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Life at Its Best 1 Emotional and Mental Survival
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.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker discusses three keys to mental and emotional survival. The first key is accepting oneself, which is important for personal growth and self-acceptance. The second key is the power of praise, emphasizing the importance of praising the Lord in all situations. The speaker also mentions the neglected aspect of weeping in the Christian life. The third key is the need to get involved with other people and avoid excessive introspection. The sermon references various Bible verses, including Philippians 2:2, to support these points.
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Well, this is a very unique experience for me. I don't think I've ever been in North America in July in 17 years because this is a month in which we're going full force over in Europe. I've just come from a conference in Europe with 900 young people who are now out on the streets and the highways and the hedges of Spain and Italy and Belgium and France and Turkey and many other countries. The Lord has given us an army of about 2,000 this summer. And I really had to get special permission to leave the army and to come here and be with you at Jesus 77, but I'm happy I've done it. I have to go right back to Belgium on Monday for another big conference. But we believe that even out of this great time together here, the Lord is going to thrust forth a few more soldiers for next summer. And we're excited about that. And it's just a joy to be in Canada. I'm an immigrant to the British Isles. I started in New Jersey. My grandfather started in Holland. I'll tell you more about that tonight. But I've ended up in London, England, not London, Ontario, where I was a few nights ago. London, England's just a little bigger. We've got 9 million people. And we just praise God for the many Canadians who are launching out. We've got 13 in India alone. And I know they're praying for my time together with you. There's no subject I would rather speak on than the subject I'm speaking on this morning. In fact, I'd love to give a whole series on this subject. But instead, I just have this one session, as in my other sessions, not six or seven times I'll be sharing. I'll be speaking on other related subjects. Now, before I go into this subject on mental and emotional survival, which is a very important subject, I believe, I'd like us just to pray together. Can we just unite our hearts in prayer? Lord, bless each ministry going on in the different tents and in the main arena. Move by your Holy Spirit upon our hearts. Enable us to grasp that which we are listening to and to apply it. That we may not be hearers of the Word, but doers. That we may not be dragged into some subtle form of spiritual schizophrenia, but that we may know what it is to live in obedience and spiritual power. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, in the evening time, I noticed last night when Floyd was speaking, it's rather difficult to take notes. You'll have to bring a torch, we call it, over in England. That doesn't mean something you carry around with a flame on. But in England, a torch is what you call a flashlight. One thing I like about Canada, they're very open-minded. You can speak English English or American English. They seem to understand everything. I was asking a lady at the petrol station yesterday whether we call this petrol or gasoline. And typical Toronto fashion, she said, Oh, well, just call it whatever you want. Sure was expensive. Whatever you may call it. But it's exciting to see some of you now that the lights are on. It's wonderful the way God turns the lights on every day. To take some notes, because you're going to have some questions. I say some controversial things. And I want you to feel free from the beginning to ask questions. And I'll be passing out my little calendars. I printed too many 1977 calendars. So, when people come and say hello to me, I usually give them one of my calendars, little green calendar, because if I don't give them out soon, they won't be any good. My address, my London, England address is on the back of that calendar. For those of you who want to write and may have a question. Now, one of the reasons we can take this little half an hour session, 45 minute session, and we can extend it is because of the literature that we have with us in this great festival. In India, where I've lived for a number of years, we call this a holy convocation. A holy convocation. And one of the ways that we can extend this important session on mental and emotional survival is through some of the books that are available at the book table. And I was amazed and thrilled to see the number of books on the subject of the emotions. How to deal with the emotions. Isn't it wonderful that God is concerned about our emotions? I'm afraid I am among those people who have to be classified as emotionally unstable. I don't know if any of you fit in that category. Those more phlegmatic stable types no doubt have gone to the other tents. But you're looking at someone who's really rather emotionally unstable. I cry very easy. I don't know if you cry easy. I was taught as a little child to be ashamed of that. So I used to run and hide every time I cried. Even just a year or two ago, I went to an animal film, just a simple animal film, called Born