- Home
- Speakers
- George Verwer
- Who Is My Neighbour 24.3.2002
Who Is My Neighbour 24.3.2002
George Verwer

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of reaching out to those in need and sharing the word of God. He highlights the work of the Good Samaritan ministry, which helps refugees, street children, AIDS/HIV victims, and earthquake victims. The speaker encourages the audience to not only focus on their own salvation but also to follow the commandments of loving God and loving their neighbors. He shares stories of the impact of this kind of outreach and urges the audience to take radical steps to reach out to those around them and people all over the world.
Sermon Transcription
There's a great missionary passage in Isaiah chapter 6, and it has a prayer. It has a prayer, here am I, send me. How many of you have ever looked at that passage, or you've heard a sermon on it? Raise your hand, most people. You're a very well-taught church. I'm always a little hesitant to come back here again, and to be honest, Pat here has to really persevere, because I feel like God has given you so much. You have such a tremendous pastor, you have so much teaching, what can I add? I might actually detract instead of add, by saying something stupid or off the wall that just confuses people. But at the same time, your pastor is called a minister in other places, and so the door opens for characters like me to come and share. There's now 3,000 of us on Operation Mobilization, and let me just be real honest, we got a lot of blessing, we got a lot of problems. We had two people injured last Sunday in that bomb attack on that church in Islamabad. We're very linked with that church. Somebody from my team in London is supposed to speak in that church this Sunday. I don't know if that's still happening, and that's causing a tremendous fuss, because one of the persons killed in the service was an Afghan believer. It's amazing, and now Americans, most Americans are being asked to leave Pakistan, and it looks like things are going to heat up in that country. Meanwhile, that is sort of the launching place for work among Afghans, and the Afghan people have been one of our main target peoples from the very beginning of our work. Before we ever thought of coming to UK, when there's a few of us living there in Spain and Mexico, our burden was for Afghanistan. So we really do appreciate your prayers. It'd be worth coming here just to say that. Thank you for your prayers, thank you for your financial support. Never think of financial support as a small thing. More and more of my time is being given to prayer and to trying to release finance through prayer, that the work may not be hindered. So even if you just give a small amount, it's not, believe me, it's very, very important. But going back to Isaiah 6, remember that prayer, here am I, send me. Sometimes we challenge people to pray that prayer in connection with going to some distant place, or becoming a missionary in the more narrow sense, a missionary to France, or to Japan, or Korea, or India, or the Middle East. But I believe that all of the Lord's people are to be His sent people. And even in Austria last week, I was sharing from Isaiah 6, which I'm not going to do this morning, and asking people to make that commitment and to pray that prayer, here am I, send me. Now I figure in a church like this, probably everybody has already prayed that prayer, but I thought I would just double check. How many of you have, one time in your life, have prayed that prayer, maybe at Keswick, maybe here, here am I, send me. Let your memory go back, childhood, teenage years, here am I, send me. How many of you have prayed that prayer? Raise your hand. Raise your hand. Some of you are not quite sure. About half of you have prayed. That's normal. And maybe at the end of this service, I'm going to come back to this, I don't know. Because I believe every Christian should pray that prayer, if they understand it generically, if they understand it in the big picture. Because to work in the business world of Manchester, as Richard does, and he's one of my heroes, love to embarrass him, to me is just as much being a missionary as going across to plant a church in Turkey. And it's because we, in OM, were very, very weak in finding a marketplace people, missionaries, who we could be partners with, that oftentimes we could not do the things we wanted to do. Because these people are often under more pressure than we are. Some of our people, like Keith Danby, who runs STL and Wesley Owen, I would have thought he's got the toughest job in OM. That's a separate company now, but he's still part of our fellowship. And if you know anything about the growth of STL, 600 employees, Wesley Owen, 40 bookshops, and recently we've taken over Nelson Word and a few other things, and now we're being criticized for being a monopoly. It started on my front stairway with two boxes of books, and we got every kind of criticism you can imagine, and now we get a new criticism, we're a monopoly. OM, or the literature side of OM, called STL, which is a separate company, and run