In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of learning and applying the teachings of God. They emphasize that not all teachings are equally important for everyone, and individuals should focus on what is relevant to their own situations. The speaker also highlights the need to endure and overcome hardships in life, as well as the inevitability of being hurt in various aspects of life, including ministry, marriage, and parenthood. The sermon references Hebrews chapter four, which speaks about the rest of faith and the consequences of disobedience.

Valium that's used for depression is the most widely used drug in the entire world. It's a multi-billion dollar business. And I'm sure there are times when it is used properly. But if Christians learned a little more of the basics of the Christian message, they would not need so many tranquilizers. The younger you start to learn these basic principles, the better your chances are some of you already look too old. Every year past 17 years of age that you fail to learn these principles will make it a little more difficult to learn them. In fact, some of us, because our parents were always worried about this or that, we also are always worried. And as Christians, one of the things we worry about the most And the devil really uses it. It's this. What do other people think about me? Or what does she think about me? What do people say about me? And we start to live for the praise of man. We crave the praise of man. We crave, we desire the praise of man. Jesus said to the Pharisees How can you believe who seek honor, one of another, instead of the honor that comes from God alone? How can you believe who seek honor, one of another, instead of the honor that comes from God alone? And this is so important in the ministry. Firstly, we please God. We don't want to purposely just offend people. That's extreme. But at the same time, our first burden is to please God. Then the third principle is making God your goal. We have already spoken about this. There is nothing more important than that. What if you have a great tragedy in your ministry? The whole church votes that you must leave. They don't want you anymore. Finished. Or something more difficult. Does God die at that moment? Often it's only when we have nothing left but God, we learn that God is enough. And then the fourth principle is very, very important. We have to learn how to be hurt. How to be offended. How to be hurt. You're going to be hurt if you're in the ministry. There's no way to escape it. You're going to be hurt if you get married. You're going to be hurt if you become a father. In fact, you're going to be hurt if you do anything. Let us this week grow up. Let us do away with some of our naive, superficial viewpoints about life on planet Earth. Nothing is perfect here. Error and sin and mistakes seem to move in from every side. So many difficulties come in marriage because of this. The wife marries the man she thinks is the ideal husband. Maybe she has heard him preach. Ooh, he seems to be a good preacher. I can assure you that the man she thinks is the ideal husband is not. I can assure you that being a good preacher has very little to do with being married. Your wife is sitting in the bedroom at night. She is waiting for a few words of affection. She is wanting you to hold her hand and to comfort her and to tell her how much you love her. And you step into the bedroom and give your discourse on the Greek meaning of Romans 8, chapter whatever. You don't understand why she is not more excited about these great theological truths that you are throwing out to the world. And you are astonished when you realize how little she is excited about these great theological truths that you are throwing out to the world. She has been praying for four months that you would fix the light switch so the lights would turn on. Because if you are not careful, you will find that you and your wife are in two totally different worlds. And of course this means you will end up hurting her in many ways. In my life it was a lack of sensitivity. I don't know if you have a word for that in German, but it's a very important word. Being sensitive to the other person's feelings and emotions. Many years ago, I would never buy my wife any flowers. We are in the spiritual warfare. What place have flowers in the spiritual warfare? And of course I told my wife all the reasons, seven reasons why I will not buy flowers. And of course she wanted to be the good disciple. So she said, oh, it's okay, it's okay, I know you love me. Then I began to come into maturity. Mom, I still did not want to spend any money. I still didn't want to spend any money to buy the flowers. So I went to the fields picking flowers. And of course some of the flowers I brought, like these ones that grow on the lawn, we call them dandelions, were not very appropriate. I don't know about the German culture and the Swiss culture, but in America and England you don't give those flowers to people. Somehow a few years ago, God gave me the great faith to give some flowers. And yesterday I arranged through the telephone for my children to buy some nice flowers and give them to