In this sermon, the preacher discusses the topic of commitment and how it means different things to different people. He mentions that he has written four books on commitment but still feels he has a long way to go. The preacher emphasizes the importance of moderation and not getting drawn into things that waste time. He also talks about making Jesus the Lord of every aspect of our lives, including relationships and time. The sermon ends with an invitation to examine one's walk with God and determine if they are truly committed to following Jesus.

I've been living in Britain for 22, 23 years. The only thing I can say about this conference, I can say a lot of things, but one of them is it's 20, 30 years late. I don't know what it is, but sometimes we're so slow, and I include myself, to respond to the challenge that Jesus Christ gave in his word. So praise God, this is a very special time. Nobody is here by accident. And let's pray God will really help in this final time. This time will include an open invitation. One will be reality, the other will be geography. One will be concerning your walk with God. That's the first thing we're concerned about. Is he really the Lord of your life? Are you really a spirit-filled on fire follower of Jesus Christ? And the second will be geography. Are you really moving in the right direction? Let's pray. Our Father you minister to us so much, some of us are bordering on spiritual gluttony. And we're scared Lord, some of us are scared because we know we can't live it. We know that we've had spiritual mountaintop experiences before, and within weeks we're down not only in the valley, but in the ditch. But we dare to believe that somehow, this day, this week, this year will be different by the power of your Holy Spirit in our lives. Grant us that extra grace to go one more mile tonight to absorb what you want to give us from your word. To take steps of faith that you want us to take. Whether we're new recruits or Christian leaders. Whether we feel we're missionaries or whether we feel we're a mission field. We pray Lord that we'll not be hearers of your word only, but doers according to your word. Grant obedience and faith tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen. Some of you of course know me, I've been ministering up and down the country for the last 22 years. And if I didn't give some book reviews you would think I was ill. And so I wouldn't want to disappoint you. I not only have books, but just before I came up, someone from what I believe is one of the greatest missionary movements of all times, OMF, gave me this fantastic planner. You know, I don't think we should separate proper organization from true spirituality. And if some of us don't get more organized, we're not only going to drive ourselves crazy, but our wives crazy, and everybody else has to work with us. And we need an amalgamation of the practical and the spiritual in the work of God. And that little planner that you can get at a reduced rate because the beginning of the year started, is available over here from the bookstall. And I hope that you'll pick one up. I think it's about 50 pence. I went over to the bookstall today, was there talking with different individuals. That was a great challenge, especially to meet a sister from Poland. People are here from all over the world. Just before I was in Poland last year, or now it's the year before last, I was in the private little house group. It was all very secretive, sort of one of these connections you make in the streets. And they were just so desperate for information about what God is doing. And we in our so free, such free countries, we seem to also often be over-informationized. We're not really that interested. I know you are, who come to a conference like this. But it is an enormous privilege to be able to get a hold of some of these books. And if you can't get any more books, you can get them from your Christian bookshop, you can get them from your church library. You can make sure some of these books are in your church library. For 25 or 30 years, I have been reading books regularly, many, many hundreds in my spiritual food, whether I've been in jail in the Soviet Union or whether I've been stuck at the border having left my passport 1,000 miles behind in a restaurant. I've usually had some books with me. And there's three books that are competing for what I feel are the three most significant books of the last 100 years. Now, the one that I have been saying for many, many years is the top book, is Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones' Spiritual Depression, Its Cause and Cure. That is equivalent to any one year at any Bible college you can choose in the world. I really mean that. I graduated from one of the great Bible colleges. But that is spiritual food that will take a good 10 years to digest. The cover is terrible. Spiritual depression, it's not really about depression. Some of you, because of your lifestyle, when you read it, you will get depressed. But it's a challenge of what real commitment is. And though this man is in heaven, his voice speaks on. And I fear that without that kind of spiritual steel in our fiber in this last part of the century, we're not going to go very far, despite all nice intentions. But there's a book now competing with it. And I haven't made the final vote. I think it's going to move ahead of it. But I haven't finished it yet. I don't know how he ever got to writing this book, such a large book, when he was doing so much else, so many other things, and writing so many other books. And I speak of this great book, Discipleship, by David Watson. If I had to choose between pushing these two books and preaching, I think I would choose to just push the two books and forget about my feeble utterances. Thank God, these are just sermons in print. I listened to the memorial service of David Watson recently on tape. And I had the joy of knowing him just a little. And certainly, he was an example of God working through, in many ways, a gifted but ordinary being. The memorial service, the speaker shared about some of the struggles and weaknesses that David faced in his life. Just like you, just like me, God used him. So I commend his book on Discipleship. The