In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the grace, forgiveness, and power available to sinners through Jesus Christ. He highlights Jesus' role as a teacher and preacher, as well as his ability to heal diseases. The speaker emphasizes Jesus' compassion for the multitudes who were like sheep without a shepherd. He also encourages believers to pray for more laborers to be sent into the harvest field. The sermon includes personal testimonies of how God is working in the lives of ordinary people, such as a Vietnamese refugee boat encounter and the growth of the Mexican church in sending out missionaries.

You all came out tonight and I hope before you go tonight that you'll personally go up and introduce yourself to to George and I think that maybe you're going to want to find a card and get on their mailing list for prayer letters. I know that this is on the heart of George is to increase the number of people that pray for him daily. I've known George now for maybe 11 years and I can only share one amusing thing, it might be the lightest thing about this evening, but George came in from overseas to Los Angeles some years back and one of his men called me and asked if we could use George to a luncheon. We had an old hotel, we had everything, the whole spectrum of humanity in this hotel and we had a number of housewives that were interested in putting on a luncheon and we had lawyers, we had bankers, we had young men that were still on drugs, we had a cross-section of absolutely everything and George took a look around and said, I've never spoken to a mixed group like this and then proceeded to hold forth all afternoon. I remember one point he took his shoes off and got up on top of the piano and showed us slides of the Logos. But when, I'd never met George, I didn't know who I was looking for and I was standing in the lobby and I saw this man come through the door with two satchels weighted down and he was dressed just about the way he is tonight, casual, and I said, that can only be a salesman and I turned to the young guy at the desk and I said, I don't know what you're going to do to get rid of him but be sure and get rid of him because George Verwer is coming and I want to meet him, I want to be tied up with a salesman. And George went up to the desk and said, I'm George Verwer, where's Harry Clow? And if I was, I must have been as red as some of these coats and sweaters I see around here and I've never told George that story but it's, those two bags weren't brochures on the latest plumbing fixtures, those were tracks and since I've known George since then it's really been a pleasure to work with him. It's been a pleasure every time we can corner him to come here and since we've moved to the valley this has been my prayer that one day we would have this privilege and also that he found us. He said up until a year ago, he didn't even know where this valley was until he looked on a map and said, I'll never get there. Well the Lord had different plans. So I'm going to turn the program over to him and George. Thank you. It's wonderful to see the hand of the Lord working. One of the reasons I came west, I was actually brought to the states by a large church in Iowa. I hardly ever get to Iowa either. Then it did seem that I should stay on a little longer and two very close friends were getting married in New Mexico and in God's providence they're here right now. They were married Saturday. I had a chance even to, to my surprise, say a word at the wedding and then I found out later they're honeymooning within a few miles of here. If that isn't God's providence I don't know what is. And then a dear friend and his wife Luke Wilson is also here tonight. Arranged one or two meetings in Denver for us and all kinds of things have come together. It's a privilege to be back with Harry and his family for a while. Their one daughter was on OM. I'm just amazed at the providence of the Lord to bring us here. I was in Aspen years ago. Of course Greg Livingston, one of my very close friends, was the pastor there. But I flew in. I wasn't even sure where I was. I just flew in and flew out. I knew it was a famous ski resort. But we're just thrilled to be here tonight. We really believe God wants to work. I never want to take a meeting where the Lord doesn't work. I don't have to take this meeting tonight. A lot of my friends are begging me to take more time off and less meetings. A lot of my work now involves letters and phone calls. As there's 1,600 people now in Operation Mobilization that I sense a responsibility toward. But I just can't stop taking meetings because the Holy Spirit works in these meetings. We've come as a team. I'm going to introduce some of the team members. John Wright's been driving us around in his motorhome, which we don't have here right now, full of books. John, maybe you could stand. He's from Iowa. He leaves his work to take us around and he does all these cassette tapes. You see a lot of cassette tapes. He duplicates those as unto the Lord. You can get them almost at the price of the blank tape. So it's a great opportunity. And then we have Ray Cooper, who's going to come up and share in a minute, from New Jersey. Headed back to India. Stand up, Ray. That wasn't very much of a stand. My wife and my secretary are with me, but the secretary's working and my wife's resting. She's got been to more Burwar meetings than anybody should ever have to go to. So forgive them for not coming tonight. And we've got two people to take their place because the honeymooners just, boy, it's a big thing. Come out of their little hideaway. Nocha Morris and Dallas Meyer. And I wonder if Dallas, you'd come up and share. I didn't have enough courage to ask you to share on your honeymoon. The pastor's more courageous than I am. He grabbed him as he came in the door. Nocha's from New Mexico. Very unique town, Taos. 300 years of heritage, I was told, when I was there recently. That's probably more than you have around here. But Dallas, would you come up? Dallas has been on the ship a couple of years. Nocha's been with us 10 years, who knows how long, in India. One of our main women's leaders. But it's good to start off the marriage letting the man speak. So Dallas, just share anything that's on your heart about the ship ministry, perhaps. Maybe a testimony, whatever. And it's been, I can say honestly, one of the greatest experiences in my life. Not because we visit many countries, because that gets old. Not because we're working with an international team, because that's not always easy. But because God has worked in my own life, through the team, in the countries that we've visited. But God has done wonderful things in my own life. And I've witnessed that. And I've seen God do many miraculous things in other people's lives as well. And I think the greatest testimony, for me, about the whole ship ministry, is to see lives change. People that come and work on board the ship, you see them come, one or two years later they go, they return perhaps to their own home church, they return and work with another missionary organization, or wherever they go, but to see God work in their lives. And we know for a fact that God is alive and working. And I'm sure that each of you know that, here. But it's a real testimony for us to see that happen, with person after person that comes. And I think Nocha and I are