In this sermon, the speaker shares an encounter with a missionary who was struggling to understand the message being preached at a conference. The speaker asks the missionary about his testimony of being born again and realizes that the missionary has never truly witnessed in his heart. The speaker then offers to systematically explain God's plan of salvation, which usually takes about three hours and involves going through various passages of scripture. After spending three hours discussing and reading the scriptures, the speaker concludes that the missionary either has not been born again or already knows Christ. The sermon emphasizes the importance of utilizing time for the purpose of sharing the gospel and fulfilling God's will.

I was trying to pronounce my name because it's been, people often say, how do I do it? And I said, it's crucified, you can just do it with it, whatever you want. And spoke in one of the countries that we have been, and a gentleman was trying to introduce me, and he, and he just felt he's not going to do this. And he said, I don't know where this man is coming from, but I know where he's going. And that's all he said about me. I thought, what a wonderful, wonderful introduction. But it's a tremendous privilege to be able to be with you. And we only have, what is it, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings together. And because our time is so limited in more than one sense of the word, you know, the Apostle Paul said to us, redeem the time because the days are evil. And so, time is a piece of eternity. There are 96 slots of 15 minutes in every single day. And one hour outside of the will of God is wasted time, you know. And so, when we come to the essence of what time is about, Dr. Stephen Alford, who was one of my great mentors, used to say to us, you need to analyze time, you need to utilize time, and you need to maximize time. And you know, we only have one life to live. Only that which is done for Christ is going to last in our relationships with God. But we have these few days that we will be together, and I, if I may ask you, I would love you to, to consider the possibility of being with us in all the sessions, in the evenings, and then in the mornings, tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, and Saturday morning at 10 o'clock, we're going to spend two hours every morning on the Old and New Testament theology of prayer. And probably Saturday evening also, because, you know, when we speak about prayer, you never get to the place where you really know how to pray. Someone asked me some time ago and said, what is your understanding of prayer? And I said to this person, it's not the times that you spend with God, but it's the time that God spends with you. And he said, why do you say that? I said, well, because prayer is initiated by God. You know, we are His creation. And if I may say this with the greatest respect and reverence in my heart, when it comes to our relationship with God, my brother and sister, God has got a far greater longing and desire to spend time with us than we would ever be able to consider to spend time with Him. And so tomorrow morning, if you are retired, or if you are free in the morning, or if you are self-employed, in fact, if you are unemployed, we need you here because we need to pray that you get a job. But if it's possible, we just would love to have you with us. And I know what's going to happen. You know, what I'm going to try and do in these few mornings is to put about probably 120 hours material into maybe 150 or 60 minutes, because when you study the subject of prayer and the scriptures, it is so immense. If you have an interest in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, there is the possibility for us to explore 11 tremendous words. And if we were in a seminary here this evening, sometimes in America you feel you are in a cemetery when you are in a seminary. But if we were in a seminary here and we would have our time these days, one of the great things that I would have loved to do is to put those 11 Hebrew words and say to you, let's explore those words in the Old Testament. And discover that every single one of those words have other words in the Hebrew language that is related to them, that as the big stream or river comes down as it relates to that word, that we find these little smaller rivers and creeks as it relates to the Hebrew language that is speaking to us about prayer, but not in a direct sense as it relates to prayer. One of the great statements of prayer in the Old Testament that you will discover in the lives of the Old Testament saints is when the Bible would speak about them and it would say they stood before the Lord. Now, that's not a direct word that is related to the understanding of prayer in the Hebrew text, but it is very closely connected with that which prayer is about. A statement in the historical books of the Old Testament saying to us that they cried unto the Lord, which is a very famous Old Testament understanding of prayer, which is not one of those Hebrew words, and yet it's related to what prayer is about. They called upon the name of the Lord. One of these sessions, and I'm really looking forward to that. In fact, I had such a struggle today because I was saying to the Lord, I would so love us just to take all these evenings and explore this understanding of prayer. Because, brother and sister, if we can't get through to people, if we can't get