second or third in the competition is a book that every time I start to read, I can't believe it. I really mean that. It's called The Best of A. W. Tozer. This man has been the greatest influence in my whole Christian life as any other writer. I had him much, much earlier than I even knew Dr. Lloyd-Jones existed. He introduced, Lloyd-Jones introduced Tozer to Britain. And we had the joy of importing his books and introducing him to most evangelical clergymen through his books. And this is a treasury of extracts from his 20 other writings. If you can't get a mountain of spiritual food out of that book, please write to me. My address is N.E.O.M. office. I've got my 1985 calendars with me with my address. I can give you one. You write to me and say, look, I couldn't get much spiritual food out of that Tozer book. And I will send you, as a gift and an apology, 25 free books. So I commend to you the best. I'm not joking. The best. They're my choice of what books. The best. It'll even include some of my own. There are some other great books. I think number fourth on my list is Michael Griffith's Take My Life. Of all the books he's written, I don't think any of them even get near that book. So, you know, I have my bias. Take my life. That's about commitment. It's about what we sing in our churches. Take my life and let it be. Holy consecrated God to thee. A brilliant book. How many of you have read this book? It's really a classic. It's been out a long time. That's very encouraging. Very encouraging. There's another bombshell book that I just love to distribute. People get challenged even when they just look at the cover. Because there's two things that challenge people. One, the name of Martin Goldsmith. And the other one is the title, Don't Just Stand There. Evangelical passivity is a spiritual gangrene in our churches today. People sitting, waiting for God to do what he's already done. Praying, Lord, touch me. When the Lord already more than touched his son, Jesus Christ, but allowed him to be crucified, that you and I might be on the move in obedience. Don't Just Stand There is a brilliant book. And then I always like to introduce at least two new books. One is for people that have difficulty relating to their parents. About 80% of you probably. That's right. Chua Wee Hin, one of the great leaders of UCCF, the Christian Union movement, international movement. Dear Mom and Dad, just published. Because, you know, a lot of you, you're going to go anywhere for God. You're going to have to give some attention to your mothers and fathers and to what it is to try to move in unity with them. A new one by the leader of WECC. I call it the WECC Book of Lists. It's actually How Are You Doing? Went through me like a spiritual laser beam. 24 checklists on spiritual growth, some of them very depressing. But remember, whenever these books depress you because you feel such an oog, you can believe God to lift you up. And then finally, two books from overseas. Living With Your Passions, a book on sexual purity, probably the most needed book in many of our lives, and Healing for Damaged Emotions. If I had to choose some of our good seminaries or choose to study those books, you'd give me a very, very difficult choice. Fortunately, some of you at least can do both. And when I think of the price of paperback books, it's one of the greatest investments you can make in your Christian life. I put my life on any of those books. You can send any of them back to me. I get not any single penny from this book table, I can assure you. But I am here because Christian books rescued me from unbelief, from doubt, from fear, from almost completely overthrowing the Christian faith two years after I was converted. And they're sermons in print, and I commend them to you. And I know the Lord will use them. None of them come near this book, but they help us understand this book, just as I hope in my feeble message I can also help to understand some of the things in this book. Let's look at a number of scriptures together. This is a time when we go directly into the Word of God. We've got challenges, testimonies, songs, engagement, dedications, various things. And now we're going to go into the Word of God. I'm known as one of the longest preachers in Europe, and I know some of you are tired. I'm also a little bit jet-lagged having just come back from the West Indies, get confused about the time. But we won't have the opportunity to gather like this again for a long time. So let's just bear with me. I remember in Germany, some of you have heard this story. It's my favorite. It's true. I can't resist it. Half of you have heard it. But I was in Germany where they're neurotic on punctuality. I go there again next weekend, please pray. And I was going on about an hour and a half. Of course, the interpreter was taking half the time. And a man tried to get me to stop speaking. He borrowed a wristwatch from somebody in the back. He was sitting in the back row, an older man. Most of the young people were listening very intently. Taking notes, and I've been amazed at the way you're taking notes. I sit usually way in the back and watch people take notes. It's quite challenging. But he held the watch up, trying to get me to, you know, shut up. And I was preaching about discipleship, world missions, forsaking all for Christ. I saw this watch. I said, praise Jesus, folks. Look at this man donating his watch for world missions. Come on, you get these things free with a gallon of gas or petrol. When you go to the mission field, they just disintegrate. But there are a number of scriptures, as we think of the subject of commitment, and we have to realize commitment means different things to different people. And we've chosen a big subject. I've written four books trying to deal with commitment. And when I reread them, which is a very heavy experience, apart from getting ill, I find out that I have a long way to go. Hebrews 12 is the first scripture I want to read in thinking about commitment to Christ. I'm one of these runners. I love to run, not every morning. Some mornings I hate it. That's why I run. Not an ascetic, just know that George Burwer needs a little discipline. I remember Billy Graham speaking at one of these great student