o'clock sleep comes on me, just like somebody pulling a big curtain down over me. And I just start to wooze. And sometimes I go to sleep for an hour and get up and go back to work. That's 10 times hard because there's a law of gravity. It runs right toward the bed. But sometimes you have to break through the sleep barrier to get through to God, that you may get through the God barrier and experience fellowship with God. And so some of you may want to get up earlier and go out on early morning prayer. We won't care if you miss your exercises, if you're out praying for a few hours off in the hills. But oh, may we make this quiet time absolute priority. We won't be having as much group prayer as many OM conferences. Instead of having, we usually have two or so hours each day, we'll probably be having one hour plus our night of prayer. But we want to make that priority, that private prayer. Another reason for coming here is that I want the privilege, and I hope you counted a privilege as well, of being able to live together with you. I want my life to be an open book to every OMer. You'll see me with my family. You'll see me when I have to bawl my children out. You may see me at a time when I'm irritated. I hope you would come to me and say, Brother George, are you in the spirit at this moment? That'd be the best thing you could do to me. Usually I'll beat you and I'll have repented already. But I want my life to be an open book. I have nothing to hide. So many Christian leaders today, they live in their own little private home and they have a sign on the door, no admittance, beware of preacher. I mean, beware of dog. But I have nothing to hide. I'm not perfect. God knows my hunger for perfection. God knows my desire to see every area of my life met by the power of God and broken. And you can help me as you exhort me. And I want this. I want you to see that this life can be lived out when you're married. It's not a matter of something just for single young men. I want you to see some of the things that are important in the Christian home. The rearing of the children and all the rest. And I hope that this will help you. And I want to observe you. And I'm a very honest person. If I see you doing something, I'll come to you. Maybe I'll lose my reputation for kindness, but I'd rather be honest. I refuse to engage in what so many people engage in. They see something wrong with a brother, they never speak to him straight, instead eventually they speak to someone else. You will not find this true of me. If I have something against you, if I see you're doing something, I will come to you. And I will speak to you. And I just hope that we'll realize that this is a blessing. One of the reasons that I've grown in my Christian life is that I've had people speak to me down through the years. I've had people come to me, especially in the early stages of my Christian life, and bend me and drop me into the ground. I'll never forget one fellow who came to me when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute. And he took me aside in a room, he said, you know, he said, I believe basically you're a phony. He said, you know, you're unfriendly. I see you in the corridor and you don't even say hello to me. And he criticized me, and I realized that he was right. Oh, it's true, he may have exaggerated some things. It's a little hard to say hello to 1,000 students in a school, and I wasn't as conscious of him as he was of me for some reason. But I had to repent. I didn't defend myself. And some of you have heard Peter Conlon's testimony. First time he was in a meeting like this, he heard me speak. After the meeting, I said, does anyone disagree with anything? Peter Conlon raised his hand. I said, what do you disagree with? I disagree with everything, he said. I looked at him, and he was very conscious of me after that for some time, but I wasn't conscious of him that much. So many people I have around me. One day he came to me at another conference, and he just about called me a phony and said that he didn't believe I was really living this life, and I was preaching it. I didn't have all this love. I don't remember all he said, but it was pretty rough. This was just a few years ago. I said, you know, you're right. He couldn't believe it. And it's from that moment on that Peter Conlon and I began to knit together. I said, you know, you're right. I just asked you to pray for me. I know I'm not living this life fully when I'm preaching. And I've got this problem, and I'm battling through, and you unite and pray for me. Of course, he just left there completely undone. And from that moment on, God has been knitting our hearts together in a tremendous way. You don't have to be some kind of spiritual superman to have your heart knit with me. I'm not interested in your spirituality. My union with people is on the basis of the fact that we're both sinners, saved by grace, and we unite together at the cross. It's easy to unite with a clever, sharp fellow, or with this boy who's got a similar temperament, or this one who's worshipping at the shrine of your ego. It's easy to like the fellow who's patting you on the back and thinks you're a great leader. It's another thing to get a union with someone who