as a company, gets a new kind of criticism. It's hard to win with God's chosen frozen, but we try not to get discouraged. We just hang in there, keep on praying. So in my conviction, every believer at one time in his life, young or old, should pray that prayer, Here am I, send me. Because the Word of God says, from the very Word of Jesus, as the Father hath sent me, so send I you. We are all sent back into the world, into our neighborhoods, into our workplaces. We are all sent ones. We are all missionaries in the bigger sense. One of the complexities of life is what some people call semantics, the meaning of words. In certain words, the meaning has become fuzzy. The word missionary has become fuzzy. The word revival is even more fuzzy. The word sanctification, forget it. There's so many words that have become sort of fuzzy. The meaning is fuzzy because different people use it in different ways. To me, to pray that prayer, Here am I, send me, basically it's a prayer of commitment. Basically, it's Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, that we've all heard about. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God. If you've done that, then basically you've done the same thing. You maybe didn't say the words, Here am I, send me, but you've said, Lord, I'm available. Here am I, send me is a prayer of availability, and that's what I'm after here this morning. I'm not trying to steer you to Tibet this morning. I'm not trying to steer you to Turkey this morning or to Afghanistan. I hope you have a vision for those places. This, by the way, is a global jacket. I know the people in the back can't tell what this is. This is a map of the whole world. It doesn't look very good on me. It sort of just hangs. It's a lot better on, you know, more global kind of people, and we sell quite a few of the extra, extra, extra large ones to some of God's globals, and they're a great advertisement for world evangelism and other things. So, Here am I, send me is to, in the generic, bigger sense, is for every believer. And maybe if the Lord leaves at the end of this service, I'm going to give you the opportunity to pray that prayer, if you haven't already done so, or to reaffirm your commitment. You're available. You're willing to go. We know that's not easy. God's not asking people just to do stupid, foolish things. You've got to consider your children. You've got to consider your gifts. You've got to consider other responsibilities. So, as you pray that prayer, probably only a few will sort of be sent out from their homes to some destination. But we can all be sent locally, and we can all get a greater sense that where we're working on Monday morning, God sent us there. If God hasn't sent you there, maybe it's time to reevaluate where you are on Monday morning, and either get God's confirmation, yes, you didn't realize it, but I have sent you here. Nothing wrong with that. A lot of things God does in our lives without us fully realizing what's going on. Now, that leads me to my scripture lesson this morning, which is two phenomenal passages of motivating scripture. The first one, and I'm reading from the New Living Translation, different from the Living Bible, it's now an authorized translation, in Matthew chapter 22. The most important commandment in the whole of the Bible. I often cry out to the Lord that he'll give me something completely fresh, because, of course, I've been preaching and teaching now for over 45 years. Just had my 47th spiritual birthday, so I walked the aisles of Madison Square Garden into the ministry of Billy Graham, and was born again in the Spirit of God. And the Lord, in his mercy, has given me something very fresh. Doesn't mean everything I say is new, but it's very fresh to my heart, as God gave this to me. And I don't know why I haven't preached more on this passage. I've referred to it many times, because it's clearly the most important commandment in the Word of God. Matthew 22, 34. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they thought of a fresh question of their own to ask him. One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question. Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And I'm sure all of us have thought about that, we've heard messages on that, and hopefully every one of us here this morning, this is what we're trying to do. And I stand as one who really has failed, to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind. To me, that's got to be a lifetime pilgrimage. If we look at it in the light of all other scripture, which is the way we study scripture, we know that this is something you do not achieve overnight, or going through a three-day seminar, or getting a bless-up, a top-up, or whatever other thing. It's a lifetime challenge. Loving God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. Wow. One little sentence. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. When O.M. first exploded, especially here in Britain, where the major birth of O.M. took place in 62 and 63, where between seven and nine hundred British people got involved, just in those two summers, it became rapidly very controversial, because we were attempting the impossible of bringing together people from different denominations. And bringing together people who had pretty serious differences, and who had actually, in some cases, seen their churches split over those differences. And now they're all told, go join O.M. People known sometimes as being part of the renewal movement, a charismatic movement. Others who were more comfortable being just called evangelicals, and a few other little mixtures. And by God's grace, for 40 years, we have proven that people with these different convictions on these issues can work together and accomplish God's purpose together. As O.M. teams have given the word of God to one thousand million, the Yanks call it a billion people, across the world in these 40 years. And I've seen many tens of thousands come to a knowledge of Jesus, many new churches planted, over 100 organizations trace their birth back to their founder being on O.M., and a lot of other things that we don't have time to talk about. At the same time, it has not been an easy road, and many who had strong convictions on different issues felt they could be on O.M. just for a year, but they could never be comfortable staying long term. And so they left, and they left with our blessing, generally, back to their own denomination, or back to their own church, which naturally, as a local church, had a different ethos and a different set of problems to wrestle with than we did in O.M. But one of the reasons I believe we've been able to keep our unity, and we're a movement that's never had major disunity in 45 years of ministry, is because we decided we had to emphasize the basics, and we wanted to emphasize the major commandments that are absolutely clear. And this is one of those. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Evangelism is about neighbors. A lot of people don't want to use the word missions, or missionary, not in this church. And if you're a missionary speaker, there are many, many places you will just never get invited by just having the name missionary speaker. I get into a lot of key meetings by disguising myself as just a wild youth speaker, or as an evangelist, but I'm even told and warned that they don't want a missionary message. When I first spoke at Spring Harvest, when it was first born, they took me aside after my first message and really asked me, could I please tone down the challenge about missions. That's not what Spring Harvest is about. It's changed, and next year, I think, Spring Harvest is going to have a big emphasis on missions. I'm at Easter People this year, which is similar to Spring Harvest, two different locations, and I think they're giving me quite a lot of freedom to talk about missions. But we need to understand, especially those of you who feel that missions is not your thing, that missions is simply people. If you don't like the word missionary, drop it. It's people. We are in the people business. Mission work is neighbor business. We are concerned about our neighbors. You may then easily ask, well, who is our neighbor? If our neighbors are going to be a major thing, right, and we're supposed to love our neighbor, that's pretty serious. You know, some of us have difficulty loving, you know, one another in our church, much less the neighbor thing. Do you mean Muslim neighbors? Do you mean Hindus? Do you mean atheist neighbors? Do you mean cynical, true British, pagan, atheist neighbors? Come on, give me a break. I want to get back to my holy huddle where they at least understand what I'm talking about. And so the Word of God doesn't leave us up in midair on this subject. It gives us a little story over there in Luke called the story of the Good Samaritan. That's for the semi-school children, isn't it? We used to, in the old days, before PowerPoint, we had flannelgraph. How many remember flannelgraph? Any of you old enough? Wow, nothing like flannelgraph. And we'd always have the story of the Good Samaritan on the flannelgraph. I think I had it even before I was a Christian. It's such a good story. But I wonder if the radicalness, if the radicalness of this story has ever gone through to the average Christian. Because it's just incredible. Turn to Luke chapter 10, the story of the Good Samaritan. This is answering the question, who is my neighbor? Verse 30, Jesus replied, ah, better read verse 29. The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, who is my neighbor? Have you ever asked that question? Let's ask it this morning, who is my neighbor? Is it just the one sitting next to me in the pew? Is it just the one that's from the same racial background or same church background? Even though maybe they're not going to church, at least they seem to be able to relate to them a little bit. Who is my neighbor? Jesus replied with an illustration. A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money. They beat him up and they left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a Jewish priest came along. This is so important. A Jewish priest, a religious guy, came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. Have