also just examples, or just not examples, I should say, but just in our own lives, we can be testimonies of that very fact, that God is working in our lives and He's doing wonderful things. Perhaps in the last year, last two years, that I've spent on the Lagos in Asia and the Far East, two things come to my mind. The one thing is about a year and a half ago, the ship was sailing from Hong Kong to Thailand, Songkhla, Thailand. And after about four or five days at sea, we came across a refugee boat, a Vietnamese refugee boat. Two days later we came across another boat. We took those refugees on board the ship, we took them to Thailand, and through negotiations they were able to go to various countries. One of the most miraculous things was to see many of those refugees come to know the Lord. And we've kept in contact with various ones. And today they're in different countries, they're members of local churches, and God is doing a wonderful thing in their lives. Just to see that happen was an absolute miracle, was an absolute miracle. The second thing was just about a year ago, just about a year ago, that we saw the Lord answer prayer in a wonderful way to bring the Lagos into China. And probably some of you, most of you perhaps are even aware of that, but God answered prayers of Christians all over the world. And it's so vitally important that each of you be involved in prayer, not only for OM, but for other Christians that you know, missionaries, or for various Christian works and organizations, and for your own church, because God does answer prayer. He really does. Thanks so much for the opportunity of being here. Amen. Well we feel very special that you took time to be with us, and we hope that many of you will see this as the providence of the Lord and pray for them. Most of these people that go overseas with OM do not have a lot of people praying for them. They do not go all over the country trying to get some kind of support. They go as God sends them and as their own local church is willing to pray. So to get a few more people praying for them, they'll be going to Spain very soon, and who knows where, back to the ship and other places. I talked to the ship last night, it's in Puerto Rico, so it's easy to talk to, and they're in a very hard time. Having torrential rain in Puerto Rico has cut down the number of people coming. The number one generator has broken down again. They were not able to get some steel that they needed to get when they were in Florida, and they do need our prayers. There's 300 converted, born again staff and crew, working on this 6,000 ton ship that he lost. It really is an impossible venture. Not just getting it started. Getting it started was no more impossible than keeping it going. Just getting fuel. We're talking about a ship that uses 13, 14, 15 tons of fuel a day. A day when she's sailing. So it's a miracle each year it keeps on going. It's a ship built in 1914. It's the oldest passenger ship in the world. It's a testimony to the mercy of God. Because for the ship to buy today would be 30 million dollars. It would just be out of the question. We got the ship floating with all certificates for less than a million dollars. And that's a home for 300 people. Many of these young people have sold their homes to go and work on the ship. The surveyors, you know, if you have a ship, the surveyor has to come in. These are tough-minded marine men. Everything that's wrong on the ship has to be put right or you lose your license. And this man came from Italy. Flew over to Italy to inspect the ship when it was in Argentina. And as he went through the ship, he just couldn't believe it. And he said, this ship's been born again. This ship's been born again. 1914, still sailing. Carries two, three hundred tons of literature. Sometimes has 20,000 people in one day. Almost all of them receive the word of God. It's just, it's gone beyond really our expectation. The recent visit to Mexico, I was preaching at a pastor's conference. Because the ship is many things. It's not a matter of just giving out literature. It's 15 ministries, some of them very much in-depth ministries going on at the same time. And the greatest need in the world today is to see pastors on fire for Christ. You know, in Sri Lanka, many of the pastors when we went there were communists. The whole Methodist movement in Sri Lanka was taken over by communism pretty well. And a Methodist communist was born again immediately. I was preaching it. I think Frank Dietz prayed it. Now we went back again because we keep going back. And this man is now leading a major thrust across the island. Touching hundreds for Christ. And I was preaching about 200 pastors in Mexico. My Spanish is terrible. It's 19 years ago since I spoke much Spanish. But somehow the Holy Spirit took it out of the realm of the grammar. And I thought I was really offending these people because the challenge of the message was Mexican church grow up. And I brought this illustration how Mexicans pray on the basis of Matthew 9, Lord of the Harvest, to send forth more gringos into the harvest. More Americans into the harvest. I said a few other interesting things. And 104 of those pastors took out money to buy a copy of the cassette. And they stood up and said, we've got to take this message by cassette to everybody in Mexico. Because it's time we as a Mexican church grow up. And start sending out our own missionaries. And pray the Lord of the Harvest will send out Mexicans into the harvest field. And that's beginning to happen. Slowly. And same in Argentina and other places. Well, we could talk a long time about that. It's a great privilege to be able to focus in on that a little bit. Let's jump from Toulouse out to India. You know, to me it's exciting that you can be tucked away here in the mountains of Colorado and touch the world for Christ through prayer. If I lived out here I'd feel isolated. I live in London. I've got 9 million neighbors. Bombay with 4 million. I lived in Mexico City with 9 million. I lived in Brussels. I've lived in Paris. I've lived in Madrid. I've lived in Catalan. Dude, I was pretty small up there tucked in the Himalayas with a half a million. But here, man, I would really feel isolated especially eating 9 months a year trudging through white stuff. But, you know, by faith you don't have to be isolated. You can touch the world. You can get one of these maps of the world. We're going to make the greatest book bargain package I think in the history of my tours of the United States. I'm just really going to offer something special I've never done before. But with it you can get one of these maps of the world, put this up in your room, put it over the front of your television, wherever you want, and begin to realize that God wants you to be a world Christian. It's not a matter of all jumping on your skis and skiing out to Nepal. But through prayer, first through prayer, we can touch the ends of the earth. And I hope you'll do that. So right now with our eye of faith we're going to go out to India. I don't know where India is. It's only 700 million people in that little country. It's not really, it's about double the size of Texas, 700 million. More people there than all of South America. And Africa put together you can throw in Colorado. Just in that one country. You know we often think God is looking for special, super spiritual, over