my wife from me for her anniversary. If only I had learned some of these basic principles 25 years ago. At Moody Bible Institute they filled my head with Bible verses and theology. But they didn't give me any clues about living on planet earth as a person. And there is a danger when we study theology that we will be way up here in a cloud of theological clichés and jargon. And we will not even know how to properly pull up our zipper. And we will not even know how to properly pull up our zipper. Now I'm being very practical. Because if you stand before the congregation with a great sermon but this is not arranged properly your message may not make the impact that you want. Do not use that illustration in your German churches. That is only special because we have become friends. But you will remember the point. The little practical areas of life are important. And there must be the union of theology and reality. If we are to be the men and women to make an impact on this generation. And therefore we will not be so hurt when people hurt us. We will know this is part of life. Even if someday after 15 years of marriage your wife in a depressed moment says I don't really love you anymore. I don't know what's wrong, I just love you. I just must be honest, I don't really love you. And if you of course love her that can be a terrible experience. But if you have some wisdom you will know that that sometimes can happen in a person's emotions. And you will accept that probably at that time she does love you but that her feelings have changed and the same thing can happen to you. It's not the time to seek the divorce court but it's the time to seek revival in your home and get your priorities right. I've had times when I didn't feel that I loved the Lord Jesus Christ. Times quite often when there was no feeling toward God or toward Christ I was just nothing. But I decided at that moment to stand firm. To say oh God I love you. Even though my feelings may be totally dead at this moment. It's not easy to be a pastor. It's more difficult to be a pastor's wife. And what do we say of the pastor's children. And we need, desperately need to understand these principles of survival for the sake of our whole family. And then the fifth principle is learning the reality of praise and thanksgiving. We have already emphasized this. But how important it is. Even in the midst of the problems. Just to praise the Lord. You see the devil tries to get us mountain climbing over mole hills. You know the little animal in the garden makes a little hill. The devil tries to get us mountain climbing over mole hills. In other words he tries to take little things and make them bigger and bigger and bigger. You may have this experience in your church. You may have this experience at the seminary. Some little thing happens. People start to talk. It gets bigger and bigger. Pretty soon you have even disunity. You know living on a ship of 300 people is very interesting. Especially because it's easy for Christians to sin with their tongues. Recently we had to ask someone to leave the ship. It was a very serious thing. Five leaders agreed this person had to leave. He was of one particular nationality. So the gossip went around. He's having to leave because he's this nationality. They leaders don't like our nationality. Before they could listen to the total complicated story the tongues begin to talk. This person of course is hurt so he presents his case to his friends. So soon the ship leaders are here and this little party of talking people are over here in rebellion and they are ready for total warfare. Because of this they had to stop everything and bring the whole ship together. And then, praise God, even the person, this doesn't always happen, even the person admitted they were wrong and admitted it would be best to go. You know one of the problems with the church today is the leaders of the church are afraid to tell anybody to ever leave the church. Because it is the most difficult task. But there must be some discipline in the work of God. And naturally the tendency when someone is disciplining you is to turn on them and find something wrong with their life. Because we all have something wrong. But that is a great mistake. Because when we're disciplining a person we are pointing fingers at everybody else. We must deal with that issue first. This is why it is so important to have practical wisdom and understanding of how to work with people when you are going in the ministry. This is why the more experience you can have with different kinds of people before you become a pastor the better chance that you will survive as a pastor. And remember when everything does go wrong you still need to just praise and thank the Lord because that will give you the spiritual strength you need in the midst of that hard situation. You need the spiritual strength at that time. Oh if only God's people would learn to praise the Lord. Not just when it's going right. Not just when they're being appreciated. But when things are going wrong. This has been so important in my own life. We had many, many problems in Operation Mobilization I can assure you. My mail is being sent express