you ever done that? I have. I've seen something on one side of the road. I didn't want to get involved. So I crossed to the other side of the road. I think, at least on one occasion, I tried to say the Holy Spirit was directing me. I hope so. A temple assistant. Here's Mr. Intern. He's in the training program to take care of the temple. The temple assistant walked over, looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. Then a despised Samaritan, a stranger, a foreigner, an enemy. There's no dealings between these two groups of people. A despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man, he felt deep pity or deep love. Kneeling beside him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two pieces of silver and told him to take care of the man. If his bills run higher than that, he said, I'll pay the difference. He didn't have credit cards then. I'll pay the difference next time I'm here. Now, which of these three would you say was the neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits? Jesus asked. The man replied, the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said, yes, now go and do the same. My brothers and sisters, my friends, you can't get anything more radical than this. This is radical, biblical, New Testament Christianity. I'm sorry if when you went to an evangelistic meeting and you first got saved, if the evangelist gave the idea the main thing was just for you to be saved and go to heaven at minimum cost. I'm sorry. He was a little deceitful, but he was trying hard. The Lord blessed him. Because that's not the approach Jesus took. Jesus looked at the multitude and he said, if any person come after me, let them deny itself, take up the cross and follow me. And I really believe with all my heart. So oftentimes we only really have half of a gospel message. In Operation Mobilization, we have failed the Lord many times. And as we come to our 40th anniversary in the UK, it's not to pat ourselves on the back, I can assure you. It's to acknowledge the greatness of God. It's to acknowledge 40 years of answers to prayer, 40 years of forgiveness. It's to meet people. When you have an event like that, we just had something like this for Jonathan McCrosty in London the other day, one of our main leaders who became paraplegic. And 60 or 70 friends booked for a dinner at our international office, Forest Hill. And I tell you, it was a phenomenal time, just old friends meeting one another. And it was exciting. And if we have an anniversary event, it's not mainly to look back, it's partly to look back, but it's to try to get more people on board for the future. Some of our best supporters, like Val Grieve from Manchester, they're in heaven. Every week we hear of another one of our supporters, another great OM friend going to heaven. It's not easy for a movement like OM to have so many people who are older. I'm now an older person. The founder, just the fact that the founder is an older person switches off some young people. We know that. Praise God for other organizations who have younger founders and they're attracting some of those people. We're all in the same organization as far as I'm concerned. In God's mercy, however, He's given us many younger people. And one of the reasons I'm turning over my leadership to Peter Maiden, 10 years younger than me, in a year and a half's time, and you're all invited to come up to Keswick for the handover event. People are going to come from all over the world to Keswick, 18th of August, year 2003. So you ought to be able to drift up the motorway and be with us for that handover event, because it'll be one of the biggest events in the history of OM. And again, it will be celebration. It will be combined with our annual general council, which takes place anyway, and a lot of other reunions and things all going on at the same time, in the same Keswick tent that the convention is held in. We thank God that we now have many, many younger people, people in their 20s. Now, OM, that used to only work with people from 17 years of age and older, has a thing called Teen Street, where you can get involved in a major OM event at 13 years of age, unheard of in the old days. And I think in the UK, are you in charge of recruiting for Teen Street? Bless your heart. Are you aiming for 500? You're right out of your mind. I don't know what he's drinking. But anyway, let them aim high. The new generation, just like us, they make the same mistake. Aim too high and get discouraged in the process. But hallelujah, the Holy Spirit still does great things. When I first launched OM, I wanted to pray for 50 million pieces of literature. I think somebody came to me and said, you think this is a little unrealistic? You know how much literature that is? 50 million, literally. And so one of the great corrections I made in my life, before we launched it, I reduced it to 25 million. And it took us about two years to get the 25 million pieces of literature distributed. But in OM's pilgrimage, the greatest change that has been made is tied into this passage of the Good Samaritan. The greatest change that's