through to God, we will never be able to get through to people, you know. I mean, you can't take people further spiritually than we are ourselves. You say, are you underestimating the sovereignty of God? Not one single moment. But there is an understanding of the sovereignty of God that do not nullify my responsibility. And Jesus turned to those early disciples and He said to them, as my Father has sent me, so sent are you. You know the great statement of those early disciples in the Acts of the Apostles in the third chapter when Peter and John went up to the temple at the hour of prayer, and the Bible says there was a man who sat at the gate to the temple asking for alms. Dr. Graham Scroggins, one of my great favorites when it comes to biblical exposition, said he wasn't in need of arms, he was in need of legs. You know, he sat there at the gate of the temple for so long. And then you remember the staggering statement that came from the lips of the Apostle Peter and the Apostle John. They looked upon this man and they said to him, look upon us. And you and I would say in 2008, you know, that's an incredible statement. But brother and sister, they had no New Testament, you know. They were the living ambassadors of the treasure in urban vessels that has been granted to them because of the supremacy and the centrality and the indwelling of the life of Christ. And so Jesus looked upon those early disciples and said to them, as my Father has sent me, so sent are you. You know, there is a sense in that which God has entrusted. And I said to the family that we had dinner together last night, I said, you know, I don't believe in this business of full-time ministry. The moment when we come to Christ, we are in full-time ministry because we are involved in leadership. And a leader is a monomaniac with a mission. He's got a compass in his head and a magnet in his heart. He don't wait for things to happen. He makes them happen. He does not work on the basis of pressure, but he works on the basis of pleasure. His work is not endurance, but it is an enjoyment. And you know, we cannot become great leaders unless we have become great followers. And to me, the essence of what leadership is about is what I would refer to as that we are vacuum creators. We have an intimacy with God, brother and sister, that demands a supernatural explanation. That when men and women come into our presence, that there is a fragrance of the beauty of the life of Christ. You remember what the Apostle Paul said in his epistles? He said, to some we are the fragrance of life, and he said to others, we are the fragrance of death. You know, the Christian life never ever neutralized people. When people came into the presence of Christ, brother and sister, they knew exactly what was it about. That's why in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, when he turned to those followers of him that were called disciples, but they had experiences that was a mile wide and an inch deep. And he turned to them and he said to them, unless you drink the blood of a son of God and you eat his flesh, and you and I know that he was speaking of a marvelous work of redemption. And so when he turned to them and he made that statement, he said, they turned to one another. And the Bible says, and many of his disciples left him, and they didn't follow him anymore. And you know what Jesus did? He did the most controversial thing that no minister in the year 2008 or very few would be willing to do. Because most of us would run after these people and say, you know, maybe the Greek New Testament is not so serious about this issue of the cost of discipleship of what Bunafer spoke of when he said, Jesus Christ bids you to come to him and die. Jesus didn't do that. He did the most controversial thing that you could think of. He turned to those who were still there and he said to them, why don't you also go away? And you remember the apostle Peter in that great statement said, Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Listen, brethren and sisters, we are not doing God a favor to become followers of him. We're not doing. He in the greatness of his life has entrusted unto us the beauty of the life of the Lord Jesus. And it means that I have no option but to commit myself to him unconditionally in every aspect of my relationship with God. So I'm looking forward to know, because when we explore prayer with the understanding that you never get to the place where you really know how to pray. I'm sometimes so frightened when I hear people speaking about this great thing of what prayer is about. And when they speak about prayer, it seems they know it all. You know, those people scare the life out of me. And I sometimes, because we travel to about 30 to 40 countries and on the subject of what prayer is about, and one of the great things that we do is the work of leadership in different countries and take pastors and their wives and leaders of Christian organizations and take them for three days of prayer and just saturate and immerse ourselves in the understanding of prayer. And do not go from the experience of prayer to the exposition of scripture, because you cannot do that. You cannot isolate God's word and to interpret scripture in the light of experience, which is highly volatile and highly unscriptural and very dangerous. You say, what do we do? We go to the exposition of God's word and discover what the Bible is saying to us about prayer and allow the