Free, and I wept for over ten minutes without stopping just at this lion. But you know, it's wonderful to know that God knows all about us and loves us still. And the books I want to mention very quickly are all about the emotion. And if you're having struggle in the area of the mind, in the area of the emotion, you'll want to get some of these books. You'll find the writings of Walter Trowbush, one of the few men to ever write a book even on the subject of masturbation. And he's written books on subjects no one has ever hardly touched on before. The whole area of feeling and sex and lust and emotion. And I would recommend the writings of Walter Trowbush. Love is a feeling to be learned. Love yourself. Self-acceptance and depression. These are truly great books written by an Austrian. An Austrian, Walter Trowbush. A new book that I just started to read. Most of these I've read, but this one I just started on. How to live with your feelings. Wow, have I found that a problem. You know who's found it a greater problem? Living with my feelings? My wife and my children. They're all here somewhere. No doubtful they won't be in my session. But I tell you, this is a great little book. How to live with your feelings. I bet many of you have already read None of These Diseases. I read this in Bombay when I picked it up. It was a hot day and I couldn't put it down because it was a hot book. None of These Diseases. How many have read this amazing book, None of These Diseases? Many of you. All about the problem of emotional instability and other little things like how to prevent yourself from getting arthritis. The whole relationship of the physical body and the mind and the emotion and spiritual life. You know, I believe when God brings people together in a great conference like this. And you know, I'm more used to calling things like this a conference, so if I say that, you won't mind. But when we come together in a gathering like this, I believe it's because God wants to do great things. I hope you've come with a spirit of expectancy. Not just this session, but each session. And I have seen in my own small ministry, people coming into a meeting, even one meeting like this, and never ever living the same kind of life again. And that is because of the power of the Holy Spirit. Many people have written to me and they said, Thank you, George, for introducing me to the books that have revolutionized my life. You know, John Wesley believed, and I'll be saying this again as well when I get a few more of you. But John Wesley said that the ministry through print was as important as the ministry through preaching. And everyone in the early Methodist movement that blazed across America and Canada and England had to be a book distributor. And I hope that you'll become involved with books like none of these diseases. You'll find two books on how to win over worry. Public Enemy No. 1, we're going to be talking about him in a few minutes. But I can only touch on these subjects. I can only whet your appetite. These books can give you a full course steak spiritual meal. And I know that you'll want to get these books by John Haggai. How to Win Over Worry, that's the full edition. And there's an abridged edition somewhere as well. Here it is, How to Win Over Worry and Care, a one evening condensed book. How many of you have ever read any of the writings of Eugenia Price? Eugenia Price, about one third of you. I cannot tell you how much this woman has meant to me. You know, we men, we desperately need women. We naturally become extremist, lopsided, uptight, legalistic, bossy, dictatorship types. Without women to, you know, just nudge us a little bit. And this little woman whom I've never met, she must be very old now, elderly. No one's old anymore. How God has used her to speak to my wretched, unloving, unbroken, selfish, proud, evangelical, egocentric heart. And I hope you'll read her book, Make Love Your Aim. One of the greatest books ever put into English language. And no pat answer. I wanted to find all the answers. The problem of suffering almost threw me away from the Christian faith. Suffering and what I've seen with my own eyes in Bangladesh, in India, in Nepal. And here's the book that really helped me over that problem. No pat answer. There's no easy answer to some of the big questions that are coming to us. And then you'll find a book, Say It With Love, this whole area of giving and receiving love, by Howard Henricks. What a great book. And then lastly, one of my own books. How does one present his own books? Rather difficult. And also a tape. We're calling this the tape of the day. And it's being offered at a discount just for today. A longer message of over an hour I've given on the same subject. Though it's different material, emotional and mental survival. Now my books aren't very good, I can assure you, because I've read them. But the best part of my books are the quotations I take from other people's books. You know, you can legally do that. That's why whenever I get a royalty on my book, I always feel I must give it away. I send it out to India. But there's a revolution of love and balance. Now I'd like you to turn quickly in your Bible to a number of important scriptures. I want you to start in the book of Philippians, chapter 2. Philippians, chapter 2. One of the greatest chapters in the whole of the Word of God. Starting at verse 2. Fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord and of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind. Let each esteem others better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Key verse. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Turn quickly now over to the book of Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7. I am the last speaker tonight at 9.45. I cannot imagine what a person's mind is going to be like at 9.45 tonight. I don't think too much will get absorbed. Many of you will probably be asleep by then. So I'm happy for this time earlier in the day. But I want to give you this verse. I'd like you to write it in your Bible, write it on your arm, write it somewhere. But I want to give you this verse. And as I give it to you, I want the Spirit of God to burn it into your heart because I believe this verse can have revolutionizing power in our life. Those of us, and I speak to myself, who have problems with fear. I have tremendous struggles at times with fear. Those of us who have trouble with worry. Those of us who find that we're struggling along in the emotional survival battle on planet Earth. Here is a verse that will gird up the loins of your mind as the word of God says. 2 Timothy 1 verse 7. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. Now one of the keys to emotional survival, here's the first key, is meditating on the word of God. One of these nights I'll be giving my own testimony. How from a non-Christian family, through a Gospel of John, the prayers of an elderly lady, and a Billy Graham meeting in Madison Square Garden, New York City, I came to know Christ. But after I came to know Jesus Christ, there were still many, many problems. Do not be surprised if after you became a Christian you had problems. I was having breakfast last year with former Senator Harold Hughes when he was giving his testimony in a very blunt way. He said, I was doing all right until I came to Christ. I've had nothing but problems since coming to Jesus Christ. It's true, when we're living in the world, we love the world, we believe in the world, that's our philosophy. We sometimes go on enjoying life. I was not converted at a moment of unhappiness. I was doing quite well. I had my own business, I had lots of friends. But I realized that there was life on a higher plane. There was a better life, which is the title of this series. And it's true that for some of us, after we come to Christ, we face tremendous struggles and battles and doubts and fears, and suddenly we find out something that we thought was perfectly normal. We're not supposed to do it. And that was a big thing for me when I was converted in my senior year in high school. And one of the things that helped me the most as a young Christian, and one of the reasons I so love to speak to teenagers and to young people, is because it was between seventeen and twenty-one when the deepest work of God was done in my life. I launched out to Mexico in missionary training when I was nineteen or twenty. And I'm convinced that those of you who are teenagers, those of you in your early twenties, you are at the most fantastic time to see spiritual revolution take place in your life. And keep in mind that in some ways it's dangerous to come to something like what you're taking part in these days, because you're going to be accountable for the truth that you hear. You know, I love the ministry of music. I've been listening to Jamie Owens for years. We wholesale her records all over Britain. We have a big literature and record wholesale operation. But I've seen hardly any of these people in person since I'm living in India and Britain. And what a joy it was to receive that ministry from her last night. But you know, as we get this ministry through music and through teaching, we are going to be accountable for what we hear. And this is a challenge to my heart. Perhaps the biggest challenge that can come to us. And I found that the first key to surviving emotionally and mentally when the problems come, when the challenge comes, when you're in the middle of India trying to serve Christ in a foreign culture, when you're spending all day talking to Muslims about something they don't understand, when you stood in the streets of Bombay for eight hours giving out three thousand pieces of literature, and emotionally you're drained, I find key number one is feeding on the Word of God. Memorizing the Word of God. How many of you are already systematically memorizing God's Word? I'd love to see your hand. Just raise your hand. Three, four, five, six people. Ten, twenty. Some don't want to raise their hand. You're tired. Okay. So this is one of the most significant challenges I could give you this morning. You know, years ago we were having an OM conference in Chicago, and we invited a fellow into that conference. He wasn't very well known. And somebody said, Would you like this fellow Bill to come in and speak at your conference? I said, What's he going to speak about? Oh, meditation, Bible meditation. Well, all right. Let him come. And this young fellow came, very ordinary fellow, and he spoke about memorizing the Scriptures. He went on and on. Everybody's got to memorize the Scriptures. Everybody's got to meditate on the Scriptures. And he went home, unknown. His name was Bill Gothard. Ever heard of him? Yeah. That was the foundation for the life principles that God was giving him from His Word. Meditation and memorization of the Word of God. You don't need to be Bill Gothard to memorize your