taken place in OM is that we moved from just giving the wounded man along the side of the road a Bible and a Gospel tract, to picking him up and getting him into the inn. Now, why didn't we see that 40 years ago? We must have really been blind. We did see it, but we thought other people do that. And we will do that, of course, in a small personal way as individuals. And there were some beautiful Good Samaritan acts, yes, even in the early days of OM. But OM today is committed 100% with each field leader in each nation trying to work out with his board of directors how it works in his or her country. We are committed to the Good Samaritan ministry. Not just a Bible, not just a handshake and a God bless you, and oh, maybe you'd like to watch a film. The guy's dying. I'm not sure he wants to watch a film, even Pearl Harbor. So now we come with bread in one hand and with the Word of God in the other hand. And I don't have time to tell you the phenomenal stories of the open doors God is giving us for the Good Samaritan ministry. Among refugees, among street children, among AIDS, HIV victims, among earthquake victims, among some of the most poor, struggling, dying people in the world. The OMers are out there with the bread and the Bible. The OMers are out there with some of the most creative projects to help people in their physical needs. And I think many of you were praying that this change would take place in OM. I did not lead this change. Younger men and women, especially Joseph D'Souza of India, influenced by the Lausanne Congress, influenced by Tony Kempalo, influenced by John Stott, made and began to lead the way for OM to become a holistic ministry. Of course, 30 years ago, we moved away from just literature to church planting and disciple making and leaders training. All that changed 30 years ago. But this new move has been in the past decade. Because we realize the truth of this story in the story of the Good Samaritan. How is this relevant for us here, living in Manchester? It's incredibly relevant. We have to make the decision that these people around us who are not Christians, most are not Christians, they are our neighbors. And we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is again the most radical dynamic challenge you could ever hear. Even the next time some Muslim may treat you wrong in a petrol station, sometimes they're more courteous than other kinds of people that you meet, so maybe that's not a fair comparison. But the next time someone maybe from another culture treats you wrong, or your own culture, you need to remember you're supposed to love them. You cannot, you must not lose your temper with unconverted people. You know, in some cultures, losing your temper is considered much worse than fornication. Someone was sharing this with me this week, that in a particular culture, if there's some fornication, even in a church leader, the guy has to repent, but in a few months, you know, he's back in business. But in that same culture, if you are caught losing your temper, you will be disqualified from ministry. You will be out, and you'll be ostracized by your own people. I'm not saying that's right, but that's the way it is. In other cultures, people are much more relational than we are in Anglo-Saxon culture, which is still the majority culture of Great Britain. And one of the things we need to do, if we are really concerned about our neighbors from all over the globe, who now live in our midst by the, literally by the millions, is we become more relational. And some of the people you talk to, like a Muslim and a Hindu, my advice in your first conversation is probably not even mention Jesus. Not even necessarily say that you're a Christian, because they have so much prejudice. The moment you say that, they might be frightened to do anything else. The first thing we need to do is put on the bandages. The first thing we need to do is help them. Some of them may not want help, but at least we can let them know, at least we can let them know we love them. We welcome them into our country. I can't say that. I'm an immigrant myself, but you know what I mean. Maybe have, serve them a cup of tea. Maybe just sit down with them. Maybe ask them some questions about who they are and what they do. Just, just, even a little bit, even a little bit of love is better than what people are receiving at present, because people are feeling hatred. I am very pro-police. I'm very sympathetic with the police. The crime, street crime, mugging rate, we were just told last week, in many areas, especially London, I don't know about Manchester, that's convenient, has gone up 25%. Someone told me the next day, it's because the police have less authority to just stop people. And of course, they were doing what's called profiling. I don't have a quick, instant answer, but I believe we should pray, pray for the police and pray for those that are responsible under the government, which is under God, to enforce the law, because I believe it's more and more difficult. And lawyers now are professionally trained to win the case of someone they know is guilty. We've all