conferences many years ago, 25, 30 years ago. I've listened to the tape 20 times. I wasn't there, but he just very clearly said, you know, if you're not willing for the disciplined life, forget it. And really whatever commitment you make tonight, whatever promise you made last night without discipline, you're not going anywhere. Paul said, I buffet my body and bring it into subjection less after preaching to others. This is the apostle Paul. I become a reprobate. And here the writer to the Hebrew says, wherefore, seeing we are surrounded about with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin, which does so easily beset us and let us run with patience. It's a great need in my life. Patience, the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the key to real commitment, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. A committed man is many things. The Bible describes him as a pilgrim. The Bible describes him as a soldier, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Think of those young Iranians rushing into the front lines of the Iran Iraq war. Even tonight, many of them, 16 and 17, considering it a joy to give their lives totally for their religion and for their country. That's commitment. We heard a similar reference to that tonight. I think one of the strongest things about A.W. Tozer is that my heart is linked with, though I'm a failure and I'm still wrestling with it. He felt that contemporary evangelical Christianity, and he included the charismatic movement, the non charismatic movement. He included everybody who doesn't like to be included. He felt that the commitment we represented was not a biblical commitment. Now he's strong and he said it was not enough to take the gospel to pagan lands, but that we must be concerned about the quality of the gospel that we are taking. And I believe that God wants us to consider tonight the quality of our own commitment to Jesus Christ and my fellow missionaries. I believe you and I are in on this because I want to be quite honest. I'm appalled at times of the lack of commitment on the mission people. And I speak of O.M. I'll let you speak of your own group. Satan is clever. And we build up habits in our life. Billy Graham said our life is filled with habits and we don't bring these habits under the crucifying power of the Lord Jesus. We don't deal with those roots of jealousy, those roots of bitterness, those roots of lust and those acorns in our lives in the teenage years become trees in the twenties and they become giant trees in the thirties and the forties. I believe it is impossible to consider the task of world missions without deciding to deal with sin in our lives. It's an unpopular word in many places today. We're encouraged to be positive in all of our thinking even though we have a Bible with at least a thousand negative exhortations and praise God many positive ones as well. You cannot read the Old Testament without realizing the cancerous nature of sin. I'm sorry our brother this morning didn't get to that next chapter but he referred to it of the mess that Aachen made because sin wasn't dealt with. Is there some sin in your life some habit that needs to be brought under the crucifying power of Jesus Christ tonight? As I mentioned there's going to be two kinds of invitation at the end of my message. One is going to be reality that's the first. I'm going to give you the opportunity to simply stand and recommit your life to Jesus Christ not missions to Jesus Christ to his kingdom and affirm him as absolute lord of your life. That's my first burden tonight and I thank the committee for the freedom to share that burden. The second invitation will be geography because I believe that God is dealing with some of you about geography. The Holy Ghost brings a holy go. Acts 1 8 is there in the Bible just before Jesus ascended into heaven and he said ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and the uttermost part of the earth. I don't think I'll ever forget that prayer meeting last night. I'm to a lot of prayer meetings. They're not always alive I can tell you and last night we focused in on some of those countries where the church does not exist. I wish meetings like this did not only attract the missionary minded. I wish they attracted the people who are not missionary minded because it is men in high places in Britain. It is men in key pastorates in Britain who do not have a vision or concern for world missions that are hindering the spreading of the gospel more than any other factor I know. We have tried to mass produce men of God in our seminaries and in our institutions and as Tozer said we have produced mascots instead of prophets and I yearn, I cry out and I hope you will cry out with me for revival in the pulpits of Britain. That once again there would be men and women of unction. Once again there would be fearless men and women who would speak what the word of God says. No matter how hard, no matter how difficult, no matter how many people in the congregation are upset when we step on their materialistic corns or some other little favorite spiritual no-no. It's interesting how books like the Golden Cow, almost prophetic, written by John White, a Lancashire psychiatrist, are shoved to one side because they're too prophetic and too unpleasant and instead we start like swine going to the slaughter, gather up these little poison-covered whatever you want to call them from places like Texas that tell us that all real spiritual people are going to financially prosper and that if we're really dedicated to Jesus we can get rid of that beat-up 63 Volkswagen and get ourselves a Mercedes. I mean after all why be a Volkswagen Christian when you can be a Mercedes Christian? Doesn't matter that there's a million souls without food in Ethiopia. Doesn't matter that thousands are dying in starvation in 20 other countries. We write them off with one wipe of the pen, one little theological cliche explains why they are in that predicament and why God is blessing us and we confuse nationalism with spirituality and we become drunk on what we think is the new wine but it's poison. And we need not only men who are committed to a life in Christ, we need men and women who are committed to sound doctrine, who are committed to what the Bible really teaches and I know that's not always easy to find out. And the Bible says in the last days there will be an increase of heretics and false teaching and extremism. Tozer said if you want to survive this generation you need to develop a little bit of reverent skepticism. Thank you Mr. Tozer. Commitment is many things and we can only in a sense touch on it tonight but I hope we can touch the core. A committed Christian is like a man running in a race. Did you see the London marathon last year? It was incredible. 