dedicated, double filled with the spirit people to go out to be missionaries. You know if you wait for those kind of missions though you're going to die of loneliness. God sends out ordinary people. And the Lord was looking around New Jersey. And there was a young man riding around his dirt bike and fixing his old van to travel up to Alaska to do his own thing. He wasn't a great preacher. He wasn't super spiritual that's for sure. I know because he's my nephew. And you know it's always hard to believe God can do anything in your family. You always believe God can do something in the other person's family. I only have one sister. So I don't have a great abundance of nephews. And we went out rock climbing once and we'd like to do some of that tomorrow. And somehow he came to Europe. The Lord was working in his heart and he ended up doing a little mechanic work on the ship. He stayed for a year, stayed for another year. To everybody's surprise he went on to India for two years. Now he's back. Of course when he came back some girl was chasing him. We knew he could get a good job and we figured that's the end. But he said goodbye to this girl. He said goodbye to the job. The guy was a crook anyway. And he's going back to India. So it's a joy to introduce Ray Cooper who really would like to go to India tomorrow. We keep dragging him around on this trip, carry our books to just come up and share. Anyway that's a terrible introduction Ray. I really feel bad about that. But just share anything that's on your heart Ray. And I hope some of you are going to pray for Ray Cooper as he goes back to India. It's really true that a lot of us I think that go out or grew up in a church situation never thought about missionaries. I can remember as a kid when missionary speakers would come there was kind of a, you know, among the young people group, you know, who's going to ever do that? And I really, if I look back six years I can see that there was no way that I was ever going to be involved in missions. I came to know the Lord as a child when I was about nine years old through the Bible club movement. And I praise the Lord that I did come to know him at a young age and through my high school years. So I didn't want to, I was kind of trying to ride a middle of the road type of thing where I didn't want to really live for Christ and I didn't want to let my light shine for him. But at the same time I didn't want to get involved in what was going on in my school and, you know, in the drug thing and drink and just everything else. And so it was really, looking back it was a miserable time because in the Christian life we can't walk the center of the road, middle of the road and be happy. And that's right where I was. I went to technical high school and took up mechanics and when I finished school I had a job, pretty good job as a mechanic. And at the end of that year I asked my boss for a raise and he said, you know, you have to wait a few more months before you get a raise. And so another guy had already offered me a job for another dollar more an hour and I was ready to change jobs. And about that same time I got a letter from George and he challenged me to come for two months on their summer program. And I just hadn't been involved in any type of evangelism or tracting. I mean I was real shy when it came to anything like that. And I had never confronted anybody maybe once, you know, with the gospel. But this appealed to me to go over and help out as a mechanic because that was my trade. And so I went to their conference down in Memphis, Tennessee that year before going over to Europe and I saw a lot of young people my own age that really knew the reality of walking with Jesus Christ every day. They had that reality in their daily lives and it was something that I didn't have. I hadn't seen it before but I knew it was something that I wanted. And so at that conference it was a time of recommitment and just getting right with the Lord and a time of saying, Lord I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to become what you want me to be. And so I went that summer over to Belgium and I ended up staying for pretty much the last five years like George said in different places. And I can see how the Lord has worked in my own life in a process and he's been able to work in me and change me and change the way my values, what I think is important, what I really want to pour my life into. And it's not something that happened overnight, it wasn't my first two weeks on a whim but it's been a process in my own life where the Lord's been able to work in me and I just praise the Lord that he has made some changes. For the last two and a half years I've been out in India and my job pretty much out there was to keep these old trucks that we have going. We buy them real cheap in Europe and drive them overland and get them out to India and fill them up with New Testaments and Gospel packets and then we go village to village and drop the tailgate down and one of the Indian brothers there will get up and will sing a song first and then will preach the Gospel in the local dialect or language of the people there. And then distribute the literature shop to shop and person to person confronting people with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so a large part of my job was to keep those trucks going and of course I was involved on the teams as well going out with the literature and the other part of my job was to train up Indian brothers who could do what I do and when I leave they would be able to take more of the responsibility. And going back to India this time that's a lot of what I want to be involved in. Involved in building up brothers there who can do what I do and who will be able to carry on and who will be able to build into the church in India and that's what I want to be involved in wherever I go is to be building into the local fellowship, the local church and contributing as a servant there in any way I can. I think the one thing that the Lord has taught me out in India was that it wasn't so much of what I could give to them or how I was going to help them but it was what the Lord was going to teach me many times through the Indian brothers there and through the relationships with people on the teams. So going back I don't want to go as somebody who's going to be telling them what to do and how to do it and being the head honcho but I want to go as a brother and get alongside them and be able to encourage them and build into their lives and I want to go back and be a servant there for as long as I can. Thanks Ray. I hope you'll pray for Ray. Now I've just really appreciated your ministry of music here and I think it's good if we just sing another hymn that will challenge us, 356. You know the greatest book in the English language of the thousand or so books I've gone over I believe is Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones book Spiritual Depression. I never cease to be amazed by this book. The title puts some people off but it's really a handbook on spiritual reality, the disciplined life, faith, not being weary and well doing, chastening, trials, peace of God. Just a great book. That's available for any of you. Born for Babel, a book about the ministry of intercessory prayer just recently republished. Probably the first time you've ever seen it. And these parts I don't think