seen it in the films, right? We think, well, is that just films? No, that's real life. Some of the best films are real life stories. And trained lawyers can get a criminal off the hook, whereas an untrained lawyer can send an innocent person to prison. If you don't think that's happening, you must really be naive. You don't really look that naive, so I'm not going to believe that. So we need to pray for our justice system. We need to pray for the police. And this is an important part of what I'm trying to say this morning, because the paradigm shift that we've gone through in our movement, and I know many of you have been through it, some may not yet be through it, God bless you this morning, is that as God's people, we are concerned about every aspect of society. We are concerned about justice. We are concerned about law enforcement. We are concerned about poverty. We are concerned if people are discriminating against Muslims because of 9-11, we are concerned that that has stopped. And praise God for Christians who have been on the cutting edge of trying to address balance concerning all that took place on September 11th, that continues to take place around the world. Because we also have another little verse that blows us right off and out of our comfort zone. Love your enemies. Brothers and sisters, missions is not something that takes place over there. Oh, let's send another missionary to Tajikistan. Missions is right here. You are already an example church, so nobody is here throwing any stones. But whenever there's an example church, there are always people who are just new to it, and they're maybe not convinced yet. And even though they may be convinced, they're not involved. And if you're not reaching out to your neighbors, the neighbors that don't immediately appeal to you, the neighbors of other races or of other religions, then you are not really involved the way God would want you to be involved. Now, the moment I speak this way, I have 10 pleas for balance, because I know how quickly, especially zealous people, can get out of their zone of God's working and do things in which they're completely over their head. So we need, as the Word of God exhorts, a lot of wisdom. And I would prefer that after this message, you take some baby steps than you leap off some high building with an old umbrella as a parachute. I'd really prefer just a few baby steps. Reaching out toward neighbors this week. Talking to someone that God brings your way that you maybe have never talked to before. Letting them know that you care. Making it clear that you're against racism, you're against injustice. Maybe asking them, is there any way I can be of help to you as you attempt to settle in our community, as you attempt to open your business? I had a Hindu man who took over the shop right near where I live. And his shop, years ago, years ago, was vandalized and destroyed, almost destroyed. And we let him know that we were against that. And we became very close friends with this Hindu man. He had to then buy one of those steel shutters. Did they do that around Manchester? The shops, they get attacked so much because people are racist and they hate these people. They have to pull these shutters down to protect their shop. We have a tremendous advantage if a lot of shops are being taken over by Hindus and Muslims. Because the person, you surely know this, right? The person doing the purchasing has an advantage, right? They'd like to keep your clientele. They'd like to keep your business. So you can usually talk to them and even maybe give them a piece of literature. I have my little low-profile witness. It's a calendar, 2002 calendar. But on the back, it's how to be saved. I gave one on the train last night to a guy I think was a little bit tipsy. And I hardly said anything about the gospel. He just looked on the back side. Then he looked at me and he said, I guess you're against... He was drinking a glass of wine. Immediately, that's what he thought of. Christian, gospel, must be against wine. And I said, we're not into fighting minor issues. And it opened up a real opportunity to speak to that. What about it? What about the story of the Good Samaritan? What about the second biggest command in the whole of the Bible? How are we doing? How are we doing? Are we willing to take some radical steps to reach out to those of us around us? And of course, if that's true of those around us, what can we say of people all over the world? I've shared that message with you many times, so I'm not going to share it this morning. You know our concern for India. One billion people. We need your help. The Dalit people. Have you heard what's happening among the Dalit people? The outcast people? How many have heard this? There's more emails about this than almost any emails I get. The Dalit people are two to three hundred million. The Dalit people are leaving Hinduism. They had a big meeting November 4th, and thousands and tens of thousands went into Buddhism. But they're saying their leader, a man named Udit, he was Ram Raj, now he's Udit Raj, the leader is saying, if your churches are prepared to