every day from London. I'm picking it up in Zurich. Telegrams, telexes, letters every day the problems are there. And I've learned whatever's in the mail, in the post praise the Lord. This is not my work. This is God's work. These are not my ships. The enormous problems of operating these ships plus all the rest of the work. These are not my ships. These are God's ships. I do what I can. And I put all into the hands of God. Because otherwise I'll be a sick man. Some books say that when you become 40 you enter the middle life crisis. A man recently wrote a book called The Middle Life Crisis. I was actually feeling quite well until I started to read this book. I was feeling well until I started to read this book. Then I started to think about all these possible crises I'm going to have. I put the book aside, I've not touched it since. Casting every care upon Him. Praising Him. These are some of the principles of survivalship. You'll get some more in the afternoon if you survive. Let us pray. Our God and Father we thank you for the practical implications of your word. We thank you Lord that you can help us take the theology we have in our hands and work it into our practical lives. Lord you can give us the wisdom and the discernment we need to be leaders in your church. Nothing is too hard for you. And even though some of us may have disadvantages you can well overcome them. And through your word we shall triumph. In Jesus name. Amen. Well I feel very refreshed. I was able to go... Refreshed, refreshed. As I was able to go swimming in your beautiful local swimming pool Typically Swiss. Incredibly impeccably clean. And not too expensive. Of course for all you suffering poverty stricken students I realize it would be difficult to pay four francs. But if you're feeling the strain I'll be glad to loan you four francs until you're a rich pastor and then you can pay me back. Let us continue from where we were this morning. As we examine a few more of these basic principles of survival. I'm sure many of you are getting your heads full. What are you going to do with all of this teaching? But I think it's important to realize that some of you may never have this same opportunity ever again in your life. I've spoken on some of these things to pastors. Men 50 and 60 years, 70 years old. And some of them have written to me or they have come to me. And they said only I had heard some of these things when I was a student. And I think it's important to realize that some things that I say are important for some other things are important for others. Not everything is equally important for everyone. And in the midst of the material you have to appropriate that which is especially relevant for your thinking and your situation. And I do hope that somehow in the coming months you will be able to review and pray through some of this material. Let us now go to the sixth point. It doesn't matter if you have one number more or one number less. But here we want to look at Hebrews chapter 4. Where we read about the rest of faith. This is a beautiful chapter in God's word. Let us begin at verse 6. Since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience. And then going down to verse 9. There remains therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did. For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his own. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience. We have the principle of sabbath rest. It also seems to indicate that for the believer there is a rest of faith which is a way of life. And I have met many people who have had an experience with the Lord in which they shifted from striving in their own effort to resting in the Lord. There are men like Ian Thomas who has strongly emphasized this teaching and Alan Redpath. Of course some take it to extremes. And the writings of Dr. Lloyd-Jones especially his new series on the Christian armor that certainly keeps some of this in the right perspective. Needless to say I think there is a basic biblical place of resting in the Lord. After all God answers prayer. He can answer prayer regarding our own emotional and spiritual life. The first big OM effort in Europe was in 1962. This is really the second birth of OM. The first prayer was to pray for the salvation of the world. What we were doing was completely new. We had about 200 people. I was living in London and we had about 90 from Great Britain. We had all these old trucks, old vehicles. I was driving one of the biggest ones. That made me nervous. The whole thought of what was ahead of us that summer as a totally new thing made me very tense even as I was driving down the highway. And then the engine started to go wrong and it started to backfire making these big explosions even as we went across London Bridge. But as we drove to Dover something happened to me in that I just sensed well, it's in the Lord's hands. It's in the Lord's hands. I felt it. It's in the Lord's hands. And I came into a place of just relaxation. And I'll always remember that experience. And again and again I've had to in a sense re-enter into that place of resting in the Lord. That was the seventh principle. His one I've taken from A.W. Tozer. He