Spirit of God, who witnessed through the word and witnessed through the blood in the efficacy of the blood of Christ, and allow the Spirit of God to take the scriptures and to allow it to become part of our lives. And the consequences of that is the building up of Christian character. You know, we are born with personality, but God is in the process of building up Christian character. And they say to us that 75% of our growth of Christians has been determined by what we read and what we expose ourselves. That's why the Apostle Paul said, be not conformed to this world, but transformed. It's one of two things, you know. It's confirmation or transformation. And he said, be transformed. How does God want this to happen? By the renewing of your mind. And so the wonders. And I, if you are free in these mornings, I'm really looking forward. And what we're going to do is just not explore what prayer is all about, but we're going to spend some great times in prayer together. During this last weekend at a convention that I had the privilege to be part of, I shared, I think it was Sunday night, with the folks that were there, that I learned to pray. I didn't learn to pray in any theological school. And I've had the privilege of studying at three different institutions. But I learned to pray on a mountain in our farm in Africa. And my father was responsible for a cattle ranch in the African bushveld, close to the border of the land of Mozambique. I came to Christ when I was studying theology, brought up in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. I had a mother and a father who were God-fearing people, but they didn't know Christ. And I had a mother, background is German and French. I had a mother, mother came from a German background. And I had a mother who told me that my grandfather, she was one of nine children, and my grandfather on the farm in the Orange Free State, which is one of the provinces of Southern Africa, used to read the Bible through once a year with these nine children. And I would say to my mother, what do you mean when Opa, which we call your grandfather, would do that? And she would say, son, you don't understand. He would read two chapters in the morning, two chapters at night. And she used to tell me on the farm, you know, those days things were different than today, you know. And she would say in the evening after the meal with all the children, my grandfather, one of the children, would bring the Scriptures in those days. And when they would bring the Scriptures, my grandfather would read two chapters of the Scriptures. And then they will all go on their knees to pray as a family. They didn't know Christ, you know. You say, how is that possible? I tell you, it's so possible because it happened in my country. And I just dealt with a Dutchman in Macedonia some time ago. He's been a missionary for more than 20 years and came to me and said, you know, I'm not understanding what you are trying to say, speaking at the missionary conference. And I said to him, give me your testimony of how you were born again. And, you know, he gave me the story and he never witnessed in my heart. So I turned to him and I said to him, I said, listen, I don't, I'm not sure where you are, but do you want me to systematically explain to you God's plan of salvation? There were about 450 missionaries and pastors out of Eastern Europe. And so he said, please, it was 9 o'clock. It normally takes me about three hours to systematically go through God's plan of salvation. Because you go through man's condition, you go through God's provision, you go through man's responsibility, and you go through God's promise. And we would go through about 140 to 150 passages of Scripture. You say, why do you do that? You are doing the most important thing that you can do when you lead someone to Christ. You know what happened? I sat from 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock. You know what he said to me about the Dutch people? He said, you don't understand us. He said, we wear wooden shoes, we've got wooden heads, so we wouldn't listen. I didn't say that. That's what he said to me. But you know what happened to him? Listen, we sat there from 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock. And when we went through, we came to 12. And that's what I do with people, because it's so vital. I mean, I don't want to stand before God and be responsible for not being true to the fullness of the Gospel of Christ. And when we came to 12, and I let him read the Scriptures, we discuss it. And when we came to 12 o'clock, I said, listen. Missionary for more than 20 years, I said, listen, this is a revelation that you've never been born of the Spirit of God, or it's an affirmation that you know Christ. And you know, he just put it through his hands up in the air. He said, I have no assurance that I'm born of the Spirit of God. You know, the greatest thing that happened at the admissions convention in Macedonia is that God saved a Dutchman. I mean, if God can save a Dutchman, he can save everyone. You know what happened, brother and sister? You know what my mother used to tell me? She said, listen, when your grandfather would read two chapters of the Bible at night, and she would say, the family would go on their knees, these big old farmhouses those days in Southern Africa, and your grandfather would go on his knees, all of us, and we would pray, and they would sing a psalm. My mother used to tell me, she