have us, before the church turned them down 30, 40 years ago, if you're prepared to have us, we're coming. And right now, as we sit here this morning, hundreds, thousands and thousands of outcast people known as Dalits, who also have tremendous political muscle, are beginning to leave Hinduism. It's never happened in my lifetime. How many are going to be welcomed into the Christian church and won to Jesus remains to be seen, because Christians in India generally are prejudiced against these people. They are the scum of the earth. They are worse than cows, animals and dogs. And I'll tell you, they've decided, one group, to start their own new religion. Leaving Hinduism and starting their own new religion, probably be a combination of other religions, which of course, is just one more cul-de-sac. Would you pray for India at this time? Would you pray for the Dalit people? Joseph D'Souza, the leader of OM India, has he been here to speak? Can't believe you haven't got Joseph D'Souza to speak here yet. But Joseph D'Souza is the leader of OM, but he's also the leader of the All India Christian Council, representing the entire evangelical church in India, before the government, in connection with the persecution. He has 800 people on his staff, and we are overwhelmed with this challenge. Joseph is leaving India right now for two months, just to attempt to raise funds to help the Dalit, because they want education, they want schools, and of course, as we go to the Dalit people, the poorest of the poor, it has to be like the Good Samaritan. The bread has to be in one hand, and the gospel in the other. Huge number of them are completely illiterate. You mean to say the Dalit, the outcast people of India, are my neighbors? That's what the Bible teaches. I'm sorry if you got involved in the Christian church, and you didn't realize it was a revolution. I apologize for the weak-minded evangelist who won you to Jesus. He's only a servant. He's human. Or maybe you were too impatient, or didn't even hear his full message. You only heard the salvation part, which, when you're saved, in one sense, that's all you need to hear. But after you're saved, you're supposed to get into the Word of God. You're supposed to read commandments like, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And when you do, a revolution will take place. And you will never, never be the same. And you will be reaching out. You will be sent. And it won't be easy. Your heart will be broken. Mine, many thousands of times by now. I've been in it a long time. At the end of the day, you'll see the purposes of God. You'll see the kingdom of God. You'll see people saved. You'll see people healed. You'll see people transformed as they move from extreme poverty to some way of life where they see God providing their needs, including their health and their accommodation. And all those things that we all demonstrate with our lives, we feel are fairly important. God bless you as you think through radical discipleship. Let us pray. Our God and Father, we thank you for this time together. We thank you for this tremendous passage of your word. Help us to take the steps of faith, to be obedient, both locally and globally. With just taking a few moments to pray, I come back to my original subject, Isaiah chapter 6. God says, who will go for me? Isaiah says, here am I. Send me. There are many of you that, according to your own testimony, you've never prayed this prayer. Would you be willing to go across the street to an injured, hurting person of a different race, a different nationality, especially when you're on a busy day? If you're one of God's sent ones, you will be willing to do that in Salford, in Manchester, in Britain, and wherever the Lord sends you. So in closing, I want to ask you, would you pray? Would you pray that prayer with me? I prayed it many times. It's so basic, so simple. It's for every believer. Would you pray that prayer? Here am I. Send me.
Who Is My Neighbour 24.3.2002
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download

George Verwer (1938 - 2023). American evangelist and founder of Operation Mobilisation (OM), born in Ramsey, New Jersey, to Dutch immigrant parents. At 14, Dorothea Clapp gave him a Gospel of John and prayed for his conversion, which occurred at 16 during a 1955 Billy Graham rally in New York. As student council president, he distributed 1,000 Gospels, leading 200 classmates to faith. In 1957, while at Maryville College, he and two friends sold possessions to fund a Mexico mission trip, distributing 20,000 Spanish tracts. At Moody Bible Institute, he met Drena Knecht, marrying her in 1960; they had three children. In 1961, after smuggling Bibles into the USSR and being deported, he founded OM in Spain, growing it to 6,100 workers across 110 nations by 2003, with ships like Logos distributing 70 million Scriptures. Verwer authored books like Out of the Comfort Zone, spoke globally, and pioneered short-term missions. He led OM until 2003, then focused on special projects in England. His world-map jacket and inflatable globe symbolized his passion for unreached peoples.