you're overwhelmed with Christian bookshops up in this area. You know you may never see this material again. Some of you of course might want to get a vision to take quantity of this tonight. Set up a book table in your own home. That's how I started about 25 years ago. There are a number of other books, especially the writings of A.W. Tozer. He's the strongest writer I think in contemporary English. Just of course went to be with the Lord a few years ago. I just can't believe some of the things this man just digs into and rips out of our superficial Christian way of thinking. Now some of you may also be interested in this cassette album that John Wright has produced. And we're giving this for either $12 or a $15 special. All these books with the cassette album for $15. And your check can be postdated up to one year. This is the entire missions conference. You know I'd love to stay here and minister every night. I don't like these one night stands. But I'm only one person. This is when I went up to the Prairie Bible Institute. Not far north here a few paces. Calgary, Canada or Prairie whatever that place is called. Three hills. If you close your eyes for a minute you go right by it except for the Bible school. And I shared there night after night for about four days and there's the ministry I shared. Including a message to the high school young people. They have a high school there. What the Bible says about sex. And including a message to all the leaders who were there called leaders pitfalls that I feel very strong about. I really believe a lot of our leaders here in North America are deceived. I'm not saying I'm better than them. But I really believe there's a deceptive spirit that has crept into some of even the greatest men. That doesn't mean God's not using them. God is merciful. But it's something that we should understand. For example the tendency for everything in America to be exaggerated. It's not a minor thing. It's a rotten part of our culture. That missionary magazines come out giving statistics that anybody with half a brain knows are exaggerated but no one says anything about it. A lot of other things along this line that seem to be just part and parcel of our culture. And I talk about this. It's the first time I ever gave that message. To the leaders gathered up there in the church. So this material really is part and parcel of our meeting with you tonight. John Wesley believed the ministry through print was as important as preaching. And everybody who was on Wesley's team that moved across Europe and brought hundreds of thousands into the kingdom. Every one of them had to be involved in distributing books. And I feel every one of you should be involved in distributing books. I'm not saying huge quantities but at least a few. Somebody comes up to you and asks how to be saved. Do you have a piece of literature to give them on how to be saved? Or a book? And I just really believe God has brought us together tonight that we may act on some of these things we hear. I'm not going to say a lot about Operation Mobilization. We've already heard something. There's a booklet that you can pick up as you leave touching almost every single ministry we're involved in. About 20 different ministries in 35 different nations. It may sound big but it all started very small 25 years ago. And we're not interested in emphasizing the bigness. We're more interested in emphasizing the reality that every individual in the body of Christ can have. Every individual. Whether you're working here or you're working in some place out in the middle of India. Now let's pray and ask the Lord to help us as we share together from the word of God. Lord we thank you for the privilege of being here. We believe it is in your plan and purpose. And we believe that you've called us to act. Tonight is the night of acting. Doing. Steps of faith. And we believe you're going to show each one of us what it is you want us to do. We thank oh God of your son the Lord Jesus said that if we loved you and if we loved him we would keep your and his commandments. We want to do that. We want an extra spirit of obedience to come upon our hearts. We know that to obey is better than sacrifice. We want you to expose any areas of disobedience in our lives. Any areas where Lord we're wandering away from your perfect will. And turn to be your men and to be your women to go where you want us to go and to do what you want us to do whatever the cost. Grant that we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's look at some scriptures starting in Matthew chapter 9. I want to just weave into this my own testimony which I hope might be a little encouragement to some of you. Some of you that maybe sometimes find the Christian life a struggle. I certainly do. You're not looking at any super saint tonight. But there's grace for sinners. There's forgiveness for sinners. There's power for sinners. And this is what the Gospels, what the whole New Testament is all about. Now in chapter 9 of Matthew we find the Lord Jesus. Verse 35. Going about every city and village teaching. He was a teacher. There's many other things. In the synagogues preaching the gospel. He was a preacher. Of the kingdom and healing every sickness. He healed every disease among the people. When he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them. I want to emphasize that tonight. Motivation. He was moved with compassion on them. Because they were faint and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples. The harvest truly is plentiful but the workers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Isn't that just loaded with vision and with challenge? Just that little section of scripture? There was a little elderly woman who lived near my home who knew how to pray. Do you know how to pray? You know if you don't know how to pray then somehow you are still in God's kindergarten. I don't care whatever else you can do. If you do not know how to pray you have not grown past kindergarten. And even in kindergarten, God's kindergarten, people pray. The only other thing is you could be totally backslidden and once knew how to pray you don't pray anymore. There's no way we can be Christians. No way we can follow Christ without knowing prayer. It's impossible. And remember we are now a religious, a great religious nation. Religion here means money. Religion here means a job. We got 10 million unemployed. You want to get a job you can get in the religious scene and get a job quicker than you can in the non-religious scene. And we must somehow come to grips with the reality of where we are as a nation and somehow realize that there can be no true New Testament faith without prayer. Without prayer in our personal life, without prayer in our families, without prayer in our churches. You have to rip out every other chapter in the book of Acts. Peter was in prison but the church was gathered together praying and then God performed a miracle. Paul was in prison at midnight when every sane man should be asleep but he was praying and worshiping God. I was only converted a few hours and I knew that prayer was my vital breath. Not missed praying as far as I know any day since my conversion 27 years ago. That's as normal as walking. And it's a subtle trick of the enemy that somehow we don't sense prayer as a vital breath of the church. So we find even great evangelical