got it from some of the old mystics. And it's good to read some of these old saints of God. Some of them even within the Catholic Church had a very deep walk with God. And we can learn something from them. Tozer said, God is easy to live with. I had to stop and read that again. Because it seems at times that discipleship and a strong presentation of God makes him very hard to live with. And many today have a very hard and legalistic view of God. Maybe it's because their father was that way. Maybe your own father was stern with a big stick. And when you did something wrong, crotch. It's not easy to get the right view of God. It's the most difficult area to find balance. And we are all learning, including me. The balance between the mercy of God and the judgment of God. But we see that through Jesus Christ and the blood of Christ God has now made us righteous. It's not a matter of us earning our own righteousness. And this should affect us spiritually and emotionally. And I believe God is quick to mark even the smallest thing you do in his name. And he's quick to overlook things that you may do wrong. Especially when he sees that your heart is right and broken before him. The Bible says a cup of cold water given in his name will not go without reward. Tausser said God knows all about us and he loves us still. Most people have things that they do in secret that they are ashamed of. But God knows what they are. And the thrilling thing is he knows and he still loves us. And I believe it's not the law that brings spiritual growth it's the grace and the message of grace that brings spiritual growth. Then the eighth point. Learning to accept God's growth pattern in your life. Philippians 1.6 is a very popular verse and I still love it. For I am confident in this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. God has begun a work in you. And in the youngest convert you are working with. And we need to have that confidence that he will continue that work. Now when I was a student I did a lot of evangelism. That was the thing that kept me going. Every weekend, Saturday, Sunday out in evangelism. Taking what I learned in school and applying it working among drunkards, drug addicts, Spanish people. And that's where I got reality therapy. Because if you're going to get involved with people in an in-depth way you are going to get very big disappointments. We make a great mistake if we think all a man has to do is be born again and then he will live happily ever after. And you can go back to your evangelical scorecard and mark up one more soul has come to Christ. People go to their meetings and they think ho, ho, ho, they are Pentecostal. But in fact Bucksing is the strongest anti-Pentecostal. You see, we can think that we know something. But in fact we are only making more sophisticated our own prejudices. Punishing our prejudices. And I say we must avoid categorizing people, classifying people especially when we don't know them that well. Different people are growing at a different speed. Lane Adams who was with Billy Graham has an excellent book on this subject. The book is called Why is it taking so long? Have you ever asked that question? Why is it taking so long in my life? And the tendency is to become impatient with your own spiritual growth. If you go out to the woods here could you watch a tree grow? If you met a man in the woods and he said he was watching the tree grow you would have some questions about him. Yet the tree is growing. And you are growing. It may be slowly. But if you're walking with Jesus if you're in his word and if you're keeping your heart clean you are growing. What is the thing that often grows in a very spectacular way? I'm asking a question. What is the thing that grows in a spectacular way? Often it's the weeds that grow very quickly. Weeds. And trees take a long time. So this is so important. And it touches many areas of our life. Especially when we meet Christian leaders. Without saying, especially as young students we expect the Christian leaders to be more or less perfect. We don't say that, but we expect that. And we always think, well the leaders should be setting the example for us and they should serve us. But it says in Timothy let no man despise your youth you be an example to the believers. And there's a danger that we get our eyes on man instead of upon the Lord and upon his word. And if God has given you more light on a particular subject be patient with others who may not have yet seen that light. Then the ninth principle I call the freedom of a disciplined and ordered life. Discipline does not bring bondage discipline brings freedom. This is a beautiful thing. You may feel that seminary is very hard. And probably it is hard. A lot of studies, a lot of work. But what do you think that life is all about? It's time to face the reality that you're no longer a little child playing in the sandbox in back of your daddy's house. I always admire the farmers wherever I go. Any of you come from a farm? One or two. All that I know about farms is very hard work and it's not seven hours a day. And many of the countries that I have lived in people have to work fifteen hours a day just