24,000 running through the streets of London or 20,000, I forget the number, 26 miles. Some of them in their 60s, in their 70s. One man was carrying a ladder. Yeah. They asked him what are you carrying the ladder? He said in case I hit the wall. For those of you who don't know running terminology, when you're in long distance running and your body gets tired you feel that you just can't go and your terrific weakness comes upon the body. But if you somehow pace yourself you can go right through that. Terrific exhilaration after you get through the wall or over the wall like me. Take out a few bricks and you know crawl through. I have a sense as I minister to the Lord's people that I'm often facing many people who have hit the wall. I was in a Christian union recently ministering on the subject of discouragement. How to have victory over discouragement. I'd love to speak to you on that. I can't do that but you write to me and I'll send you the tape. I'm not only a bookworm but I also listen to tapes. But I was in this Christian union, I was feeling rather bold and I said you know I feel some of you are discouraged in your Christian life. At the end I gave an invitation for people who were discouraged and in despair to stand up. Three-fourths of the Christian union stood up and asked God to fill them with the Holy Ghost and to drive discouragement back into the ground where it belongs. You know sometimes it's not the big things that destroy us. You know big lust trips. You know I don't think most of you are your main temptation is tonight go shoot you know a couple ounces of heroin. I don't think you're you know your big temptation tonight is you know go bust into a local bank and get a big million. That's not the way by the way you get money for missions. I thought of it already. Often the temptations we get in God's race are far more subtle. It's just a temptation to slow down. It's just a temptation to let a little cynicism come in. A little pride to come in or just to to allow ourself to be discouraged. I've had so many fistfights with discouragement I lost count. But I read in the Bible one day don't let the sun go down upon your anger. That was another one of my top major problems. And I thought if the Bible says don't let your son go down upon your anger then don't let it come down upon your discouragement. And I have been able to practice that most of my Christian life. You determine whether you are discouraged or not. The joy of the Lord is our strength. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and we can claim deliverance and victory over discouragement. We may not always feel it to the same degree but we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. Some of you are going to have post-conference blues in a few days because you're expecting God to do things in your life that he's probably not going to do as quick as you want. I have a little message I give to our OM teams. Seven things God won't do for you. These OMers really get upset with me at times. They think I'm stressing balance too much and I'm not emphasizing the old hard line OM message. You know knock them out, kick them down, beat them up, feed them you know fried grass and frog's eyeballs. If they can only realize the first OM conference I ever preached at the Mexican border many years ago when it was being born, every night I spoke in the same thing, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And if it hadn't been God's emphasis in our hearts on love, on Calvary love, on brokenness, on what Roy Heshin talks about in Calvary Road, you know I think we would have become a weird extremist movement. Maybe even as that wild cult once called the children of God. So pernicious, so unbelievable. It seems that Satan has almost two strategies. Firstly he tries to keep you from real commitment and then as you begin to know commitment, as I know some of you do know, and it is an ongoing process, there may be a crisis but it's followed by a process. But it seems in the second strategy when you know something of a spiritual life, you know something of commitment, Satan tries to get you into some cul-de-sac, some extreme. Tozer said that the more zealous Christian was more easily led astray. And Christian leaders, my brothers and sisters and co-leaders here, that puts a heavy responsibility on us to pray for people here. I've got the names of a few people I've met today. I even took their pictures because I have a poor memory and I am committed to pray for those people. We need to determine tonight that we're going to go from here and pray for one another. Because Satan is going to counter-attack this conference and he's going to try some subtle method. And we need to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. A. W. Tozer said the greatest gift needed in the church today was is discernment. If we have spiritual blessing and spiritual power and spiritual gifts without discernment, patience, wisdom, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we will convert some of our churches into circuses overnight. And I fear that. And I don't think I've ever been accused of lack of zeal or lack of desire for wholehearted commitment to Jesus Christ. We're running in a race. There's another scripture you can find if you turn one page in most of your Bibles, the end of chapter 12, where it says, for our God is a consuming fire. That to me is a picture of a committed Christian. He's a person on fire. Sometimes when we talk about reality in evangelism and reality in witness and reality in prayer and reality in relationships, and we talk about the crucified life, immediately somebody says, don't be super spiritual. Is that the biggest problem where you