churches, great bible believing churches, separatist churches, you name it we've got everything in America that's ever been named. And you get to these people and you find they don't know how to pray and then you wonder why the pastor is soon going to be divorced or why the choir is going to be discovered all involved in some homosexual activity. And while this thing is happening and that thing is happening we don't talk about what happened to Hal Lindsey, we don't talk about what happened to Bill Gothard's brother, we just go on and on and on and think we're just some great crowd of bible believing evangelical people. Nobody wants to blow a whistle. You think if Isaiah came back he'd blow a whistle, my friends? You think if Jeremiah rose from the dead and came back to our churches he would say anything or would he just sit down at the midweek snack? We usually have socials midweek and tell us all how wonderful we're doing. I'm scared. I don't want to be an alarmist and I've written a book against extremism so hear me out to the end, but I'm scared. I believe we're deceived. A.W. Tozer said we've measured ourselves by ourselves for so long there are no longer higher plateaus in the things of the spirit. And there's so little discipline in the church of Jesus Christ you can be like two elders that were sitting on a train with a friend of mine on the way to Scotland they were discussing the high price of prostitutes in London. Only when my friend got off the train he discovered they were both leading elders in the local bible believing assembly. I believe we need to go back to the word of God and ask the Lord to purge us of that which is not pleasing to him. And I believe our prayerlessness is one of the greatest sins in the church today. Jesus spent whole nights in prayer. Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Jesus when he pointed us to the great harvest field millions without the gospel lost in sin said pray, pray. That's the first command. We have a lot of young people who want to join O.M. before they even learn how to pray. Of course we take them, but the first thing we teach them is how to pray. That's not easy. The harvest is plenteous, the laborers are few, pray, pray, pray. Anyway this dear little woman lived near my house and knew how to pray. I didn't know how to pray, I was a sinner. I was lost already at 16, I owned three little businesses, I was a self-centered, egocentric, little money lover, pleasure lover. My mother didn't have a clue what I was into every other week in the nightclubs in New York. And this lady found out about me and my bad conduct. I was even blacklisted in the high school for bad conduct and she started to pray and she prayed for me for three years. You know the high school is one of the greatest mission fields in America. And we in our churches should be just agonizing and crying out to God for our high schools. Do you think the answer? Do you think the answer is Christian education? We are the seed my friends. If we think the answer is Christian education because we're graduating a whole generation of young people out of these Christian schools who aren't that much better really than those who came out of the pagan schools like me. Because you see you can give a man a Christian education, you can fill his hand, but only the Holy Spirit, only a deep work of grace can fill his heart. And Christianity isn't firstly taught, it's taught. I'm not against Christian education, I'm not against being taught, of course not. But there's got to be something more. Anyway this lady knew there's something more. Prayer. She had been praying for this high school for 15 years. And this is an ordinary American woman. She wasn't trained in cross-cultural evangelism. She hadn't yet got to a marriage seminar, they didn't have marriage seminars back then, they just had good marriages, not all of them. She hadn't been to a lot of these other things, she wasn't a seminary graduate, we must not get that mixed up. And praise God that there are some good seminaries and praise God that our seminaries graduate a few men who know how to pray. Don't misunderstand me, but I tell you it's a remnant, it's a shrinking remnant. She prayed for 15 years for that high school. She prayed for people to be saved and sent. You know what we pray? Saved and satisfied. Saved to sit and be satisfied. And as long as we feel we're going to heaven, what's the difference? And I don't know, the Lord must be, of course He is, He's merciful. That's why He holds back judgment, even upon the church. But I've seen churches judged and it's a terrible sight when God takes His hand off the church and just lets them do what they want. A young missionary's son turned on his father some years ago and blew his head off with a gun. I've seen things the last 25 years I could not tell you in a public meeting. When God just takes His hand off and says, okay, just go your own way. People just go wild, even in the church. God is merciful, He doesn't do that quickly, He doesn't do that quickly. He just loves us. We know that our salvation is by grace through the finished work of Christ on the cross. It's not by words, it's not by becoming disciples, it's not by having a vision, it's not by responding to what I preach tonight, it's by that saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But when we experience that and we know Christ personally, something is going to happen. Was it Luther who said, saving faith, true faith, was a revolutionary thing. Something like that. So she prayed for this school for 15 years. I came in toward the end of that period and she prayed for me. She sent me a Gospel of John through the post. It's amazing what can be done with Christian literature. I've written a book on Christian literature, I didn't even bring it up here, nobody ever buys it much. I didn't feel like giving it away tonight, I'm giving so many other things away. But it's there, I guess it cost a dollar. Christian literature. Christian literature. What could be done from it? The world would never know. I have something in my Bible, well I left my Bible at someone else's house, but I don't have that clipping, but basically it's a story of a man who was just about to hang himself in his own home. And somebody banged on the door, giving out leaflets. You know, the most superficial work, giving out leaflets. I mean, whoever gets help for a Christian leaflet. Banged on the door. The man had the rope already there to hang himself. He was really angry. He went to the door, he took this leaflet, and he was born again in the Spirit of God. He never hung himself, went on to be a servant of Jesus Christ. I could keep you here all night telling you stories like that. I don't make them up either. Some of them I have to research, like the one about in Argentina, we were all talking about Argentina. The man was going to commit suicide, he found the Gospel of John in a tree. It wasn't a Gospel of John tree, it was just a tree that somebody had thrown the Gospel away, I guess, didn't want to read it. It was laying in the tree and the man picked it up and gave his life to Christ instead of committing suicide. The Word of God is sharp. So this lady sent me a Gospel of John through the mail, I began to read it. Somehow it broke into my heart, my mind. I was reading a lot of things then, and that little sword of the Spirit broke into