would say, son, one of the daughters, there's eight daughters and one son, one of the daughters would slip out of the dining room and go into the kitchen, begin to wash all the dishes, finish them off, and come back, and my grandfather was still praying. And you know, they didn't know Christ. They did not know Christ. And we were brought up in circumstances where when you talk about being born of the Spirit of God, we didn't talk about those things really. And we would say, it's presumptuous. And we would say, you know, it will happen in its time. And the majority of us expected to have a Damascus Road experience. And so you say, what happened? I went to study theology. And right at the end of my first year, fellow student turned to me and he said, if you die tonight, where will you spend eternity? And I discovered that I was never born of the Spirit of God. Three o'clock in the morning, the Lord saved me gloriously. Stood up and testified in a testimony meeting on the Tuesday night to our faculty and fellow students. And you know what happened? Three other students got gloriously converted. It was tremendous. And I went back to my mother and my father. And my mother and my father, brother and sister, they would go to church on Sunday. I mean, we sometimes used to say, children in the darks would even bark on a Sunday, you know. I mean, you know, it was atrocious. But that's what happened. And my mother and my father, I couldn't say to my mother, if you are a Christian, these are the kind of things that you do. Because I had a mother who would turn to me and say, son, I've done these things all my life. I couldn't say to my father, Papa, if you are a Christian, this is what you don't do. Because I would have had a father that would say to me, I don't do these things, son. And so you say, what happened? I came to my mother and father at the end of my first year, went back to for our December, what we call vacation in North America. I think we call it holidays here or whatever in this country. But, you know, I went back and you know what happened? When I went back, I couldn't preach to them. But I was hardly home for about a week or so. When I came back from the town one day and when I came into our farmhouse, my mother turned to me and she just said to me, there's this black African pastor that wants to see you. And I said to her, where is he? And I had a little cottage about 50 yards from our farmhouse. And she said, he's in your little cottage. And I said, what does he want? She said, I don't know. And I walk into that little cottage and brother and sister, when I walk into that little cottage, this black African man sat there and I turned to him and I said to him, we're going to discuss theology. And you know what? He just turned to me and he said, no. And I said, what are we going to do? And you know what he said to me? He said, we're going to pray. I thought afterwards, you know, what he really said is that we're going to be involved in neology. I think that's what he said. He said, we're going to pray. And you know what happened? Before I could say a word, this black African pastor fell on his knees on the floor of my little study and my little cottage. And he climbed underneath the burden of God in prayer. We're going to explore this word on one of these mornings, because it's the Hebrew word Masah. It's based upon revelation. And he climbed underneath the burden of God. And brother and sister, for an hour and a half, I was exposed to a life that was intoxicated and saturated with the presence of God. He said, what happened? Well, you know what happened? I sensed the presence of God. People often say to me, what is the presence of God? Can you define the presence of God? Are you able to explain the presence of God? And you know what I say to those people? I can't always define the presence of God. And I can't always explain it. But you know what? I always know when it is not there. And he prayed for about an hour and a half. And you know, this man was amazing. His name was Peter Osmanipa. Just a short little African man. He got on his knees and he was praying. And I was sitting as I watched him praying. He was praying. And what we would refer to as Northern Sutu, a dialect that I was familiar with. And he was praying in this African dialect. And as he was praying, I sat and I watched him. And something inside began to break. I don't know if you ever come into the presence of people and they have such an intimacy with God. When you come into their presence, it's like Robert Murray McChane, you know, the man that used to say, how can the Holy Spirit in you criticize the Holy Spirit in me? And Robert Murray McChane is the one that said, so much of my time of praying is preparing myself how to pray. And as this man prayed, I became so vulnerable. And I sat there and I got on my knees. And you know what, brother and sister? There were moments when the tears were just streaming down my cheeks. Because as this man was underneath this burden of God. And you say, what happened? He took the burden of God and he was dissecting the burden of God. Because you can't pray the burden of God through. You need to dissect it and systematically persevere and prevail and agonize through to God as it relates to prayer. And you know, when he came to the end of his prayer, I had nothing to say about theology. You say, why? Because I was confronted with a fiasco of theology. This black African little pastor, we sat