to get food. And as we walked with the Lord Jesus Christ Und wenn wir mit dem Herrn Jesus Christus wandeln, we must avoid the mud puddle of self-pity. We must avoid falling into self-pity. Dann müssen wir es vermeiden, in diesen Sumpf des Selbstmitleids zu geraten. And we think, oh, we are studying so hard. Und wir denken, dass wir nicht denken, oh, ich studiere so hart. Or we have such a hard life. Oh, ich habe so ein schwieriges Leben. And think about some of the other people. Und denk einmal an andere Leute. We will realize that we have a very easy time, most of us, in Western Europe. Dann werden wir sehen, dass es uns sehr gut geht hier in Westeuropa. And in fact, to be able to study about God for three or four years is a privilege that few people have in this world. Und nur die Tatsache, dass ihr das Vorrecht habt, drei oder vier Jahre nur zu studieren, das Wort des Herrn, das haben ganz wenige Leute in der ganzen Welt. And I believe God allows this privilege, that you in turn may go in a few years and just give yourself to these other people, that they may also know God and His Word. Und ich denke, dass Gott euch dieses Vorrecht nur darum gibt, dass ihr dann nach dem Studium hinausgeht und das, was ihr erhalten habt, mitteilt, damit sie auch wachsen und Gottes Wort kennenlernen. When I was studying at Moody, the work of OM was already born. Als ich bei Moody studierte, da war die Arbeit von OM schon geboren. So I had all of my work in correspondence. So hatte ich alle meine Arbeit mit Briefen geschrieben. Fifty hundred letters a week. Fünfzehnhundert Briefe. Fifty to a hundred letters a week. Fünfzig bis hundert Briefe in der Woche. Plus meetings, speaking at meetings. Und Versammlungen, in denen ich sprach. Plus a lot of private study and research. Und viel privates Studium und Nachsuchen. Plus all of the school work. Und dann auch die Arbeit in der Schule. And there were some nights when I didn't go to bed at all, not even one hour. Und es gab manche Nächte, wo ich nicht einmal eine Stunde ins Bett ging. Of course the school didn't know that. Natürlich wusste es die Schule nicht. They didn't have room in the main building. They put me down the road in the YMCA. Sie hatten keinen Platz mehr im Hauptgebäude, und so verlegten sie mich in ein Zimmer des CVJM. They were hard days. Das waren harte Tage. And especially when examinations came. Und vor allem, wenn denn die Examen kamen. But I thank God for those days. Aber ich danke Gott für diese Tage. And I had to submit to the leaders of the school. Und ich musste mich den Leitern der Schule unterordnen. I didn't like some of the rules. Ich hatte einige der Regeln nicht gemacht. And why aren't they having some pages of rules? Do this, don't do that, go here, don't go here. Ich dachte, wieso haben wir diese vielen Regeln, wo es heißt, tu das, tu das nicht, geh da hin, geh da nicht hin. And once I broke one of the rules. Und als ich dann einmal eine dieser Regeln gebrochen hatte, I thought, oh, that's nothing. Da dachte ich, ach, das ist doch nichts. But God convicted me. Aber Gott hat mich überzeugt. I went to the dean of men, the man in charge of the men. Und ich ging zu dem, der den jungen Vorstand... And I apologized and told him how I'd broken this rule. Und ich entschuldigte mich und sagte, dass ich dieses Gebot übertreten hatte. Now, I was a little bit scared of this man. Now, he's a big fellow. Nun, ich hatte ein bisschen Angst vor diesem Mann, der war ein großer. And I thought, maybe I would get an evangelical bark. Und ich dachte, vielleicht erhalte ich ein evangelisches Bellen. But instead, he understood. Aber er verstand mich. We talked together. Und wir sprachen miteinander. We have now been friends and prayer partners for 22 years. Und wir sind jetzt Freunde und Gebetspartner seit 22 Jahren. He's retired from that school. Er hat sich nun pensionieren lassen von dieser Schule. And most people forget him. Und die meisten Leute vergessen ihn. But we've never forgotten one another. Aber wir haben uns niemals gegenseitig vergessen. And recently he came to one of the OM conferences, even though he can just now hardly walk. Und kürzlich kam er zu einer der OM-Konferenzen, obwohl er kaum mehr gehen kann. This was a very important thing in my life. Das war etwas, eine ganz wichtige Sache in meinem früheren Leben. From the time after I left the school, I was destined to be the leader in my own work. Und von der Zeit an, als ich die Schule verlassen hatte, wurde ich dazu bestimmt, der Leiter in meiner eigenen Arbeit zu sein. So those two years of submitting to other leaders, even when I did not agree, were very important in building and shaping my own character. Und so waren die zwei Jahre, in denen ich gezwungen war, mich den Leitern dort unterzuordnen und zu gehorchen, sehr wichtig, um meinen eigenen Charakter zu formen. And it's easy. Ja. And now I have to ask 1,200 OM people to submit to our leadership. And at least I can sense that I had to go through a similar experience. One of the most important things in life is to learn to do things we don't like to do. You may think that I like to speak here three times a day. I speak 600 times a year. If I had my