In this sermon, the speaker highlights the impact of ordinary people in spreading the gospel. He mentions Mrs. Clamp and Danny's father as examples of normal Americans who were used by God to reach over 1 billion souls with the gospel. The speaker emphasizes that God can use anyone, regardless of age, and may even do more in the next five years than in the previous 30. He shares a story of a missionary who was used by God despite being 70 years old and having cancer. The sermon also mentions the awe-inspiring image of seraphs in the Bible and the human response to God's greatness. The speaker encourages the audience to pray a basic prayer of surrender to God's calling.

The Lord said go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person. It hasn't been primarily a missions week. We've looked at up to now 11 different passages, but we have tried to look at this world in which we live, look at some of the passages, if you remember Acts 13, which really give us a picture of a New Testament Church with a vision for allowing the Holy Spirit to send out workers as Paul and Barnabas there in Acts 13. We prayed for a lot of countries. There's probably a few left we haven't prayed for, but I'm not sure if I can remember which ones they are, but we're going to do that perhaps in just a few moments. It's been a very special privilege for me today to have a meal together with Danny Clapp. If you remember my testimony from one of the early nights, the lady who prayed for me and sent me this gospel with the help of her son, her name is Dorothea Clapp, and Danny Clapp is the man that made that happen. I don't know what part he and his mother, how they did it, but I know his signature was on the letter, and it came from a strewn lake, and Danny and Sue have driven up from Amherst, and would you just stand up? We don't want you to take a bow, but we want to just see who you are. Try to say hello to them before they drive off. And though he stepped out of some of his medical career, he's still involved in that to some degree. He seems to be giving a huge amount of his time to a Christian camp there in Massachusetts. Similar vision, I'm sure, to the ranch and some of the ministry here. A number of people have wondered how they can get these global jackets, because we sold out of the few that we had, and also how they can get books in the future. And the other day when I was looking for this, I couldn't find it. This is our OM newsletter, but sometimes they introduce the book ministry and the address where the book ministry is located. It's a different address. But the issue I looked at, I couldn't find it. And then I came across some back issues for fall 2003, and there it is, books and the Waynesboro address, where you can get books and global jackets, and just the titles here on those two pages are just so exciting, including a number of Debbie Meroff's books, who's been mentioned a number of times. So if you'd like one of these, I have some here, and I'll be at the door, and I'll be happy to give you that, so you have that Waynesboro, Georgia address together with, of course, the regular address. We're not going to take a lot of time to talk about books tonight, but I did want to mention another magazine. I mentioned world, I mentioned Christianity Today. I'm a magazine-a-holic, but I haven't mentioned Movie God. Young people and many older people are flocking to the movies, are watching DVDs on airplanes. They sit now with a DVD portable on their lap watching films, and yet so many Christians, even parents, are ignorant of what their kids are watching. And this is a magazine that I believe people who are concerned about their children, concerned about our culture, need to subscribe to. It's called Movie Guide. It analyzes every major film from a Christian viewpoint, and it has a code so you can know how much violence, how much cursing, how much sex is going on in that film, and may be able to advise your children before they go off and watch it. This man, Ted Bear, that produces this, is probably the most influential Christian in the whole Hollywood film world, and he's influenced quite a few companies to produce more family-friendly films. It's quite amazing. Maybe you're not into films, maybe you just think they're all bad. A lot of great films have come out in recent years, and some of them are bringing in big money, and that's causing film producers to reconsider doing more family films and less R-rated, we say in England, X-rated films. Here's the big review of Star Wars Part III, the first part of the trilogy. A dark film, not a film you'd want to take young children to. And I'll have my sample up here on the screen. You can copy the address, and you can at least pray for this ministry. They have the alternative to the Oscars. I went once, it was like a fish out of water in Hollywood. And they give this prize, I think it's a hundred thousand dollars, connected with best acting in a family-related or Christian film. They gave an award to the new film The Gospel of John, Dynamite, and of course they gave an award to Mel Gibson for The Passion of the Christ. Whatever you think of The Passion of the Christ, probably the greatest single evangelistic opportunity that we experienced in the Muslim world in the past ten years, because pirated copies were all over Saudi Arabia, all over the closed countries, almost before you saw them in the cinema here. Not that we were responsible for that, but it opened a lot of doors, and