Bible. All you need to do is turn on your brain. I mean, I know that's hard sometimes. And I would challenge you this morning to start meditating and memorizing systematically the Word of God. Within a couple of years, after being converted, I had hundreds of Bible verses in my mind. This began to revolutionize my mind. Now, as a young Christian, the greatest emotional problem I fought, and mental, it seemed to touch every part of my body, physical, mental, emotional, and that was lust. Now, I don't want to project on any of you my problems. That's the last thing I want to do. And I know in some places we don't talk about lust and sex and fornication, all those things. But I'll just remind you, there are 300 verses in your Bible on the subject of sex. 300 verses. I've had 5,000 letters as a result of my book, Come Live, Die, which, by the way, you can get free. All you have to do is purchase something at this bookshop, and I think they give you that whole book free in a magazine edition. I've had over 5,000 letters as a result of that book, and a high percentage of those young people have said, My problem is lust. A young man wrote to me from California. He said, Look, everybody thinks I'm great. I'm tall. I'm good looking. The girls chase me. I'm a leader. But I've got a homosexual problem. Is there any hope for me? Is there? The Bible teaches there is. My problem was the opposite. Tremendous lust. All it would take was even a little picture of a half-dressed girl in Time magazine to get my mind going into fourth gear. I seemed to have eight gears when it came to that kind of thing. And I thought as a young Christian, there's no hope for me. For a while I thought, Well, now that I'm saved, well, I'm going to be delivered from all this. I'm not going to have any more of these old problems. But I found out that I could be tempted. I found out that I could fall into temptation, especially in the mind. Before I was converted, I had started to peddle pornographic literature. And I wondered, God, is there any hope for me? And I discovered the secret of the cleansing, renewing power of the Word of God. John said, Now you are clean through the Word of God, which is shed abroad in your heart, which is put into your mind. And I believe the Word of God has a cleansing effect. I would do almost anything to get you memorizing God's Word. Maybe if some of you write me a letter and say, I promise to memorize God's Word. I'll write you back in a year if I can read your address and say, Are you memorizing God's Word? I do this to young people who come on OM. Maybe get someone else to check on you. Go to somebody and say, Look, I'm undisciplined. I'm lustful. I've got this problem. I've decided to start memorizing God's Word. Will you check on me every month or memorize it together? Dale Rotom, one of my closest friends, some of you have read his book, Can We Know? He started memorizing as a teenager. By the time he was 22 or 23, he had one third of the New Testament in his memory. He put it all on little cards. He wrote out the cards himself. I went into his room at Wheaton College and there are piles and piles of cards as he had put one third of the New Testament in his memory. Muslims graduate from the Al-Alazar University in Cairo with the entire Koran memorized, every jot and every tittle, and yet Christians seem to have trouble with Romans 1-12 or John 3-16. I pray that God would give us a passion for meditating and memorizing the Word of God. And I found that as I poured the Word of God into my lustful mind, my mind was renewed and I found that it even affected my dreams. Not only was I getting greater victory in the area of lust and purity, so that I could finally look on sisters with pure thoughts and I could live in this world without being burned and destroyed by lust, I found that it even affected my dreams. I used to have the most wild dreams, girls coming through the windows, up through the mattress, everywhere in my dreams. I found this torment and I'll never forget the day I had this dream after I began memorizing the Word of God. And this beautiful woman came to the door of the dream and she was about to seduce me and the Word of God started its effect and I jumped out the window and ran away. I guess that was the effect of that verse that Paul gave to Timothy, Lee, youthful lust. Now, I was out jogging at 6.30 this morning. I didn't see too many people jogging around, but no doubt you were all jogging in another area. It's good to get up early and to get into God's Word. Now, I don't say that because I'm, you know, a disciplined person. I'm lazy. I love a snack. Alan Redpath said in Britain some time ago, the greatest problem among the Christians here is blanket victory. And I believe it's true. And if you're going to get into God's Word when these meetings start so early, McDonald's opens at 7 o'clock. I haven't been there yet. I had Raisin Bran myself. But if McDonald's open at 7 o'clock, I wonder what time they start working. And I believe if you're going to live for Jesus Christ, it means getting up early, getting into God's Word, getting your mind renewed, memorizing God's Word, and that will affect your mind and your emotions. It won't all be overnight, and I'm still battling. I don't have time to share with you my major 15 problems in this one little session this morning. And we make a big mistake if we think that being a follower of Jesus is deliverance from all of our problems. God delivers us