come from? Too many overly spiritual people. Let me tell you, you won't do anything for God without some clown telling you you're super spiritual. And if you want to go anywhere for God, if you want to ever end up on the mission field, you must learn to deal with intimidation. Because there are many men more brilliant than us who are out there who don't believe in missions and don't believe that people are lost and don't believe that this is a sensible place to be for four days over new year. And some of them are very gifted speakers and they are professionals at intimidating you. We all have our weaknesses. None of us are master communicators. We haven't been through three years of Dale Carney, how to win friends and influence people. And as we launch out for Christ, we will make mistakes. We will perhaps look like a fool in some cases. And the enemy has a way of sometimes intimidating us. And we just go down under intimidation, like one big thud. I've seen it in Christian union after Christian union in my 22 years of ministering in the seas that I love so much. You know what the Bible says? God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and of power and a sound mind. I've had the intimidators banging on my door since the moment of my conversion. 30 years is a long time to bang on one door. And I've learned from them because sometimes I had failed and sometimes I had sinned and I needed to shape up and I needed to get my house in order, but I refused to allow it to discourage me in my prayer, in my evangelism, and in the basics of the Christian life that had been emphasized in this beautiful gospel. Stand firm. 1 Corinthians 15 58. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Tozer didn't always appear to be balanced. Some of his statements are almost, well, it's hard to explain. Blunt to say the least. And yet some other things he said brought so much balance. You know what he said once that just it came to me like like a fresh cool shower in New Delhi in May. He said, you know, God is easy to live with. You know, one of the great dangers in my life was I was becoming religiously jumpy. I was vaccinated with a sort of perfectionism, not just from what I found after I became a Christian, but even before that. And I thank God that he is easy to live with. I thank God that he deals with me on the basis of love and forgiveness and mercy. And I tell you, without that as a as a bottom line, so to speak, if you know that term, you can become very neurotic after four days here. That's right. Because the commitment we're talking about here is a way of life. It's a way of life. I remember a great missionary that came to me, the first medical doctor on the ship Lagos, when we sailed around Africa toward India. He was 70 years old, a godly man, a medical doctor. There wasn't much to do on the Lagos in the way of medicine. And so I was always finding him washing dishes. Brilliant doctor. And he gave his testimony at 70 years of age. He came back to Britain shortly after that, went to be with the Lord. But he gave his testimony in a humble way, stood before these young people. Many of them are very weak in the faith. There was quite a bit of carnality on that ship in those days, I will tell you. And he stood up in a humble way and he said, I thank God for so much that I've learned from you young people. And I tell you, some people wept. I pray that somehow when I'm 70, I'll still be a learner. I pray that somehow you and I, as disciples of Jesus, will never take those L plates off. Never get to that place where we think we have arrived or our group has arrived. I find this coming in Britain these days, it also scares me. Each group somehow feels they're a little better than the other group. And somehow in order to sell people on our group or to get them to go our way or chew on our spiritual bread crumbs, we have a subtle way of more or less painting our group or our church stream or our denomination as being just a little bit up, sort of spiritual one-upmanship. Well, let me give you a little information about Operation Mobilization. I think we maybe went through that for a while. May God have mercy on us. But we've discovered the hard way. We're a little bit down, just a little bit down. And we have failed God in our work many times. And we learned that it's easy to talk. It's easy to pray big prayers even at midnight. But it's not so easy to love your wife for 25 years or 30. Not so easy to love that brother and sister who gets on your nerves and yet you're assigned to the same mission station with him. It's not so easy to love that man down the road who you're supposed to be working together with when he has some little doctrinal twitch that doesn't warm your theological battery. And the lack of love among us, the lack of reality and Calvary love and brokenness, it must be at times an abomination to God. Yet he loves us still. How much more we should love one another? Yes, I believe that the normal Christian life is a life of being on fire for Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean you have to be noisy. I know people get nervous when I speak. I don't even get invited to quite a few places because too many people get nervous when I speak. And the big fear is that people are going to become like George Burwell. Do you really think this is a big problem around Britain? I mean really? Do you think there's too much enthusiasm? I realize I'm too enthusiastic and too loud. My wife has been trying to train me in this area for 25 years, almost had a nervous breakdown. But I don't think the greatest problem in your church is too much enthusiasm for Christ. If it is, well then write to me. I want to pray for more spiritual balance in your church. Really. A.W. Tozer said to think that the biggest problem in the Church of Jesus Christ was too much enthusiasm and zeal for love and passion for souls was like sending a squadron of policemen to a nearby cemetery to guard against a demonstration by the residents at midnight. Please don't write a book of quotations as someone recently did and say that George Burwell said that. That was A.W. Tozer. I'm just a repeater. People sometimes ask me to recommend my own books. It's ridiculous. How do you recommend your own books? The