there'll be people in heaven as a result of that. They have a few copies of a few books. Some of you may only be here this evening. You better make sure you pick up Calvary Road. One million in print, eighty languages. One of the great books on reality, grace, and revival. George Miley's book, Loving the Church, Blessing the Nations. If we're going to evangelize the world, there must be a close working between evangelistic mission fellowships like O.M. and the local church. That's why tomorrow, last minute, when I realized I had this Sunday open, I booked to go back south, even though I'm headed northeast, to minister in Wells, Maine, at a church that's supporting one of our workers, Gary and Sudeen. And Romney Baptist also, I believe, support Gary and Sudeen. Pray for them there in Sri Lanka. Be happy to supply you with their prayer letter. You may want to pick that up. Loving the Church, Blessing the Nations. George Miley, who spent 25 years with O.M. before, he moved into leadership with Antioch Network. This is the book that fits the theme of the week, Persevering, Running the Race to the End. There's a picture of the marathon. I don't know whether it's New York or Boston or London, but it's a challenge. No turning back. If you didn't get a copy, it's yours as a gift. My first book also. You can pick up even an extra copy as a gift. Not my first book, my more recent book, Out of the Comfort Zone. We have a few copies left of Operation World, giving prayer information on every nation in the world. Please help us get this into church libraries, get this into the hands of pastors, youth leaders, because it's such a life-changing book. Thank you. Most of you have been really taking advantage of the books. When we first came, we thought we had too many books, but we haven't had too many books. We just, for this one meeting tomorrow or Sunday morning, sorry, we don't have very much left. Let's pray for some nations. Father, we pray right now especially for Russia. We thank you for the day that Iron Curtain fell and all of Eastern Europe opened up and Russia, the Soviet Union collapsed. But when we think of the crisis in Russia, the crime crisis, the drug crisis, the HIV-AIDS crisis, the corruption crisis, and now even the persecution of believers, sometimes even by the so-called Orthodox Church, Lord, we know Russia is a phenomenal challenge. And then we reach out to some of those former Soviet Union places, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan. We thank you for new open doors in most of those countries. We reach out, Lord, to Chechnya, to Latvia, to Lithuania, to Estonia. We reach into Belarus where there's been a lot of problems lately. We thank you for phenomenal church growth in the Ukraine and how the Ukrainians want to send out missionaries to other parts of the world. And Lord, we're just believing that somehow, as a lot is happening this summer in Russia and the surrounding countries, we may see a much greater harvest in that part of the world. And Lord, we again would also just reach down into some of the places in Africa that we've not prayed for. Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambon, Angola, Zambia. Lord, we're overwhelmed when we read these reports of HIV and AIDS spreading in all these places. Strengthen your church. Help them to be proactive, distributing teaching tools, training people, warning people. Lord, we thank you for phenomenal church growth in most of those nations, but there seems to be a lot of secretism, a lot of nominalism. And we pray for Bible teachers and theologians. We thank you for books in quite a few languages, but there's a huge shortage of finance for books and Bibles for Africa. And so we would pray for the release of funds to move forward with these books and Bible projects. Lord, you know our hearts, you know our burden for the whole world, and we thank you that during this week we've been able to touch a huge number of all the nations in the world. We give you the praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Turn with me now to the book of Isaiah and chapter 6. All week we've been talking about this prayer from Isaiah chapter 6, so we finally got to it. This is a book or a chapter or a passage, above all else, about God. I remember as a baby Christian going to a meeting with a man named Deverne Fromke. I don't know if you've ever heard his name. He had been through a lot of complexity in mission work, and he felt that a lot of Christians, and A. W. Tozer agreed with him, and I tend to agree, but he found a lot of Christians were very superficial in their walk with God, in their knowledge of God. And so he became very God-centered, and he wrote some books, The Ultimate Intention. And those books influenced me, but before I ever came across his books, he spoke one night near the college where I was studying before I went to Moody Bible Institute. That college was called Maryville. It's there that I met Dale Roton. It's there that we launched our first trip down to Mexico. And I remember going down, I actually think it was in the in the courthouse, doesn't matter, and hearing this man speak about being God-centered, being God-centered. Of course, I don't believe there's any competition between being Christ-centered and being God-centered, but we do have a lot in our Bible about God. We have prophecies about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, but we don't have a lot except in pictures and foreshadows