from some of them. After I was converted, I went back to my pornographic magazines and set them ablaze. That was easy. I always liked to play with fire anyway as a kid. And I lit them and they burned. But how do I get that stuff out of my mind? That's taken years. Watchman Knee says it takes 15, 5, 10, 15, or 20 years to make a mature man of God. And one of the areas where we're going to have to learn to be patient, and that's another big battle, isn't it? Is we've got to be patient with our own spiritual life. With our own spiritual life. Seven, with a different face, different arms, different nose, different legs. Nor are you going to go away a destroyed personality made into someone else, similar to maybe someone you've listened to. No. And you can be happy, at least in this particular situation. God loves you. He made you. And God is not wanting to destroy your personality. He's wanting to work by His Word and by His Holy Spirit through you. The second key, we're going to have to move a little quicker, to emotional survival is the importance of accepting yourself. I'm going to be dwelling on this later if I can fit it into some other subject. But I feel this is so important. And I had a tremendous struggle with this as a young person. Accepting myself. I had difficulties accepting my skinny little body. I saw this advertisement in a magazine. There was a picture of a beautiful girl, which was, as I've already mentioned, something that used to buzz around my mind. And there was this skinny little fellow sitting on the beach with this beautiful girl. And he looked just like me. And then this big, strong fellow came along. And he... I don't know if they're still using this crazy ad. And he knocked this skinny little fellow and he disappeared. Blew away. And he, the big, strong guy, walked away with a girl. And I thought, this is what's going to happen to me the rest of my life. There's no hope for me. And it said right in today, Charles Atlas. Muscle building. Weight gaining. Guarantee. Sending so much money. I wrote in, Dear sir, please send me your apparatus. I don't know how much money I sent. For months I was lifting weights. I was eating extra food. I gained, after several months, about half a pound. It was only after I came to Jesus Christ that I realized He accepted me. Ephesians 1, 6. Write it down. You are accepted in the Beloved. And God created me. Wow, I tell you, that's like a cold shower. They're hard to find around here, I can assure you. He knows all about you. He created you. He loves you. If you're suffering something because of your parents, and that sometimes happens, genetics and all that kind of thing, and who knows what's going to happen in the future, God still is greater. And if you want to grow in Jesus Christ, if you want to become emotionally and mentally stable to some degree, you're going to have to accept yourself. You're going to have to accept yourself. And there's a lot more we could say on that. But the third key to mental and emotional survival is the power of praise. The power of praise. And learning to praise the Lord in all situations. Now, there's also a place in the Christian life for weeping. And I believe that's neglected in America today. And Canada as well. We get people always emphasizing praise. Jesus wept. Paul wept. And as we look over this lost world, and we're going to be talking about that later in the main arena, about world vision. And as we look over this lost world, and we realize half the people in the world have never heard their first gospel song. Think of how many gospel songs you're going to hear at Jesus 77. Think of how many messages. Think of how many books. Have you seen the books? And that isn't even three or four percent of the books that are available in the English language. And yet half the people in the world have never had their first gospel tract. Or heard their first Christian song. And that causes me to weep. And yet because of the reality of the Holy Spirit, a believer, even when he weeps, he has the joy of the Lord. That sustains us in the midst of the weeping. It says in Corinthians that we're poor making many rich. That's something, isn't it? It says we're sorrowful, yet, you know that verse? Always rejoicing. The Christian has a well of living water. Believe on me as the scriptures have said in John's gospel, and out of your belly, out of your inner being will flow a river of living water. The power of praise. Praising the Lord, not just when we're in a great group with all this wonderful music, but when we're alone in an isolated place, in a lonely place, when we've been left out. You know, one of the ways that God is going to test your Christian faith is to put you in positions at times when you will be left out. How do you like to be left out? Remember when you were a little boy, a little girl? Everybody went over to Susie's party. You wanted to go to Susie's party? Weren't you going to be invited to Susie's party? You didn't get invited to Susie's party, and you sat home all night with that wonderful left out feeling. That wonderful nobody loves me feeling. The wonderful feeling of rejection. You can't live on planet Earth without suffering rejection. We all at times feel rejection. You may think famous people never feel rejection. They go through deep agony because this thing of rejection is for all people on planet Earth. Some people who are famous and well known in fact are shy, afraid of people, and fighting