way, I would speak 100 times. I would still be in the swimming pool. Life does not consist of doing what you feel like doing. It consists of doing the will of God. I leave in a week for six weeks tour of Asia. Now for you, that may sound very exciting. But I have been traveling 100,000 miles a year for 20 years. I don't want to travel. I want to sit down. But you see, I am bought with a price. I have to do the will of God. And the wonderful thing is that as we do the will of God, there is a degree of enjoyment and blessing. Jesus said, my meat is to do the will of God. And this is such an important concept and principle. And without that principle, of course none of you are going to go to the mission field. We are not going to get any Swiss people to forsake this luxurious paradise of a land to go out and work in a place like Calcutta. It is only when Christ becomes the total Lord of our lives, that he will be able to move us out to the hard places. And of course when we are doing God's will. Even in our own country. There will still be plenty of hardships and struggles and battles. You can be sure of that. So be patient with your spiritual growth and the growth of your brothers and sisters. And make disciplined living and dying to self a major factor in your life. And make disciplined living and dying to self a major factor in your life. I have a message called the 20 D's of a disciplined life. Because in English there are 20 different disciplines that all start with the letter D. Like the discipline of details. Like the discipline of little details. Like getting somebody's address and phone number correctly. Many people I meet do not even know how to use the telephone in their own country. It is not so simple any longer. You are trying to call somewhere. Maybe in Switzerland. You make two mistakes. You are talking to some lady in Australia or California. You are talking to some lady in Australia or California. I still have to struggle with the pornographic literature. Generally I don't walk in a meeting and say, well now just down the road I was tempted by this pornography and had a bad time. I generally don't do that. But I have individuals that I can share with when I feel that I have had a hard experience. The amazing thing is this. So often when I have shared with people I find out they have the same problem. But of course some of these things we don't talk about. We neatly repress them into some special compartment in our brain. And we wonder why a few years later spiritually speaking we have some kind of headache. With over 300 verses in the Bible on the subject of sex. If you bypass that you forget a very important part of God's word. And it will come out later in your ministry. And sometimes there are more problems in this area among the more evangelical strict people than there are among some of the liberal people. And it's an ugly thing when it happens. I had a young man write to me. This is a true story. He said a man came to our college to speak about holiness. I went to the man for counseling. And he seduced me. He was a homosexual and he seduced me into sin. He wrote to me and he said what should I do? And I said you must go back and tell the leaders of your school what had happened through this visiting preacher on holiness. We had an evangelist going all over India. Carrying on homosexual relationships in every town. One man, evangelist. There's one town in the United States. After this great, after this evangelist was there. There were great crusades. Everyone was excited. Especially the women. Nine women were left pregnant by the one evangelist. And this isn't something I talk about in every meeting. But you are preparing for the ministry. You are going into the heart of spiritual battle. It is about time the eyes got open. Because the devil will not be happy until he has your skin. He has you defeated. In California there was a group of criminals. They worked in blackmail. Blackmail means you get information about somebody and you make them pay. Or otherwise you will give out the information. Their target was pastors and ministers. They would send these beautiful women to the pastor for counseling. They knew when he was alone in his house. She was an actress. She came to the door crying. Oh, I need spiritual help. After about 20 minutes. Some of the pastors were seduced into sexual relationships. And her helper was in right at the spot with the camera. All the pictures. The number of pastors were paying out thousands of dollars to keep these pictures out of the public eye. Finally these people got caught. And you say there is no devil? Can we think of such satanic, diabolical attack against the church? Against the work of God? Billy Graham has been aware of this kind of trick. They have tried to push women into him just in the street and get a picture. This is why Billy Graham is always with another man or with his wife. And he will not find him alone with another woman. He has to avoid every appearance. Every appearance of evil. And I find to have other people that really know my life. And can counsel me. Can warn me. And people I can be in subject to. I purposely set up groups of men in the