about Christ in the Old Testament. And so two-thirds of our Bible is about God. God the Father, God the Creator, Jehovah Shammah, Jehovah Nisi, Jehovah Rapha. I remember studying the names of God later on when I went to Moody. And so this is a God-centered passage, and we see Isaiah focusing on God, having an experience with God. And it's certainly my prayer that during your time here at Rumney, you've had experience with God in prayer, in worship, with his word there in your cabin or in your room. We got a little manifestation of his power this afternoon. He just, boom, threw a few lightning bolts. One of them headed right for the swimming pool. I hope nobody was in there. I was looking out my window when it hit. And when we think of the creation of God, we look at the stars at night, we read about astronomy. It's just overwhelming, isn't it? Tens of millions of galaxies, each galaxy with millions of stars. I mean, the awesomeness of God. The difficulty believing this is all sort of an accident. This is a mud explosion, a universal jumbo mud explosion. I find that rather difficult, even in my more unbelieving moments, it seems to me that it's clear God has created the world. Even many who were not Christians are moving into the theory of intelligent design rather than the theory of evolution. Evolution has been challenged in the last 10 years more than the previous 200 years by the new discoveries in science and by the intelligent design movement. Even non-Christians who are saying evolution as we were once taught is history. The greatness of God. One of the men, and many men and women, influenced our movement. And I'd love to give you a list of names, but we don't have time. But one of them was a man named Ralph Shalas. Ralph would not be known in North America. He was British. He worked in North Africa. He became very French. He was so fluent in French. He wrote in French. He was a bit radical, and so when OM came along it really appealed to him, as he thought, wow, here's a group that's almost as radical as I am. And people were coming to me in England when I first got there, do you know Ralph Shalas? No, I don't know Ralph Shalas. But soon I met Ralph. And we used to have him come and minister at our conferences. In the history of OM, we always brought outside speakers. I think it's always a sign of a narrow-minded church with insecure, narrow-minded pastors when they don't have any guest speakers, and especially anyone who may rock the boat, like someone who may have some little difference on some issue. I think it was Tozer who says our seminary, seminaries have graduated a generation of mascots instead of a generation of prophets. Well, time will tell. Maybe it already has told. But I'm convinced God brought Ralph Shalas to our midst, and his focus was God and Jesus. He would read through the Bible in its entirety two to three to four times a year. I remember saying something a little bit off, and Ralph Shalas boldly confronting me. We had a number of people like that get involved with us in OM. Dr. Francis Schaeffer, another one Charles Marsh, he upset a lot of people and went off and spent the rest of his life in the Muslim world. In fact, Charles Marsh died after working among the Berbers for decades and never saw the harvest, and today the Berber Muslims is the greatest breakthrough harvest in the whole Muslim world, next to perhaps Bangladesh. But he died without seeing it. His daughter following in his footsteps, Daisy Marsh, a single woman has seen that great harvest. I have had the privilege of sitting at the feet of hundreds of men and women of God. And I just want to say what I've tried to emphasize this week. The Christians that I know, the Christians I've met these 50 years, they are transformed people. So I reject any survey that says Christians are the same as non-Christians. I reject that, and I'm willing to debate anybody you can find in the United States who will debate me on that subject. I studied that in high school, not really into it, just sort of said that. But it would be exciting, because I feel so strongly about it. And I think I shared with you that a recent survey has shown a huge difference between Christians who have a Christian worldview and are really putting into practice in the marketplace their faith. There's a difference completely between those people and non-Christians and between those people and more nominal Christians who are more or less playing go-to-church on Sunday. And that survey that came out in the last month, I was just reading about it, has been a huge encouragement to me since I've gone all over the country saying this already. Let's read the passage. Isaiah 6. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. There it is. I saw the Lord. Seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their... Let me go back. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet. With two, they were flying. What a picture. In some churches, by the way, it's very popular now to get pictures. I get people come to me, I got this picture. I'm not saying that's totally wrong, but some of it seems a little weird. I think people just drink like a lot of coffee before they go to bed. But it'd be good if we could have pictures right from the Bible. And here's a picture, an awesome picture. And they were calling to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. At the sound of their voice, the doorposts and the thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. Now, after getting this picture of God, this glimpse of God, His omnipotence, His holiness, His greatness, the Lord Almighty, we see the human response. We see the response of this man of God, this prophet. What does he say? Verse 5, Woe to me, I cried. I'm ruined. I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty. There's a ring of humility here that strikes a chord in my heart. Because so often today, I don't get that ring of humility from the Lord's people, even from Christian leaders, these people that speak on television, people that we meet who we do esteem. I feel that often, and I've seen it in my own life, I've seen it in our own work, a lack of humility. I think one of the things that will cause us to be more grace-awakened and more loving toward other people, especially their sins and their faults, is when we see ourselves as we really are. Billy Graham once said, the greatest obstacle to a person's sanctification is their inability to see themselves as they really are. Wow. When I read that years ago, that was just like a tidal wave of conviction. In wanting to see yourself as you really are, you might ask for help. That's what I decided. I asked people to walk in the light with me when they saw things that were not Christlike. And from my earliest days, I set up accountability so that people could ask me hard questions, both about what I was saying or my own life. I remember Dale Roton, who really became one of my main mentors. The first person I went to, or the second person to challenge to go to Mexico when I got that idea. It's funny to hear him tell about it. He gives the idea, I didn't give him much time. So it's more humorous to have him tell about it than to hear it from me. But Dale Roton, I remember once preaching in Manchester. I still remember, even though it's like 40 years ago, I preached to a large crowd in Manchester, England. There seemed to be a great response. And after the meeting, Dale took me aside. He's very, very clever. He said, Brother, I don't remember exactly what he said, but this is a paraphrase. He said, Brother George, again, it was a powerful message. God has really used you. Yeah, sort of what we like to hear, right? We preachers. And then I heard, but, but, you know, it could have been much more effective if you wouldn't exaggerate this and that. Don't remember the details, but my sin that night was the sin of exaggeration. And exaggeration is a form of lying. It's a form of untruth. It is wrong. And I humbled myself and repented. I think everybody needs a Nathan. They're hard to find these days because there's such a huge cowardice streak in the body of Christ. To get someone to really walk in the light with you, who loves you and appreciates you and doesn't just have a ton of emotional baggage that they want to dump on you, is not so easy. So we see Isaiah humbling himself. We see him not only acknowledging his own sin, but we see him confessing that he's among a people of unclean lips. In other words, he's willing to be aligned with his people, even though he may be ashamed of some of the things they're doing. I'll never forget the autobiography of Roy Hessian. It never became very popular. Roy Hessian's the man that gave us Calvary Road. And he and I became friends, and to this day there's the Roy Hessian Trust. I'm part of the Roy Hessian Trust. All of his royalties, plus the money he left when he died, has gone into keeping this book in print in about 80 languages around the world. It's just one of the little side things that some of us are involved in that actually involves quite a lot of work. But in his autobiography, there was something really beautiful. Try to get this. Calvary Road led to a movement in the British Isles, a movement, a revival that got its birth in the East African Revival. With every movement, you have certain vocabularies. So they had a strong emphasis on grace, strong emphasis on repentance, and it got a bit introspective. That's why Roy Hessian's second book, some of you picked it up, We Would See Jesus, I believe, brings this book into balance. And like every movement, some of the people got into extremes, or people mixed their own problems with the new spiritual blessing they gave, and when they shared, it was offensive. And so the movement was discredited in some places. And instead of Roy Hessian sort of separating himself from the mistakes of others, from the extreme statements of others, he took the blame. He said, we are one in this movement. We have experience. They used to go to conferences together. Blessing. We've been together in prayer. God's taught us about repentance, brokenness. That was a big name in their movement. Revival. And therefore, he humbled himself, and he was willing to take the blame for something he personally had not done. I tell you, that was a challenge to me. Because when people did something foolish, even within OM, part of me wanted to sort of stand back, say, well, he hasn't really followed the basic teachings of the movement. Scapegoat. What a challenge. Woe to me, I cried. I'm ruined. I'm a man of unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty, the Lord Almighty. Then one of the seraphim, and here's God's reaction to his repentance, his brokenness, and I surely hope you've had experiences like that. I don't know how anybody can go on for God and not have experiences of brokenness, of confession, of repentance, especially if we have high goals in the things of the Spirit. And