more emotional struggles than you are. And I believe one of the answers to this, linked with accepting ourselves, is the power of praise. When you feel terrible, when you feel rejected, start praising God. There's always much to praise God for. Your salvation. His love, which never changes. His word. And the fact that God works all things together for good. That verse has meant so much to me when everything has been going wrong. When I was standing preaching at the funeral of one of my very best friends and I felt torn apart and they carried the coffin down the aisle and I was weeping and I was about to tell my friend's father, I can't speak here. This is ridiculous. I'm coming apart. I'm coming apart. Have you ever felt like you were coming apart? And then I started to thank the Lord. God, you can overrule. God, you're going to use this brother through his death. God, you can work through this. And God put me back together and I shared his word. The power of thanksgiving. I found as I've gone on in my Christian life, there's a danger of becoming cynical. Cynical. You know too many answers. Tozer. What a tremendous man of God. A.W. Tozer. The bookstore is just loaded with his books. They have one introductory book. Very cheap. With 20 books from 20 different quotations from 20 other books. But he warns us of the religious disease, cynicism, which is like a cancer in the spiritual life. And he recommends as a cure for cynicism, thanksgiving. Maybe something will go wrong in these days. I remember when I was, I think I was a Christian. Just converted. And I went to a camp like this, very small camp. And the first night I got my eyes on this chick, on this girl. Boy, I tell you. This must be from the Lord. And I spent a little time with her and got her photographed and was really blowing my mind. And I was thinking about it all night. Of course thinking about Jesus as well. And the next day she dropped me like an arsenic potato. And she just, you know, that was the end. And she was going the rest of that camp with the most ugly jerk I had ever seen. And if that didn't make me feel terrible. Now maybe you've had a crisis like that already. I hope not. But whatever may go wrong at Jesus 77, thanksgiving, praise, is one of God's great cures. The fourth or fifth key to emotional and mental survival. I always lose track of my numbers. And this is very important, the fourth. And that is learning not to live by feelings. Learning not to live by feelings. Here's what Tozer says about this in his incredible book, Lude of the Righteous. Listen, this is great. Feeling is the play of emotion over the will. A kind of musical accompaniment to the business of living. And while it is indeed most enjoyable to have the band play as we march to Zion, it is by no means indispensable. Isn't that good? We can work and walk without music. And if we have true faith, we can walk with God without feeling. Now sometimes I feel so great. I was just down a few weeks ago in June ministering at the Agape Force headquarters in Texas. And they make these beautiful records. And I turn on one of their records. My old friend Georgian is singing. He's from Bulgaria, a beautiful brother. And I turn on that music and man, my feelings, they really go. I could feel like jumping over a mountain. But other times, especially early in the morning, or when things are going wrong, or my, so many different times, my feelings just go right down. I even go into depression. And the only reason I am here, some years after I came to know the Lord Jesus, is because I learned as a young one in Christ not to live by feelings. If the feelings are there, praise God. If the feelings are not there, praise God. Jesus said, if any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up the cross and follow me. And there's a danger, even when we come in a great gathering like this, and we have so many messages, and we get turned on to the Lord, and our emotions get hit. What about when we leave here? That's when the real test comes. We go back home and we experience confusion, or rejection, or problems. And the things we heard about here, and other people seem to be able to do them, and everything works fine. And when you try it, everything, boy, I'm feeding on a book right now. You know what it's called? Failure, backdoor to success. Failure, backdoor to success. And there's plenty of room in the queue or the line to get in that backdoor. Learning to live by faith. Learning to deny self. Psychologists have showed us, for example, that the sex emotion and the religious emotion run very close together. Some of you have read that book, The Devil and Mr. Smith. This fellow saw so much immorality in the church, visiting evangelists, leaving two or three girls behind, pregnant every trip. He finally rejected Christianity. He said, this is a load of rubbish. And he became a worshipper of Satan. He was at meetings where girls were chopping their fingers off and offering them up to Satan. And that is on the increase. And then he was about to offer his own body as a sacrifice. He had soaked his body in kerosene on the beaches of California, and he was about to light the match to give himself as a final sacrifice for Satan because Satan wants all. And somehow people had been interceding, people had been praying. He was the son of a pastor. And God moved in on that beach, and he came back to Jesus Christ. And a lot of people are getting turned off Christianity because they see