disagrees with you. It's another thing to get a union with someone who's of a different temperament or a different background. And oh, how easy it is on our team. All the little Malayalis all get together. The unsaved, unregenerate people in Kerala can do that. And we Gujaratis, we must stick together now. This is not God's way. And I know, I weep for some of the foreign brethren who have still found it easier to fellowship with other foreigners than with Indian brothers. But you must be patient. As you judge them, how are you doing? Because it could be that you're enjoying fellowship just as much or more with people of your own particular kind, etc. And this takes a real revolution. This is one of the purposes for coming here to Kathmandu that we may see how ridiculous some of these things are. And some of the rumors among unsaved people around India that are believed even by Christians, like all this kind of people, they're all that way. So even if we meet a Christian of that kind, we're very careful. And we don't believe that the Holy Spirit can really work just like so many in India don't really believe a Muslim is going to come through for Christ. And just like some of the Christians when they meet some of you converted Hindus, they sort of, their eye twitches just a bit. And they wonder, you know, who's paying you or what are you after? And there's a general distrust, distrust everywhere that is chilling. I would rather be deceived and go on with the ability to be able to trust and love a man than never be deceived and be frostbitten by an untrustworthy spirit in the sense that I can't trust anyone. And this is deadly. And may we be able to be open with one another. I hope that when we speak together privately, that you will not hide yourself behind a little cloak. I know that some people are afraid of me, the big bad wolf. And they come to me and they say, all is well, all is well, yes, yes. I say, do you have any problems, any burdens? They tell me about some little ridiculous thing and never get down to the real issue. And then the same person goes off and after some months I hear the rumor back, well, I was up with George Burr, but I never had any time. I never had any time with him. You realize that I'm not able to give everybody hours and hours. Most people who come in this house, quite a few of them end up getting more time of personal conversation than sometimes I get with my wife in five days. Time is valuable, unbelievably valuable. And I'm pushing now for 18 hours out of every day to 19 and sometimes 20 and I wish I could squeeze 24 hours of every day and take a pill instead of going to bed. But you can't do it. We've got a body and it needs sleep, it needs food. And so it really does hit me hard when I give an hour to someone and I get a rumor back I didn't have any time. Because I realize an hour to them may seem like nothing. They spent hours just twitching away. And so we've had an hour together, but they haven't opened their heart, they haven't shared, so they've gone away and they missed that chance because the Lord might have given me wisdom. You know, considering being a Christian for 14 years, coordinating this work with 500 people around the world and all the unbelievable problems we've gone through for 14 years, the Lord may have given me a speck of wisdom. Not mine self, but from himself. And it could be that that wisdom given to you could have been a tremendous help, but you didn't open your heart. You didn't walk in the light, you were free. And you know, this hurts, this hurts. And recently I had a brother who I had asked to leave the work and I told him, I said, you know, one of the biggest problems is that you never shared your heart with me. I said, you deceived me. And he didn't like that. And he said, well, you know, I didn't deceive you. And he couldn't see how he had deceived me. But he had, even though maybe he didn't know it. Because he had met with me again and again and again and he had given me one impression of himself, which was not a true impression. When you give a false impression of yourself, for instance, you might give an impression that you're 100% in agreement with all O.M.'s doctrines, teachings. Don't think that O.M. doesn't teach doctrine. I hear this get around, O.M. doesn't teach doctrine. It's ridiculous. What do you think all this is? Doctrine. Doctrine means teaching. We just try to avoid some of the, we try to avoid making a decision on some of the extremely hot, controversial doctrines. None of the major doctrines. All the major doctrines are taught on O.M. And you hear some, O.M. doesn't teach any, doesn't teach the Holy Spirit. We teach the Holy Spirit. I preached all messages on the Holy Spirit. Some of you have heard me preach in Cary Baptist. Be filled with the Spirit. But what we try to avoid is particular aspects about the teaching of the Spirit that the Church has never been able to agree on for hundreds of years. And if the Church has been blowing apart, dividing and arguing for a hundred years, does O.M. think it's going to solve this particular problem in a one-hour Verwer lecture? Ridiculous. But we teach doctrine. And yet we have some that they read extremism, they know where we stand, and yet