only way I do it is tell people that they're loaded with quotations I've taken from other people's books. Amazing enough, I've had 14,000 letters from the result of my book, Hunger for Reality. I want to ask you this question. You know, New Year's Day is a great time to ask questions or to take inventory. This little book I call it the Weck Book of Lists. It's sort of a spiritual inventory. Either way, it has a tremendous chapter on whether you should go to Bible college or not. And if any of you are thinking about that, there's a leaflet available just outside this auditorium that just about blow every circuit in your head if you have Bible college circuits. It's got most of the Bible colleges of Britain with their addresses. It even tells the date they're founded. Here's one founded in 1892. Can you imagine going there? And it really is something. I hope every one of you will get one. I just finished writing the OM International monthly letter, and I've offered it to anybody who writes in to me next month because I just got so excited by that leaflet. Praise God for the increased numbers going to our great Bible colleges. Not the total answer. God doesn't send everyone through Bible college. He leads different people in different ways, but it's one of God's ways to get a greater knowledge of the Word. And I don't think we can be effective in missionary work without a knowledge of the Word of God, even if you go as a mechanic or something else in that area. And so I want to take a little spiritual inventory. I want to ask you, are you on fire for Jesus Christ? It's not noise we're talking about. It's not outward enthusiasm I'm talking about. It's inner reality. It's love. It's knowing God. It's experiencing Christ and his presence. It's things you've read about many times. Samuel Logan Bringle, that man who worked with Booth and brought tens of thousands to Christ, gave a definition of fire. Can I read this to you? What is fire, spiritual fire? It is love. It's faith. It's hope. It's passion, purpose, determination. It's utter devotion. It's divine discontent with formality, ceremonialism, lukewarmness, indifference, sham, noise, parade, spiritual death. It's singleness of eye, consecration unto death. It's God the Holy Ghost burning in and through a humble, holy, faithful man or woman. I want to ask you, are you that man? Are you that woman filled with the Holy Spirit? That's God's will for every one of us here tonight. It happens as we learn what it is to be crucified with Christ. As Paul said, I am crucified. Do you know why often we have so many problems in some of our churches? So many divisions and contentions and bickerings and difficulties. Mueller said it. Hudson Taylor said it. Every man of God, almost I've ever read, says the same thing. Andrew Murray, F.B. Myers, Keswick, Filey, Stephen Olford, Alan Redpath. Do you know what it is? Self. And you can go through even a missions convention and the self-like can go away still very active. In fact, in OM at times, we have specialized in the energy of the flesh and seeing people try to serve God when the self-like was still in path. That's why we get upset and jealous and irritable. That's why we get cynical. That's why we feel people don't appreciate us in all that we're doing for God. Or people don't understand us. Or self-pity comes in. What a puddle that one is. Or regret, the most subtle form of all self-love. I want to ask you this question. I know it's a hard question. Can you say tonight, I am crucified with Christ? Yet, I live. Not I, but Christ living within me. Can you say that Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life? Oh my, the messages I've heard on the Lordship of Christ have brought low again and again. I can't repeat them. There's not time. I share about this in my book, the final message I gave at the Chester Operation World Conference. But let me just summarize it and try to bring this to a close. There are definite areas where Christ wants to be Lord of our lives. Let's just name a few. Is he Lord over your relationships? If you have any difficulty in the relationship area, there are different kinds of relationships. I'm thinking widely. Or if in particular, you have any difficulty in the area of sexual relationships. That was my greatest struggle in my Christian life. Get that book, Living With Your Passions, because it's one of the most, if not the most anointed book on that subject I've ever read. There are 400 verses in the Bible that talk about sex. We cannot push that under the carpet. Some of our churches, we claim to teach and preach the whole counsel of God. Great. Easy to say. When did you last hear that verse in the Old Testament expounded? Be thou satisfied with the breasts of the wife of your youth. Ever heard that one expounded? It is interesting that even in the 20th century, even in 1984 and 85, that there's such a hush-hush in the church on the subject of sex. When the Bible is so blunt, so clear, so straightforward, I just love it. It goes through me like a dozen arrows. Because of this book, God has kept me in this area these 30 years. No, not completely in terms of my eyes and my mind, but in terms of the kind of thing that I could do and that would ruin my ministry and ruin who knows what mess it could lead to in a youth movement, a movement like Operation Mortalization. You know, if you keep short accounts with God, dealing with the slightest bit of lust that comes into your mind, very, very seldom are you going to get into deeper trouble. But unfortunately, we don't even like to talk about it. And you know, there's no sense in making a recommitment of your life tonight if you're not willing to deal with that relationship, with that girlfriend or that boyfriend that you know in the depth of your heart is not from God, at least for now. It's dragging you down. It's not glorifying him. There's an overemphasis on the physical. You're not really praying and moving mountains together for God, as any young couple should be. You're sort of in it for mutual satisfaction. It may be your insecurity and his lust. You don't really know. And it's just going on and on. And Billy Graham taught when I heard him preach years ago that this probably stops more people from the mission