down and you know, have you ever been in a meeting where you just dumbfounded and you don't know what he's saying? I just sat there because I didn't know that people could have a level of intimacy with God that was so unique, that so focused on the centrality of the life of Christ. And I just sat there. And I never forget this. It was in the years of apartheid. And he just turned to me and he just said to me, there is this little mountain. We spoke of them as copies, small little mountains in Northern Transvaal and Southern Africa. And he said, there is this little mountain in your farm. And he said, there are six of us. And we spent days and nights of prayer and fasting. You know how they looked upon fasting? They looked upon fasting as praying without words. You know, fasting is a beautiful word in the Hebrew language. It goes to the depth of humility to the degree that humility does not just become a discipline, but it becomes a disposition in our relationships with God. And he just turned there and he said, that's what we do. And he didn't sit too long. He walked out of my little cottage. I didn't know if I would ever see him again. And I will never forget, it was a Friday night, about nine o'clock at night. Do you know what happened, brother and sister? I was sitting in my little cottage and there was, and if you know Africa, you know, the nights get so dark, you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. And I was sitting in my little cottage at nine o'clock. It was a knock at the window. And when I opened the curtain, you know what? I couldn't see his face. You say, why not? Because he was as black as Africa. You know, some of them are blue black. I mean, really, I couldn't see his face. You say, what did you see? I saw the white teeth. And he just turned to me and he said to me, the African dialect, he said, we are going to the mountain to pray. And I will never forget that night. Young theological student, just been saved for about four or five weeks. And here's this black African pastor and five others. And they were singing. And if you know the African people, and I teach in some seminaries in Africa. If you know these African people, there aren't many people who can sing now like them, you know. And they were singing as we were walking. And as we were walking, I was struck with this thing. How do you spend a night in prayer? What do you say to God? How do you process this thing of communion with God and intercession and fellowship and thanksgiving and the understanding of the burden of God and the concept of agony that comes from the word agonazumai, that found its meaning of the root understanding, which is agon, that found its meaning in the Roman Empire, when the wrestlers would wrestle in the presence of the emperor. And as they would do that, sometimes they would wrestle them. And those amphitheaters, theaters, they would wrestle themselves to death. And I thought, how do they do this? And I will never forget, you know. Oh, I tell you, as we were walking, I wanted to know. And in the eagerness of the arrogance of the inadequacy and the stupidity of my young Christian experience, I reach out and I grabbed the arm of this black African pastor. And in the darkness of the night, he turned around. And you know what? I'm so glad I couldn't see his eyes, because they were pierced into my soul. And I just said to him, Peter Osmanipa, how do you spend the night in prayer? What do you say to God? How do you process this mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically? How do you handle the depth of the reality of God? And I will never forget this, in the darkness of the night, this black African man turned to me, and he just said to me, you know what? You have a very big problem. Do you know what he said? You are in a hurry, and God is not. And he said, you're going to learn what it means to wait. You know, Dr. Samuel Chatwick said, hurry is the death. It's the death of prayer. He said, what did you learn from those men? I want us to pray together before we turn to the Scripture. He said, what did you learn from those men? You know what I learned from them? They would drill into the inadequacy of my... And brother and sister, let me just comfort your heart. They were not some of these people, you know, are in all this stuff today, that is nothing else, but manifestations that are leading to psychological wrecks. None of that stuff. You say, where did they come from? You thought, why are you saying this to me? I need to tell you that. They were Presbyterians, you know. But I tell you something, they had an understanding, because they were students of the Puritans, and they had an understanding of the nature and the character of God, as it relates to prayer, that was absolutely unbelievable. That when they come into the presence of God, and they were conscious of their depravity, and the desperateness of what their needs were, and then discover the majesty and the righteousness of God, and see the possibilities of the unfolding of His will, there was nothing that was impossible in the unfolding of the will of God, as it relates to prayer. So, you say, what did you learn from them? Oh, they would just drill into my little young heart, and they would say to me, you can't walk with God in the basis of all the things that you try to accomplish for God. And you know what? I would say to them, what do you mean? And they would say to me, ministry is the consequences of walking