they're afraid that their reputation may go down. I have some that they sort of hide from me the fact that they're Pentecostal backgrounds. I don't care if you're Pentecostal background. I don't care what costal background you may be from. And some of my best friends are Pentecostal people. I'm no respecter of persons. If you're an extremist who has all kinds of bazooka ideas, on the basis of those ideas I might have a word. But if you're just a normal brother in Christ who loves Jesus, I don't care whether you're Methodist, Pescatarian, Episcopalian, whatever else you may be. This running around and finding out what a brother is. I know some in India. They find out this brother is a Methodist. Well, we know the Methodist church. He might be another Wesley for all you know. And you judge him as being dry because he's a Methodist. And this is deadly. This is deadly. But I have some people that are afraid to open their heart. They think I may judge them. They think I may think less of them. And this is deadly. There needs to be an opening of our hearts. Especially as we have these times together. There needs to be a fearlessness in regard to asking questions. Some of us are afraid to ask questions in group because what will so-and-so think of me? There's that Danny Smith over there. He's graduating from Bible school number one in his class. If I ask a question, surely he'll think I'm a dutz. Why, even the Bible says a fool is esteemed wise if he keep his mouth shut. So if I sit here and don't ask any questions, everyone will think that I'm clever. Not so. Because there's other ways to distinguish a fool. But believe me, we're going to learn by questions. This was one of the things that's marked my life. I'm so inquisitive. I spent hours, hours, sitting watching the ants. Watching the ants. You say, what kind of activity is that? There's a verse in the Bible that says, Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. And if the O.M. teams were working more like the ants, we wouldn't have any more literature left. They wouldn't have any more literature left. But oh, what I've learned from the ants. I used to sit in the woods for hours and watch birds. What I've learned from the birds. When a teacher came to my school and lectured, if he opened up for questions, every third question came from me. Sometimes I was told that I was dominating the scene. But if anybody's going to open up, I love to, what you call, pick a man's brains. Do you know what it is to pick a man's brains? What if we could get Billy Graham in here for an hour and just ask him some of his spiritual secrets. Ask him how he's got through certain situations. Ask him what he believes on this point. What if we could get Watchmen here? What if we could get anybody here who has proven by their life that they've got something besides sawdust? Wouldn't we want to ask them questions? And when you meet various people, wherever you go, you need to learn to pick their brains to ask them and to find out things. And as we gather here and listen to these tapes, we need to jot down things we don't understand. We had a good question the other day at the table. Someone asked me what I meant by the relativity of time. That's a good question. Half the people would hear me say that on a tape and never ask a question. Not that they know anything about the relativity of time, but they just wouldn't feel that they'd be able to ask a question. You know, I'm one of the first ones to say to people, when I meet people who are more intelligent than myself, and I meet them everywhere, I say, look, I don't understand that. I don't know. And I think this is something we need to face in the streets as well. If a Hindu comes up and asks us a difficult question, the simplest thing is to say, look, I don't know. I'm just a student. You think I have all the answers? And not get ourselves into a verbal trap and we shout out some verse or we say something, well, Jesus Christ is the only way. And many OMers have their little pat answer for everything that's asked them because they don't have the answer. I would prefer to say, look, I haven't come across that yet. And my witnessing, and my witnessing is completely distinct from 80% of the people I've ever met on OM. I just don't go about it the way they do. Maybe that's the reason I don't know that I've seen so much fruit. But many times when I'm witnessing to a man, for the first 10, 20 minutes, I don't hardly mention anything about Jesus. I don't get in any arguments. I try to get to know that man. I try to show him that I'm interested in him as a person. And when I meet a Hindu and he's arguing about something, I try to get him away from that and say, look, why don't we just get to know each other as two people? We're both created in the image of God. We can agree on that, can't we? We're both created in the image of God. Why don't we just get to know each other? Because really, it's not my burden to argue. And I would avoid all these arguments like the plague, especially in the street. You win an argument, you lose your friend. But you win a man and then there's a possibility you're going to win him to Jesus Christ. I believe there needs to be a total revolution in our methodology down in