as we've looked into some of the great passages like 1 Corinthians 13 and Romans chapter 12, surely we have been caused to aim high, to aim high in the things of the Spirit. So this is God's response. Then one of the seraph flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongues from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, see, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away. This is so amazing way back here in the Old Testament. Your guilt is taken away. Your sin is atoned for. That has to be some kind of mystic going forward to what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Even that very word, your sin atoned for. And so there's the confession, there's the brokenness, there's the reality, there's the humility, and then there's the forgiveness, and the cleansing, and the deliverance, the deliverance from guilt. And then what happens? This is so exciting. Then I heard the voice of the Lord. Mercy. Then I heard the voice of the Lord. Have you heard the voice of the Lord this week? I know some have from what you've said to me. A few responded to the invitation the other night because they heard the voice of the Lord. And tonight I'm going to give an invitation that's quite basic, quite simple, and I'm hoping that some will respond, because I believe that when we have an experience with God we see the greatness of God, the holiness of God, we present our bodies, that God can speak to us. God can move us into something. And I just know that God is moving some of you into something new in your lives. Some of you have already told me that. And that's not automatically saying that what you're doing now is wrong. No, I'm not saying that. And I, if you came to me, would probably be very shy to challenge you to do something radical. I would want it to be the Holy Spirit of God. I would want it to be like it was with Isaiah. You have an experience with God, you meet with God, and then you hear the voice of God. What did God say to his servant? I heard the voice of the Lord, verse 8, saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, Here am I. Send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people. Now from that point on, it gets very specific, and what God was asking Isaiah to do in this unique situation is not what God is going to be asking us to do generally in the day of the church and the day of the New Testament. But the overall ethos, the overall way in which God works is something we can learn from, especially when we compare it with what we looked at the other night in Acts 13. Paul and Barnabas waiting upon God. Same thing, right? Prayer, fasting, humility. The Holy Spirit speaks. Bang! Paul and Barnabas are on their way. We often say, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. Surely that's also true of the living God. It's true of the Holy Spirit. Now I personally believe that some missionaries, and I'm probably included, have misused this passage, and we've used it just to get people to go to the mission field. In other words, it's another example of God's sovereignty. God even overruling poor hermeneutics or lack of full understanding of a particular scripture. After studying this and thinking through other things in the Old and New Testament, I don't believe it's fair to say that if I pray that prayer, here am I, send me, that only means the mission field. When I was young, there was a huge pressure on people in church to go into full-time service. Huge! And for 50 years, I've watched people sign up to go to full-time service, go through Bible College, and it never happened. Unless they stayed in their own country as a pastor, or in a country where there was wealth and where churches hired large numbers of people. If they decided to think in terms of mission work, career mission work, in a high percentage of cases, it never happens. Because somehow, for some strange reason, people who work in their own country, not everybody, because we have some home missionaries who raise their own support, but generally if you work in your own country, you're given some kind of salary for preaching or teaching. But if you go overseas, and that's what they taught us at Moody Bible Institute, the sort of Mecca of mission sending, together with Prairie and many other places, and you have to go raise your own money. And we were told that was a faith mission. What does that mean? The pastors at home are not into faith? And the missionaries who go and have to raise their own support, that's faith? And I want to say something that really helped me years ago. There are many different ways to exercise faith. And though I don't totally reject the term faith mission, I don't use it very much. Because it's a misnomer. Because I'll tell you, if God sends you to work in a factory down the road, or in a hospital up the road, or a computer company in New York City, if God sends you there, then that's full-time. Now we know it's semantics, it's a play on word, so I don't attack people to use these different terms, but I like definitions. I like people to define what in the world they're talking about. Because in the bigger sense, every born-again child of God is full-time. Are you part-time for God? What does that mean? You're part-time for the devil as well? You work for both? And I believe those of us who have the privilege of my kind of ministry, going out teaching and preaching, supported by God's people, I believe we need greater esteem of those who are supporting