with God. And they would say to me, if you want God to be with you in the rest of your life in ministry, you know, I'm also afraid to talk about this thing, people talk about my ministry. I don't think we are the ministry, you know. We are involved in the ministry of reconciliation. And brethren and sisters, can I tell you something tonight? God don't need any one of us, you know. You say, what are you talking about? God can do His work far better without us, you know. And there are times, maybe you are like me, I'm married to a Canadian, and my Janice is a cool, calm, calculated, controlled Canadian, you know, just level-headed, and how I need her, because I'm an African. And my problem with my precious wife Janice is, her voice so often sounds like the voice of the Holy Spirit, you know, oh brother, you know, you never win when it comes to that, because she's in touch with God. But you know what happens? There are times that she finds me in the corner of my library, sometimes three or four o'clock in the morning under a blanket. You say, what are you doing under a blanket in Canada? I'm praying under a blanket because it's cold in Canada, you know. And she would lift this thing off, and as she lifted it off, she said, what is it? And I would say to her, my darling, it's the reason for my existence. Can I ask you tonight, why did God save us? Why did He come into our hearts, you know? Why is it so precious that in the redemption work of Christ and Calvary, if you were the only one on the planet earth, He still would have sent His Son, you know. He loved the world He gave Him. So why do I exist as a Christian? Why did He come into my life? And so they would say to me, if God is going to use you in the years to come, you need to live a broken Christian life. I wonder tonight if I could ask you, is your heart broken for this country? You know, we've made a covenant with God, and my dear precious wife holds me accountable. And Janice would say to me, before we go to a country, she said, is your heart broken for the country? And I will never forget the first time Robert and Karen, I knew them from years ago in Northern Ireland. And they were students in a theological school, and I had the joy of speaking at the school and got to know them then. And then when they came to Australia, and we tried to keep in touch now and again. And when that invitation came nine years ago, and Robert said, would you consider to come to this Easter convention? And I said, you know, we need to pray about this, brother and sister. You can't just go, you know. I mean, you can't just go. And I said, we need to pray about this. And we prayed, and we prayed, and I wouldn't have touched this country if God didn't break my heart. And I remember coming to Australia, you know, it's an unbelievable flight. You fly, you feel you're flying right around the world to come to this boat in this ocean, you know. I mean, it's a big boat, but you feel it's like that. But brother and sister, I'll never forget when the plane came to land in Australia, you know, my heart was so broken. Let me encourage you tonight, this is a very difficult country spiritually, very difficult. I mean, we've just come through a drought. You have not seen the spiritual drought in Australia, because you know, if you will see it, it will so break your heart in pieces. You will probably disintegrate. This is a very difficult country spiritually, but you know what God is looking for? Broken people. So, let me ask you tonight, ever ask God to give you a broken heart? Hey, you know what? Brokenness is not emotion. Don't you ever think that. Brokenness is a lifestyle that comes out of the life of Christ, that when He said the son can do nothing unless he sees the father doing it. When He said, my father worked hitherto, and He said, so do I. And you discover the depth of His submissiveness, and the greatness of His humanity, being the Son of God, but totally at the disposal of the life of His Father, and the fact that He is God. You say, what is it? It's brokenness. That's what they would say to me. And you know what they would say to me? You can't go into this thing called ministry if you don't know the unction of the Spirit of God. Brethren and sisters, there is no power without purity, you know. No power without purity. That's why, you know, when we deal with prayer, when we deal with prayer, you're dealing with an understanding that God will not answer prayer if I'm not rightly related to Him. You're dealing with an understanding that you can't separate the answers of prayer from that which God is doing in our own relationship with Him. I want us to spend some time in prayer together before we turn to the Scriptures, and maybe if you would mind asking me, doing this because we have chairs, what I would like you to do is to find three or four or five people. We are able to turn these chairs around. This is what I want you to do. I want you to turn to those people and ask them, is there anything that I can pray for you about? If there's nothing to pray about specifically, then you just spend some time in prayer. Now, if you don't feel comfortable doing that, you can just be on your own, or if you just want to pray of your wife, that's fine, but I just want us to spend a little time in prayer together, and then we can attend to the Scriptures. So, can we do that? Just find three or four or five people and put your chairs around, and let's spend some time in prayer.