my heart. So when Billy Graham came to New York City just for one night, he was preaching for Jack Wursten, great camp movement, Word of Life, I went. And there I heard the Gospel, and I received Christ, He received me, I'll never understand it fully, but His Spirit came to entwine me. John 1.12, as many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become the sons of God. And I can say, just by the mercy of God, from that night to this night, 27 years later, every day I've known the reality of His presence, of His grace and His forgiveness. I have failed Him, I've got off on my tangents, I'm a natural extremist, I'm a natural backslider. I don't know how many of you naturally go uphill spiritually? Boy, you're unusual, you've come and autographed this Bible, I don't know if you could, I just borrowed it for tonight. Somebody asked D.L. Moody why he kept saying, be filled again and again with the Holy Spirit. Moody just looked him in the eye and said, because I leak. And you're looking at one weak, leaky Christian leader tonight. But I know where to go for the refill. There's a Savior, there's a Lord who understands it, who gives it, and He wants to fill us every day. We have hundreds of thousands across America now, claiming to have all kinds of special blessings from the Holy Spirit. Where are they now? Where are they tonight? That's what I want to know. Why didn't they ever make it to Turkey? Why don't we see them in India? When I read my Bible in Acts, we're going to look at it in a minute, the Holy Ghost brings the Holy Ghost. And I think we've turned some of the great truths of God into some kind of circus event, rather than really understanding them in the biblical perspective. Let's turn to Acts chapter 1 verse 8. After I was converted, I went back to that high school. We started the most normal thing in all the world. We started prayer meetings in the high school. We started half nights of prayer. And God just blew that school wide open. This is right outside New York City. A third of the students drunk every weekend, more women pregnant than anybody would dare to count. Scandalous pit. And God brought 200 to Jesus in that school in a year and a half. They weren't all converted. And that became the birthplace of what today is known as Operation Mobilization. People were scattered from that school in many directions. I went off to college. I met a young extremist named Dale Roton. I used extreme in quotations. I was warned about him. I was heard he was baptizing people in the showers. It's interesting because he was still a Presbyterian at that time. And I was heard he was praying for people to be saved who were going to the dances. So I looked for this fellow. And I found in that young man a godly example. You know, we all need godly examples. And it's so hard to find in this day. And he discipled me in some ways. Maybe I discipled him. I don't know. We were so different. And within a year, three of us, and that was 25 years ago, we went to Mexico. And of course, there's not time to tell the rest of the story. We jumped from Mexico to Spain and exploded in Europe and became a European movement. An international movement really. One of the few perhaps missionary movements in the world today that is not dominated by Americans. You know, we had this weakness in our culture. We liked to dominate. We liked to boast. We liked to dominate and exaggerate. And I discovered my first summer in Mexico, second summer, I was an ugly evangelical. I was an ugly little Bible school graduate. I had my little doctrines under my arm. I knew how to disciple these little Mexicans, get them to reach me. Boy, I tell you, God broke me and showed me some of the ugliness of my own heart. So our movement became very international. It was based in Brussels and London. We still accepted Americans. And when the Holy Spirit takes over American, he can be used as much as anybody else. God's no respecter of persons. Don't worry about that. In fact, the greater the sin, the greater the grace, the greater the abounding. And so I tell you, when people around the world meet a humble American, they know they've seen a miracle. That's right. And they make a big impact. They really do. I remember when this big Texan was coming to our ship. The word was out, especially among the British. They can cut the Americans down to size before you can even get, you know, Coke can open or can, you call it over here. And I remember this chief engineer was coming to the ship. This was before we had the second ship. We had the small ship, which is in India right now. And the word was out. He was Texan. He was big. And they were gunning for him. They figured he'd be a loud mouth, a bolster, know it all, you know. And here comes this big Texan, humble, quiet, hardworking. Why? He was converted. Jesus changes people. Whether you're a Mexican, Chinese, Indian, maybe you don't know what you are. I couldn't believe television two days ago when there was a lady on there telling about her child that she got through artificial insemination. Now I've heard about this with cattle. I mean, I have a farmer friend in England. I mean, people and the necessity to stand on television and tell how they're going to have a son so proud through artificial insemination. I will tell you, aren't you scared? The direction that things are going. And what a tremendous thing it is when God can break into whether it's a woman like that or some other sinner and change that person. I don't understand why people are more excited about the salvation business. Some people come along and try to sell me their second blessing package, third blessing package, fourth blessing. I say, look, what about the first blessing? What about salvation? Doesn't that do anything? I've got to have all these other things. I've got to go to your church. We've got more groups telling us, if you don't fellowship with them, you'll never grow. And somebody else telling you, if you don't have this doctrine, you'll never grow. Basically, if we carefully analyze it, salvation does nothing. Salvation does nothing. Until you're in the right doctrine, the right church, or until you've got the second blessing or the third blessing, or this or that, you're never going to become mature. Listen, if you're saved, the greatest thing that has ever happened to you has already happened. And if nothing's happened, you're not saved. And you need to come to the altar tonight and repent. And let Jesus Christ come into your heart. Because I really believe there are a lot of unsaved people in our evangelical churches in America. I'm not the one to point them out individually. In fact, I hesitate to say these things because often people are very, very hypersensitive. It always scares me. They come worrying that they're not saved, and as I counsel them and talk with them, I see that they have been saved, but they've never grown. The enemy's moved in on them immediately, and they haven't got into the Word, and they haven't grown. And so though some change has taken place, salvation is there, they are bathed in Christ. Or they may have got into some other syndrome of the enemy. And let's look at this verse, Acts 1.8. Now it's very important to see that what we're talking about tonight, we're talking about a number of things, is biblical. And I'm always aware that probably when I speak, I'll turn somebody off. I