us. And to be honest, I've seen among missionaries at times really bad attitudes toward their supporting churches, especially when the church wrote them and said they no longer could support them. And surveys would show that we missionaries, not all of us, but some of us, weren't that interested in the home church anyway. It was mainly a place where we got our support. We say, all of them spent much time there. We didn't really pray for that many of the people. Praise God for every exception to this. And one of the things I believe that's happened in the recent years is a greater understanding. We are together. And if you're in marketplace ministry in America, that's ministry. That's a calling. That's a work of faith. You're a faith missionary, if you want to use a broader term. And so I've been preaching on this text lately, and I have been asking people to pray this prayer, here am I, send me, as an act of commitment, as an act of reality, as an act of availability. There's a key word for tonight. It's tied in with Romans 12, one and two, that we looked at the other evening. In other words, Isaiah is presenting his body as a living sacrifice. He's dedicating himself afresh to God, and now he's simply saying, God, I'll go. I'll go. Now let me ask this question, because quite a few of you are older Christians. How many of you, think back, think back. You've heard messages on this passage before. How many of you have already prayed that prayer? Remember, even as a child, here am I, send me, just raise your hand. Some audiences I've had up to 70%. Here I've got about a third. I was preaching in a large Korean church in Sydney, just a couple months ago, Australia, and only about 4% of the straight church had ever prayed that prayer, which I thought, this is so basic. This is not, you know, this is not some super spiritual thing. This is a basic text. It's been preached on many times, even though maybe sometimes it was only focused on foreign missions. And so I believe, I believe I've had the Lord's guidance for tonight, that at the end of this talk, I'm gonna ask you, if you've never prayed this prayer, I'm gonna ask you to pray this prayer. I'm gonna ask you to stand up before the living God and pray, here am I, send me. Let me explain a little more what I'm aiming at, because this is important. Some of the people who stand, guess what the Spirit of God has been doing, according to the feedback that I get. And I read thousands and thousands of pages of feedback in the course of every couple of months. As some people have stood to pray this prayer of availability, to say, Lord, here am I, send me. When they stood, they were, they were thinking, well, maybe God may, may send me the mission field. I need to at least be willing, maybe short-term, maybe long-term. But in some cases, because of the way that I have presented this, which I believe is a biblical way, the Lord has simply confirmed, listen, I've already sent you. I've already sent you. And your problem is that you've not acknowledged that I put you where you are. I put you in that job. I put you in that particular situation. I allowed you to be unemployed. I have unemployed people in some of my meetings. God is sovereign. If you have been walking over the years, yielding to the Lord, committing your life, praying prayers of commitment, loving Jesus, attempting to obey Jesus, almost surely right now you are in God's will. He has sent you here. Not just, of course, for this weekend, but where you are when you go back home to your job. And that is tied in, and there's a new book just come out on this subject. It is a tough subject. Your work is important with God. Now let me say it's a lot easier for me to say that than it would be to do some of the jobs that some of my friends are doing. Because I have friends who really do hate their work. So it's easy for me, who love my work with a passion, you know, the talk of retirement. I mean, you might as well ask me, you know, go down Mount Everest on a skateboard. But there are people who hate their work. They're just hoping they can retire. And I'm not against that kind of retirement. I'm only against retiring from loving and serving and obeying the living Christ with all your strength and mind and soul. Not against you changing jobs. In fact, some people, they move into a higher gear of winning others to Christ when they no longer have to work for Dingle Dongle's Boston Bank or wherever they work. Your work is important to God. However, if you really dislike your work, it's a tough challenge. And that's why I respect, I respect so highly ordinary working people. Maybe also because my father was just an ordinary hard-working electrician. And my mother was a hard-working legal secretary. I'm not sure of all the things that caused me to be the way I am. But when God gave us the vision for the ship, we had to get hard-working people. We had to get mechanics. We had to get guys willing to get down in the grease in 120 degree temperatures and keep the engine room going. And every time I've gone to the ship for some 35 years of ship ministry, I go down to the engine room. I was in the first engine room. They let me work for a while as a helper cleaning out the septic tank. That sort of bonded me with the engine room for life. And many times when I've gone down to the engine room on one of our ships, I've just broke out crying. Because I knew my first chief engineer and what it cost him, what it cost him to get our