India. This brings to the next point for this conference is, I believe many things are going on in the name of OM that are completely contrary to what we teach and believe. Completely contrary. Some of our methodology in evangelism, some of the ways we approach street preaching, and we're not seeing the fruit the way we should. And I believe it's time to examine some of these things and to see how we can improve through discussion, through prayer, through interchange of ideas. Some of us have been satisfied preaching the same street message for the last four years. We really think we're pretty good. We don't see anybody converted, but at least we're loud and a lot of people hear us. And I believe that if we're not seeing men come through in our preaching, we need to rethink. I believe very much like Dr. Schaeffer. I have many similarities in belief, although on two different roads. He believes in pre-evangelization. And this means that before you can many times give a man the gospel, you must prepare him. You must prepare him. You must define your terms. You must try to understand his situation and then be able to communicate to his needs. And he shows how because in the West now there is so much relativistic thinking, this is absolutely essential. When you say Jesus Christ, the average man listening to you gets a completely different communication than what you get. The name Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life to many Hindus is nothing but a nonsense sentence. It means nothing. And the same is true now in the West. You say Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and to many intellectuals in the Western world you have pronounced an edict of nonsense because they don't know what you mean by that. Everything now is becoming symbolic. We are entering into the age in which teenagers go into a coffee bar and they turn on the music. They're not interested at all in what the words are. They're not interested in meaning. It's what Schaeffer calls the age of communication above communication. And now you realize they're making phonograph records with electronic devices to give off-beat music that completely confuses the mind, that communicates no real meaning in relation to Aristotelian logic. What is Aristotelian logic? Basically, it's that you have black and white. You have a situation where this is true or not true. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sin or he didn't die on the cross for his sin. Now many of you who are westernized in your thinking in India have Aristotelian logic. This is basically the same logic that's used in Christianity. But a majority of Hindus do not have Aristotelian logic. They do not have this kind of logic. It's not a matter with a Hindu of this or this. It's not a matter of one or the other, black or white, no or non-no. But it's a great flow of completely relativistic logic in which everything can all be one and one can all be everything. And so we come in with our little parroted phrases, with our little western logic system, trying to talk to Hindus, all we get is a great mass of confusion. And now we in the West are faced with the same problem because Eastern thinking has gone West. A high number of intellectuals are talking the same way. It's no longer black or white. Philosophers in the West no longer believe that there's an answer. This is why Jean-Paul Sartre, who some of you have perhaps heard the name of, wrote his book No Exit because this is where philosophy has arrived. But you know where the West is arriving now, India was 2,000 years ago to this point of completely relativistic philosophy. No answer. In other words, for many years, philosophers were trying to find the answer. You understand me? They were trying to find a total answer to the world. Why are we here? What are we doing? Where are we going? Now philosophy has given up. They don't believe there is any answer anymore. And so they say no exit. The world is like being in a dark room and you're grappling around looking for the exit like philosophers have been doing for years but now we've come to the place we know there's no exit. And so this is bringing on a new era of darkness. This is bringing on a new era of lostness. A new era of total despair. And some call this now the age of despair. Despair means total depression, total discouragement, total uselessness. And I believe one of the purposes of this training base up here is to try to teach something of modern trend. Something of what we're facing when we talk to a Hindu in the streets. Something of what's happening around the world so that we can learn to communicate. We do not want to just speak forth the Gospel. We want to communicate. We want to communicate. We don't want to just go into a restaurant, stand on the door and say accept Jesus Christ and go to heaven, reject Jesus Christ and go to hell and then go happily out of the coffee bar feeling we've declared the Gospel. There is no basis of Scripture for this. If we go into that coffee bar as we go in we want to be sensitive to the need. We want to realize these are human beings created in the image of God, whatever they may look like. And we want to have the desire to communicate. To get through to them so they understand