countries that I worked in that I submit myself to as unto the Lord. You see when you are submitting yourself to men over you. This is a form of protection. And the man who is just working out on his own. He is not responsible to anybody. He is vulnerable. He is open to subtle attacks from Satan. And then the twelfth principle. Philippians 4 verse 8. Keeping a positive attitude. Let's read that beautiful verse together. Finally brethren whatsoever is true. Whatsoever is honorable. Whatsoever is right. Whatsoever is pure. Lovely. Good report. There be any excellence. Anything worthy of praise. Let your mind dwell on these things. Isn't that beautiful? We have to speak about evil. We are realistic. But we don't dwell on that. We dwell on that which is right. That which is as it says in Esmeralda. And you know if you are a positive thinking person. I am convinced it actually creates energy in your physical life. And if you are a negative person. You are going to drain yourself of some of that tremendous energy. Isn't it wonderful to have energy all day long. Fifteen hours a day. Plenty of energy. I was talking to my doctor. He said you got a problem. You got too much energy. That's why I have to run. That's why I exercise every day. To get some of this out of me. See then when I come to preach. I am so much quieter and more self controlled. You haven't yet seen me if I get excited. And then just a couple more points and we will close. Remain constant in the word and prayer. So basic. But there is no substitute for it. And then keep active in the work of the Lord. The passive man. He has no goals. He has no vision. He is dangerous. He is going to get in trouble sooner or later. This is why many young people get in trouble today. The church does not have a good ongoing program for the young people. And if we think the young people are going to grow just sitting in church once or twice a week like a bump on a log we are foolish. And some of you when you get into a church do what you can to have an active and a good youth program. I praise God that my family belong to a good church. And my son is involved three or four days a week in the things of the church. Not all spiritual things. Some of the things are things that young people want to do. There is nothing wrong with being active in God's work. And then just the last two points. Never neglect the family. And a little bit of fun. Obviously it is not a sin to have fun. And especially young people. They need to see the balance in this area. To develop a sense of humor. In OM you either learn to laugh or you will learn to cry. At any place like a seminary. Where some of you are five years buried in the books. Develop a little sense of humor. And make sure you know how to laugh at yourself. Then you will not be so hurt when someone makes fun of you. I could easily be very sensitive about my nose. I had someone draw a portrait of my face with a little head and a big nose going up. God gave me the grace to laugh at my nose. After all he put it there, not me. I was giving out tracts in the streets of Thailand. And the Thailand people they had these more different noses. They are amazed at our noses. They have an expression if they don't like a foreigner. They say he is a long-nosed foreigner. So I was giving out tracts. And a man came up. He didn't take the tract. He just looked at me and he reached out and he stroked my nose. If I had had a missionary call I would have lost it in Thailand. And then last what we have already talked about. The whole area of finding the balance. And when we find the balance we don't all end up in the same place. Because in your particular case you are in the same place. And in your particular ministry what may be balanced will not be the same as in my ministry. And this is to me a beautiful thing in the plan of God. That there are so many different kinds of ministries. And different kinds of people. And even when we are committed. And filled with the spirit. And balanced. Will still be all very different. And it's important. We are not manufacturing some kind of little evangelical biscuit. They all come out in four years the same. Some schools even the same haircut. And this is why it's so good to go to other countries. It's good to spend some time over in France. The French and the Germans over the years have had a few problems. And to go and work with some French brothers and sisters. And to show them the love of Christ. Will be a great victory for some of us. And I learned more through living with Spaniards and Mexicans and Indians. Over a period of two or three years than I could have ever learned back at school. May God give you that opportunity. All right let's pray. Oh Lord we thank you for these principles of survivalship. We thank you we don't just take these things into our heads but into our very lives. And that by your grace we will never be the same. Because we have met with you and your word in this week. You are real oh God and we want to be real. Deliver us from any hypocrisy. Any double living. That we may be those men and women who know your power and your lordship in our lives. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.