first ship going. Shortly after leaving us, he went to heaven. He's a man that already ruined his health on early ships before he ever came to us working in engine rooms. God leads different people in different ways. But it's always important. If God is in it, then it's important. If God isn't in it, you ought to get out of it. Or at least pray about getting out of it. As a friend of mine in Wisconsin with a good job and high pay found out the printing company he was with was starting to produce more and more and more pornography. He just couldn't handle it. He had to leave. I don't think he ever got a job again at that level. In fact, years later, he and his wife ended up on Operation Mobilization at least for a while. I believe it's logical, it's reasonable for every Christian to pray at some time in his or her life, here am I, send me. It may be that the Lord will send you across the street. It may be that the Lord will lead you to a different part of the United States, your own country. It may be that the Lord will lead you to become more involved in a particular Christian organization, maybe on the Board of Reference or the Board of Directors. There's just so much to be done, isn't there? Wherever you look, especially when we think, as we did the other night, of the seven people laying by the side of the road, there's just so much to be done. Also, spreading the ministry of what we call Mission Mobilization, people who will spread the word around, people who will do, as Danny's mother, just be a motivator and a prayer warrior and prodding people and sending Gospels of John to people. I don't know all the other things that she did. Danny, I'm sure, could tell us so much more. And in many ways, I wish there was a little book about her life. The beautiful thing about Mrs. Clamp and Danny's father, as well, is that in so many ways they were just such normal apple pie Americans. And yet they were used to birth the work that is given the Gospel, without counting radio and television, giving the Gospel face-to-face over 1 billion souls. We stopped counting 10 years ago. God wants to use ordinary people. And God may have something for you. Those of you who are older, God may do more in the next five years on a human level and a spiritual level than he did in the previous 30. That's often the way God works. A missionary came back from the mission field. I just met this guy. I won't bother to give his name. He was 70. Yeah, you know, God had used him. You know, it was no, it was no huge thing. He's 70. He's got cancer. He's gonna die. It's all over, right? It wasn't for this guy. God healed him. God doesn't always do that. But God wasn't done with this guy. And he had a passion. He was healed. He decided that he was going to try to give literature to millions of people. He had been out as an evangelist, been out as a minister preaching, but he got more and more convinced literature's where it's at. So he launched a little ministry at 70 years of age called Book of Hope. You ever heard of it? They just hit the 300 million mark. No exaggeration. They just hit the 300 million mark. As Book of Hope was being born with their dream, this is not a trap by the way, this is a book, an evangelistic hard-hitting book in about 200 languages. They started with one or two or three languages. But just as this man at 70 years of age launched his vision, there was a man in Oklahoma that was big into making picture frames. It wasn't world's biggest business. He was making picture frames. And they started to sell. Then he started to sell a few other things. Then he started an unknown thing called Hobby Lobby. Ever heard of it? He's a multi-multi-multi-millionaire. Hobby Lobby is one of the fastest growing retail phenomenas in the whole nation. I don't think it's hit the East Coast yet. It has. You've been in one? Isn't it like another planet? It's definitely not my kind of place. But this man somehow linked up with this other man and the passion of this man, his name is David Green, is just to pour money into the book of hope. And so millions and millions and millions were released. And 300 million people in the world, across the world, have received the book of hope. Tens of thousands have come to Christ and they're still going strong. I just spoke at one of their fundraising events. Little thing in Florida. I think they raised 20 million just over the week. He started at 70, huh? So you 70 year olds, huh? How you feeling right now? God uses different people in different ways. This man started a book of hope. But David Green put his business on the altar. It's all part of God's great ministry. And for every person that gets well known or somewhat known like these people I've referred to, there are always hundreds of relatively unknown people behind the scenes in prayer. Behind the scenes spreading the word. Behind the scenes giving out cassettes or DVDs or CDs. And now it's coming. Podcasting. The new hot way to communicate. I've just had a massive email urging me to get into podcasting as soon as I can. I don't even understand it. It's linked with the iPod. It's linked with the whole thing of, you know, you have text messaging and then you have that word I can't think of. That's a massive thing in the media world with our computers. When we, not email, but you have your own website. Somebody give me that word. When you just quickly, you quickly email back and forth to each other. One of you younger generation has got this word. I just