field than any other single area. I ask you, brothers and sisters, make Christ Lord of your social life. Get together with your girlfriend or boyfriend tonight or tomorrow or this week. Get on your knees together and let Christ crucify that relationship and allow it to die or be resurrected. Because people prematurely running into marriage is an enormous hindrance. And unfortunately, today, that's the least of the problems. Today, we don't prematurely run into marriage. We just prematurely run into bed and we pay for it with confusion and a guilty conscience and damaged emotions more than any other perhaps generation. No wonder one of the best-selling books today is Healing for Damaged Emotions by David Siemens. Will you make him Lord of every relationship? Your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, those you understand, those you don't understand, friends, apparent enemies. Jesus Christ, Lord. That's his way. Secondly, Lord of your time. David Wilkerson felt the sin of wasting time was the biggest sin among youth today. It is amazing the time frittered away watching a lot of the silly junk that comes over television. And I'm not totally anti-television. I'm sure there are some programs very challenging. I almost wept watching a program about Afghanistan recently. Nor do I think there is no place for recreation and to put your feet up and read a good book or to put your feet up and watch something on television. If that somehow recreates you and gives you some spiritual battery charge in the human side of your life, then go to it. Whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord. When I watch a film, I like to watch it with everything I have. I've seen Star Wars three times. Every time is all I have. But the Word of God teaches in all things moderation. And for many of us, that's a big challenge, isn't it? So easily we get drawn into things where our time is not used best. And the good becomes the enemy of the best. Thirdly, he wants to be Lord of our minds and of our intellect. Isn't the real crux of the issue so often a lazy mind? How many of you systematically memorize scripture? We got a lot of navigators here. They're the pace setters in this. But oh my, I wonder how many, let's be honest, are systematically, even one verse a week. I like to be, you know, I like to be broad as I can. One verse every other week. Raise your hand. Encourage my heart on this first day of the new year. Interesting. That's better than most audiences. If I hadn't learned to memorize the Word of God as a young baby Christian, converted in a Billy Graham meeting through the prayers of a prayer warrior, who was also the human founder of OM through prayer, if I hadn't learned to memorize scripture, I don't think I'd be here today. I just had too many problems. I had too many, as a young Christian, the more I read about the Christian life, the more I thought I can't live it. It's impossible. It's impossible. But the Word of God is sharp. And if you could go from here tonight with that one decision that you're going to get regularly into the scriptures and getting the scriptures into your heart, the psalmist said, I've hid my word in my heart, oh Lord, that I may not sin against you. Do you believe that? Why don't you practice it? It'll revolutionize your thought life. My lust problems in the mind cut down 90, 80, 70, 60, right down to 10, 5, 2% of what they were before I started memorizing the Word of God. Now you are clean through the word I have spoken unto you. Is Christ Lord of your intellect, your mind? Now with cassette tapes, we not only can memorize the scripture, we can listen. I have the Bible on tape and when I go running or I have to wait somewhere or get stuck somewhere, I can often listen to the scriptures and get brainwashed by the Sermon on the Mount. Isn't that dangerous? Can you imagine what would happen if people started getting brainwashed by the Sermon on the Mount? People might start loving one another. Who knows what other crazy thing would happen on planet earth? Praise God for the privilege of study. I've declared myself a Bible student until I get to heaven. This is why I believe so much in these great books. And then Christ needs to be Lord of our emotions. I think there's been a neglect of emphasis on the emotions in the Christian life. We want to be the stiff upper stiff upper lip crowd and I think sometimes missionaries in years gone by have made errors in this in this area because the fact is we're emotional beings and you're looking at someone that is not a great dynamic stiff upper lip to the ends of the earth, plant a church in Mongolia, over or lows, missionary. I'm a weak, scared, somewhat of a coward, struggling, falling at the feet of Jesus, learner. And yet somehow the Lord has been able to use me a little. And I know that if God can use me in my struggles, my doubts, the fears I sometimes go through, the agonies as sometimes I seem to be going one way and then the other and think, well, you know, am I somehow schizophrenic? You know, all of us are a little bit schizophrenic, especially when we commit our lives to Jesus Christ and there has to be the ongoing crucifixion of set. There's hope for anybody with any kind of problem because that's who Jesus specializes in. Brothers and sisters, great faith is not made in the absence of problems or doubts or fears. It's made as you battle through. It's made as daily you deny self, take up your cross and follow him. Will you do that in a new, fresh way from this hour on? If you will, then I believe you're a candidate for God's missionary work wherever it may be. And then is he Lord over your tongue? Oh my, the sins of the tongue so clearly spoken about in scripture. David Wilkerson said something about this. I think it was him. I wrote it in my Bible. Gossip is fast becoming the biggest weapon Satan has against God's chosen people. Rumors are flying around everywhere. Filthy gossip is running, ruining the reputations of ministers and marriages of many God's choices. Servants, will you go away from here tonight and say, Lord, crucify my tongue. The Bible says speak evil of no one. The Bible says the judgment you give is a judgment you will get. Will you ask God's love to come over your cynical