people who live by feeling. One minute they're preaching, the next minute they're in some kind of immorality. And this is the greatest hindrance today in the work of the gospel around the world. Scandal after scandal rolled out of the Christian community because we have neglected the disciplined life, because we have not learned to live by faith. We have not learned to deny self. We have not learned to take up a cross. We have not learned to obey God, even if it cuts right across our feelings. And this is one of the most important aspects of mental and emotional survival. The fifth point is that we've got to get involved with other people. Avoid operation introspection. And that's a danger even here. It's a danger when I speak on some areas. People get all inwards. They start digging in the cemetery. Look, you stay out of your old cemetery. You don't need to go into your past life. If it's under the blood of Christ, it's gone. That doesn't mean you can't talk about it in a situation where it's edifying and needful, but it's gone. And we've got to understand these days the deeper aspects and the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse from guilt. Paul Tournier is very good on this subject. Tim LaHaye in his book, very good on this subject. Dealing with guilt. Some of us are going around, even as Christians, with a ton of guilt because we did this or that in our past lives. Especially if it was something in the area of sex, we seem to get even more guilty. And the devil is using that guilt more than even the original sin. And we have got to learn to avoid operation introspection, to repent, to deal with things, and then to press on. With our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ and getting involved with others. And when you get involved with other people, especially unconverted people, and their problems, your problems will become smaller. Too many Christians are mountain climbing over molehills and they even fall over in the process. Getting involved with others. Sixth key to mental and emotional survival is learning to share. Perhaps this is the most important thing I could say. I'm going to stop. As soon as he stops preaching, I'm going to stop. Because I'm over time. But we can't do anything until he finishes. Maybe we can. But I'll just take a few more minutes because I feel this thing of sharing is so important. Walking in the light. You read 1 John chapter 1. Walking in the light. Fellowshiping with one another. I've known so many young people. They tried this. They tried that. They had this crisis experience. They even were filled with the Spirit of God. And yet they still had deep, deep problems and sins constantly battering them down. And they only came into greater victory when they brought another brother or sister into their situation and they shared it. Instead of repressing all these things, especially the sex issue and other guilt-giving bombshells of the devil, they learned to share. And I tell you, sharing is one of the most important parts of the Christian life. Fellowship. It has so helped me when I've got emotionally tense or I've gone into a depression. Do you ever go into a depression? Maybe only I have those problems. How many of you ever get depressed? Wow, look at that. Boy, I really can relate to a crowd like you. And when I go into a depression and then the devil says, well, you shouldn't talk to anybody else about it, they're liable to get depressed. Well, you know, that's not the way because we can share one another's burden. And when I've been able to talk out my burden, something upset me. Do you ever get upset? I get upset just like that. I got one of these explosive Dutch, Irish, French, who knows what other blood's running in my veins, temper. And I get upset so easy. But I find if I can talk something out, if I can share it, it often lifts the burden. Of course, we talk to the Lord. We cast a burden upon the Lord. God's cure for worry. Read the Sermon on the Mount. Read these books, and you'll find more about how to deal with fear and how to deal with worry because our time is gone. But vital in this is sharing with others. And then, of course, in a sense, circling all this truth in is the great fact of the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. He is all-sufficient, and we need a deeper experience with Christ. We need to fall at his feet in these days, as Roy Hesham described in his book, Calvary Road, or his book, Forgotten Factors, an entire book dealing with the problem of immorality in the church and the sex issue. And he shows again in this book, as in his other books, that Jesus Christ is sufficient for whatever struggle, whatever hassle, whatever problem we may have. There is mental and emotional survival in the Christian life. Take these keys and use them in many more that you will receive from these books and from the messages. Let us pray. Living God, we thank you for this time in your Word together this morning. We thank you that there's grace for sinners. We thank you that there's power through your Holy Spirit to change our lives, to build us up, and to make us emotionally and mentally victorious and stable that we may work your work and do your will. Be it here or overseas where the need is so great. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Life at Its Best 1 Emotional and Mental Survival
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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.