started and I did three of them and I didn't get much of a response so I quit. It's considered one of the greatest ways now that news media goes out. And I can't even think of the word. But that's good for the soul. What a challenge. Whatever number of years the Lord gives to us, we present it to him. I don't believe we should just pray tonight, here am I, send me. I think we ought to pray it as often as possible. We can even incorporate it into our daily prayers. I don't think I've done that. Lord, is there somewhere you want to send me today? Is it, are you wanting to send me into jail ministry? Are you wanting to send me to help out up on the ranch? Are you wanting to send me, the Lord sent a bunch of people over here to build this laundry thing. Have you been watching that? I don't know why you haven't made a movie of that. The laundry building goes up during my lifetime at Rumney. When I arrived, there's just a few little sticks in the ground and now, look, it looks like it's about 80% complete. God is leading different people in different ways, but everybody needs to be committed. Everybody needs to be available. That's the best for you. Don't hold back. We have a lot of people that react to the challenge when they hear, go a hundred percent for God. You know why? Young people, please listen on this. You know why sometimes they react to that? Because they think, after I do that, there's not gonna be any more fun. After I do that, I'm gonna be bored. That this radical hundred-percent commitment to Christ, well, if I do that, I'm just, what, am I gonna have to be like in meetings and prayer meetings all day long or standing on the street corner giving out tracts? Let me tell you the abundant life Jesus is talking about and he said in John's Gospel, I have come that you might have life and that you may have it in abundance. There is a fun factor. There is a major fulfilling factor. We're a society that wants fulfillment. How many books do we have on this subject? The Fulfilled Woman, The Fulfilled Man, The Fulfilled Pet. We got all these books about being fulfilled. I can honestly say I cannot remember since 16 years of age a day in which I didn't sense some fulfillment because that's just the way it is when we walk with God and when we yield to God and we love him and we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to him. So to me the prayer, here am I, send me, it's quite simple. It's for everyone. Yes, some who pray it may be sent as missionaries, some who pray it may be sent in different ministries here in the States, but the majority who pray it probably it will be in the workplace. It may be in their own home city, but it will be with a totally different ethos, a totally different flavor and they are the people that are going to impact the city and the nation and the world for Jesus. Let's just bow our heads and I'm going to give this invitation. It's only the second one I've given in a whole week and it's quite basic, but I'm going to ask you to join a number of people who are already here who have prayed this prayer. Here am I, send me. Of course you have to pray it with some degree of faith. You have to pray it with some degree of God focus, but I believe our God has given that. So if you'll pray that prayer, simple, so basic, so biblical, I want you to pray it right now and I want you to stand up. I can see you and pray and consecrate you to the Lord and to a greater knowledge and reality of his will in your life, whatever your age, whatever your situation. Here am I, send me. You stand right now and I want to pray for you. God bless you. God bless you. This is not something for the super spiritual. This isn't something necessarily for people that were, you know, backslidden. This is a simple, basic, biblical challenge for every believer experiencing God to say, Lord, I'm available. Working it out, of course it could take years. God will take into account your present complexities, your present financial commitments, your job. God will take all that into account, and so for something unusual to take place, it may take years, but this could be the beginning. Lord, here am I, send me. God bless you. Anybody else? I know, I know there are others that need to pray this prayer. I probably just have not communicated clear enough what it's really all about. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. Young person, if you love Jesus, you can pray this prayer. If you really understood what I said, you would just be jumping in your chair and praying a simple prayer. Here am I, send me. It might be across the street. Most of you will be back to school in a few weeks, but what a difference to be a disciple of Jesus at school, rather than sort of drifting, wondering what it's all about. Anyone else before I pray this prayer of consecration? God bless you. God bless you. Somebody put glue on your chair. Lord, you know each person standing before you. You know everything about us, and you love us still, and we believe this is a special moment for these 15 or so people who are standing before you, and I pray by your grace they will never be the same. Whether you send them across the sea, or you send them down the street, or you just confirm that you've already sent them, we ask that they may be filled with your Holy Spirit, that they'll be your men and your women to go where you want to go, and to do what you want us to do. Bless them, for we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.