didn't know how to dress tonight. Sometimes the way you dress turns people off. Often when I go to a church here in America, I hate neckties, I put a tie on. I don't want to be an offense to some of the people or hinder what's the message. But I was told, you know, Colorado, this isn't exactly Manhattan Island, I thought I could be casual, and we were in a hurry, so it was really convenient just to leave what I was wearing on. I hope this hasn't turned any of you off. But if that may be something I say may turn you off. So this is why it's so important to be biblical, so that if I say something wrong, or I miss some important thing, we still can't get away from this message. I'm not asking you to come on Operation Mobilization, I'm not asking you to become my best friend, I'm asking you to obey Jesus. That's all I'm asking. To obey God, to obey Jesus. Just before the Lord Jesus ascended, He spoke, this is recorded in the Word of God, we believe this is the authority for our life, and He said, He shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. He shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, seems to be their nearby area, though for many of them, many of them were strangers in Jerusalem. That's interesting. Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth. There are two other scriptures we could look at, one in Corinthians, one in Romans, we won't take the time, where Paul expresses his desire to go to the regions beyond. You know that text? To preach the gospel to the regions beyond. And it's my prayer that we may get this vision tonight if we don't already have it. A vision of the whole world. And then a vision of how our obedience here, our commitment here, affects the whole world. It affects the whole world. One woman prayed near my high school, and God brought a movement into being through her. We have reached personally, face-to-face, without counting television and radio, which we often get given to us free, through the ships, the media, you know, the Prime Minister comes, the Admirals come, then the radio, television, everything. It's just unbelievable the impact in some nations. Not in every nation. But excluding that, we have faced 300 million precious people with the Word of God. One woman prayed. There are now 1,600 of us, even though every year we challenge people to leave, and join other missions, or go back to their home church. We don't want to become a big institution. We're not interested in numbers, we're interested in reality and quality. That's hard, and we fail many times. There will be another 1,500 who come into the summer training program. Some of you may pray about that. It's not too late. They've extended the final date from May 1st to, I think, June 1st. And they're having an extra conference at the end of June, for people who can't get to the June 5th conference, if they want to get involved even one or two months in the summer, in order to work with us and pray about coming for one or two years. You know, it's interesting, the Mormons have 24,000 or more out on a two-year program. If you think that's some superficial thing, just by a bunch of young people, you obviously don't know much about the Mormons. When that 24,000 go home, they get another 24,000 or more right behind them. So there's continuity. And it puts the work in the hands of the national people. And we believe that it is biblical and sensible to make use of the enormous resources of youth in our culture and in our nation, and the transportation that's available to us in cheap airplanes and vehicle travel, to mobilize an army of short-term people, who during that period can decide the next step. Whether it's back home in the supporting battalion, sending others, or whether it's life-term career missionary work, as some people speak of. And it's exciting that so many who have had this training, about 23,000 have been through this training, are now going into mission service or are on mission service. In fact, we have OM graduates in almost every single nation in the world, with almost every mission society in the world. One woman prayed. I remind you of that. One woman believed that this was God's Word. One woman, when she came across Act 1A, almost weeped out of her shoes. This is it. This is biblical. And she started praying for all these countries. We can't beg people to sign up for a prayer letter. I appreciated that encouragement from Brother Clout. We can't get people. There's a little coupon you have right there. I think we were given this as you came in. There's a coupon. 95% of the people that get the opportunity to sign up, 95% never do. I don't know why. I prayed about it. I think the enemy is very subtle. But I think basically it comes down to what I call token commitment to foreign and world missions, rather than total commitment. I'm sure the enemy has deceptive power. I think in James 1, where it speaks about being deceived, it says, Be doers of the Word, not hearers only, otherwise you will be deceiving yourself. C.S. Lewis said we have the brilliant agnostic, converted to Jesus Christ, said we have the tendency to think, but not to act. The tendency to feel, but not to act. And that can easily happen tonight. I think some of the things I've said, you know in your heart, I'm hitting on the truth. And you may think, well this is the truth, we need to do something. You may feel, but to act. The great Bible teacher said people don't convert emotion into action because the cost is too great. The cost is too great. I'm convinced that that little hymn we often used to sing, Trust and Obey, There's No Other Way, is still one of the greatest messages to the Church of Jesus Christ. Trust and Obey, There's No Other Way. And if we are to obey God, then this commandment about praying forth labors into the harvest, and when we pray we've got to be willing to go ourselves, and when we pray within our church, then we've got to be willing for that church to be a biblical church, therefore a sending base to thrust workers out into the harvest field. I know one little house fellowship up in Toronto, Canada, that has one third of the whole fellowship going to the mission field. Little tiny church, little house church with about three dozen people, have more missionaries going out, and they're sound in doctrine, they love the Lord, than most of the big churches in Toronto. You may feel you're from a small church, but I will tell you, give me a small church of anointed spirit filled, broken, humble people, and we will turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ. I don't care if you're in Colorado or Colombo, but we're going to have to face ourselves, we're going to have to confess our sins, we're going to have to put things right. Some, like the rich young ruler, may count the cost about what they may lose in some business that no born again Christian should ever be involved in, or some other kind of fooling around with the things of this world, that man will walk away because the cost is too great. That always breaks my heart, but for everyone that walks away, I believe there will be some, by God's mercy, some who will return to that narrow road. Yeah, even as a prodigal son, maybe having sinned in the most vicious form. Some of the people in our work have lived in iniquity, drunkenness, fornication, everything you can imagine for years, and then God saved them. When