what we're saying. So that for example when we're in the streets they know that we're not linked with the politicians in a psalm who are turned communists or have opened the door for communists. We're not linked with the Roman Catholic Church that's run by a money loving Pope. We're not linked with this particular Protestant church down the corner whose pastor is a homosexual or some other crazy thing. Because in every town they have their image of Christianity. Christianity is not new news in India. Maybe in villages. Most towns people have some image even if it's the smallest thing that they've picked up out of one little line in the newspaper. Sammy Samayee from Goa beat his wife on the head with a beer bottle and ran off and married the daughter of the local priest. Maybe that's all they read. That's the only gospel they've ever had. And you come into the town we are followers of Jesus Christ. And right away what's going to happen? They're going to wonder when you're going to take the beer out. They're going to wonder they're going to wonder what you're going to do with their daughters. And you realize this tremendous riot that we had in Mysore State due to the confusion we don't know how much of it was truth it's so confusing. But basically they were spreading the rumor that we had come to kidnap their children. I am absolutely convinced that if we learn to communicate more we'll have less riots. Because we'll knock out these false conceptions of Christianity. Now unfortunately there's always some this is the unfortunate thing who won't even listen to reason. You can't communicate to them. And they get something into their head. They start shouting it out to the masses. The only communication then is transportation. Is to get out of there. But if you can get to that man ahead you see a man in the crowd who's angry. You get him. You as a leader get along with him. Say look I would love to talk with you. I believe that I can learn something from you. Can we go over here and have a cup of tea? We must learn to infiltrate the troublemakers in the crowd and get them out. Get them a cup of tea. Buy them an ice cream. Buy them a coconut. Anything. Get them out of that crowd. And talk to them personally. And I have taken people who are absolutely angry and I've turned them right around and they thought this is wonderful that you've come to our town. It's one thing going into a place where they've never heard at all about Jesus Christ. It's another thing coming into a place where they've heard all kinds of false things. We must communicate. And I hope we'll learn some of this in these days together and in advanced courses that I hope to have here. And when those of you come back next year if you've been through the first seminar you'll go into a whole complete advanced series of tapes that I'm getting and I hope to have some Dr. Schaeffer tapes that are properly recorded. The ones we have now you can hardly understand. And really develop this into a program where we can develop and can this pay off? Look, if we can go back here 10% more effective. Only 10% more effective. Will this time have been worthwhile? Of course. Because this is the problem in India with our teens. It's not that we don't have enough men. We want more, of course. But we're not being even 50% as effective as we could be. And that takes training. People say, well, look at George Miley how effective he is in many ways or some other brother. But you know how much training George Miley has had? How many years of college? How many years of seminary? Now he'll be the first one to admit that that wasn't the answer. And many like him would wish they had had their training all over again in a different way. But that certainly is better than nothing. And I'm convinced with all my heart that one of the great needs in us in our work is training. And I'm out to give that training. I don't believe the Bible colleges can give it. They can help. And I'm not against that. Bible college helped me. Especially made me study and other things. But I believe this revolutionary training can be given in a place like this. Bible School would be a good foundation. Especially for an advanced program in which we get into Dr. Schaffer. We get into Billy Graham. We get into many of these tapes from all over the world. And some of these basic principles and teachings. And really get the kind of training we need to be effective on a long run program in India. And as we're coming toward the end of the tape another one of our purposes and I could give another whole tape on this is leadership. Training in leadership. And really getting down to this manual. Really having question and answer and discussion. Seeing where we're making our mistakes in leadership. Learning what it is to be an effective leader. Learning our weak points. And then uniting and this goes for all of these things. Uniting together in faith and prayer. And believing God for the victory. Since we're at the end of the tape let us unite even now. Father we pray that you would give us a victory in these areas we've talked about this morning. And make this time here in Kathmandu really count for eternity. For we ask in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.