you're praying for men to join a ship ministry, you don't go to the local Sunday school. You've got to pray for rough, tough merchant navy men to get saved. Think of a man named Thompson, Stan Thompson, the drunkard if there ever was one. Big shipping line, single, God saved him in Africa. Sat in one of my meetings in England and I thought he wanted to run away. He was a trained ship electrician. God touched him in that meeting. Brought him into our ship as the electrician for a couple of years and then thrust him out into line up work. He's just been used by God to line up with the Pakistani government coming in the ship to a Muslim nation, Pakistan. Fifty years old! Can a man change his ways at fifty? Can a man be delivered from alcoholism and drunkenness at fifty and all the other things? Of course! But it costs. It costs Jesus everything. Though we may feel tonight we've got problems, burdens, areas of failure, habits, maybe we feel lukewarmness has sunk into the very, the very nth degree in our soul. No man is beyond God's help. Obedience! That's what I believe the Lord is asking for. Now when we launch out to obey God wholeheartedly it will be easy. We'll fail. There'll be times when we won't even know what is obedience in a particular situation. God knows all about our human factor. I was going to write a book called The Human Factor. I think it's very important. Keep things in balance. Dr. Schaeffer in his book Ashy Plies says every Christian leader has clay feet. It's true. But I believe there's a great difference between a committed man whose life is on the altar, who's walking in the power and the energy of the Holy Spirit, who at times may fail or may get tricked by the enemy into some subtle sin, especially when we think of the mind or disposition. But he immediately repents. He comes back to the cross. There's no wearing of the mask. There's openness. And when there's that, there's life and revival. So we're not saying the victorious life, the totally committed life, the obedient life is perfection. There's both aspects of the victorious life. 1 John 2.1. The first part of the verse, what is it? Sin not. The second part of the verse, if you sin. I have a lawyer, an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. They're righteous. So total commitment and the victorious life, the godly life, whatever you want to talk about, includes knowing what to do when you sin. But it doesn't include darkness, mask wearing, pretending, and double living. And I pray, though you may feel weak, though you may feel you've failed Jesus many times, and you're not a candidate to be a missionary, that you'll see God's grace tonight and realize you can commit everything to Him. All your time, your talent, your money, your future. We live in a day in which people are more worried about the future than ever before. You can put it in God's hands. He can handle you better than you can handle yourself. And go forward to a deeper degree of commitment. And I believe if we do this, and it touches our prayer life, it touches our vision, world vision, it touches our relationships, I believe we can have revival. I believe personal revival is the privilege of every believer because of what's been done on the cross. I've always felt that that's the revival I want to emphasize the most. All that I have in Jesus Christ, study the book of Colossians, memorize it. In Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So none of us are without excuse for not having personal revival. Every day, like Moody said, be filled again and again. And then from that foundation we work and we pray and we labor for larger scale revival within the church. And even if you're in a church where you feel revival hasn't come, you still have no excuse for not knowing personal revival yourself. In larger scale revival within churches and communities and cities and nations, there's an aspect of mystery and the sovereignty of God and God's timing that I've never been able to totally understand after studying revival for 25 years. But there's a practical down-to-earthness in personal revival that I understand all too well. That it is my privilege and I have no excuse for walking any day without the reviving, renewing power of the resurrected Jesus. That's yours. Are you claiming it? Are you living in it? I hope so. Let's pray. I want to give a moment for silent prayer, heart searching. I believe the Lord has spoken and I just pray that none of us will allow deceptive insinuations from the evil one, from past memories, from the brainwash of this world to hinder us from making clear-cut, deeper commitments to Jesus tonight. Romans 12 says, I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God to present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto him, this is your reasonable service. Will you do that? Let's have prayer, private prayer in our hearts, so we can reconnect, put our lives in a greater way upon the altar of our Lord Jesus, remembering all he's done for us. Asking him to make us world Christians with a world vision and reality in prayer. Let's pray privately. Lord, you know every one of us. We cannot pretend with you. You know our excuses. You know areas we've been hurt. Maybe hurt by other Christians. Maybe hurt by our parents. Maybe hurt by our own weaknesses. And Lord, we thank you that this cleansing and this forgiveness, that there's a river of grace greater than any river flowing down these mountains. That can make everything whiter than any snow we've seen in the past eight months. And Lord Jesus, we claim it by faith. And we present our bodies and we present our lives. And Lord, we tonight gathered here, we will go where you want us to go and do what you want us to do. And we will send others. And we will be a committed people. And we will be a revived people. And a praying people. And we will walk in the light with one another. And we will be what we read in your New Testament. O Holy Ghost, bring that Holy Ghost upon our hearts. Open thou our eyes, we pray, that we may not be deceived. And I pray for myself. For you know the human factors in my own life. Realize also, so afresh tonight Lord, that this treasure is in earthen vessels. And we refuse to be discouraged. We refuse to lie down because we have failed you. We refuse to lie down because often our lips have said things we should not have said. Our hands have done things we should not have done. But we appropriate grace and forgiveness and cleansing to go one more mile. To be your men and to be your women. We're not saved to sit, O Lord, but we're saved to be sent and to serve. Grant it, we pray, be it in a loud crash upon our hearts or in a still small voice. Even as we drive our cars back to our little homes and sanctuaries. Spring a spiritual revolution upon us, Lord, that will never stop burning. Until every man, woman and child on planet earth has heard something of the saving grace of Jesus. Grant it, Lord, that your church be established in every nation and every town. For what else is there? We have no guarantee we'll live past tomorrow or even past tonight. And we want to say, to live is you, Lord Jesus. To die is gain. Grant it now, Lord, as we go. We may not just think and feel, but we may act. We may be obedient in a greater way. Right to the very practical, small areas of our lives. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.