heart, your critical tongue, your negative spirit? You say, is that a real issue? I want to tell you this. Sins of the tongue have caused more grief on the mission field than anything I have seen in my service overseas now almost 29 years. And remember even here tonight, I'm just an immigrant missionary. Is he Lord of your tongue? And lastly, is he Lord of your future, your career? We have become neurotics about education. It has become God. Our degrees are worshipped. Many a student has a nervous breakdown going for his O-levels, going for his university degree. And while we see this tremendous commitment on the intellectual side, and while we see people going ahead in all different spheres of society, and it's not necessarily wrong if it's kept in moderation, we find so few are willing to pray even one hour with Jesus. So few who really know how to be used of the spirit in communication and bringing the soul to Christ. Brothers and sisters, is he really Lord over your career? It was the toughest thing for my family when I told them I was leaving university. In OM, generally speaking, we encourage people to finish their university career. I'm quite happy my son has just finished his, but in my case, I knew God was leading me out of that particular university or college to study in a Spanish-speaking university, University of Mexico, in the summers, and to transfer into Bible college during the main term, that I could get to Spain and do some more study in another school there as a tentmaker missionary during my early days in Europe. Is he the Lord over your future, over your career? Unless there's at least some people willing to change their career, we're not going to get the men and the women we need to bring this great task to pass. This foundation of total commitment, this foundation in which Christ is the Lord of our lives, this foundation in which we know what it is to die daily, to take up our cross and follow him, I believe will lead to the kind of people we need for the great task of world missions. Hudson Taylor said this, China is not to be won for Christ by self-seeking, ease-loving men and women. Those not prepared for labor, denial, and many discouragement will be poor helpers in the work. In short, the men and women we need are those who will put Jesus, China in his case, souls first and foremost in everything and at all times. Life itself must be secondary. Their price is far above rubies. I made that kind of commitment to Jesus Christ under the ministry of Oswald J. Smith when I was a Bible college student. Now I'd already made a previous commitment. I was already winning people to Christ. I had already begun to Mexico, but Oswald J. Smith, that great missionary diplomat, came to Moody Bible Institute and he gave another call to commitment. And God broke me and exposed self and my life at night. And I went forward and I asked God to fill me afresh with his Holy Spirit. And I made my life verse, that verse in Acts 20, that the only thing I wanted to do was fulfill the ministry that God has given me. In closing, I want to say I believe there are many reasons why quite a few of us in this particular conference should actually go to the foreign field. I know this is a sensitive issue because people are afraid, are always afraid that somebody staying home is going to feel guilty. Brothers and sisters, is feeling a little guilty the biggest problem in the church? What about people going to hell? Do you consider that a problem? My friends who are so worried about a few people feeling a little guilty, I can't live without feeling a little guilty. God has so blessed me, I have so much, I have so much to be thankful for. I read what's happening in Ethiopia, I feel a little guilty. I read about Campuchia, I feel a little guilty. But I've learned how to maturely handle that. And I've learned how to accept myself and the environment in which God has placed me to be abased and to be abound. And I find that the Lord Jesus has ample ability to take care of my guilt. And I'm glad at times when I feel guilty, when I say something really rude and selfish to my wife, I'm glad I feel guilty. And I'm glad at that point I'm not supposed to pick up a book on psychology, though I'm not against Christian psychology, but I'm to repent and go to my wife and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I've done it again, will you forgive me? And you know one of the most beautiful things with my wife who's stuck with me 25 years at the 31st of this month, she's always forgiven me. And so if you've sinned, if you've failed, you just go to Jesus and he will forgive you. But it's impossible to have a missionary challenge without a few people being upset, without a few people feeling, well he's trying to get people to go overseas, of course we're trying to get people to go overseas, what do you think we've come for, to pay money to the University of Salford? And it's about time that some more of you great British people got on your horses or your rowboats or your water skis and got going out there, because it is a shame how few missionaries are going from this country in these days. It is a shame. And since you want to be objective and logical and keep the whole thing very rational and not to get too emotional, let me give you my seven reasons and then we're going to close. One, because the need is so great, nations with no churches, no missionaries, it's great to support nationals, I believe in it, in the countries I'm working in, in some cases there are no nationals. The whole thrust of OM was to support and work with nationals, the nationals more than any other group of people tell me all the time, would you bring some more of those OMers and help us, the task is too great. And by the way, many of you as single people on the mission field can live as cheap even as nationals, in our work sometimes cheaper, because when nationals get married and have children, they become as expensive often as missionaries who know the simple lifestyle. It's not nationals or missionaries, it's both. And we must beware of thinking because the third world is on the move that places like Britain can now sit back and just talk day and night about what God wants to do in Britain. There's not a single verse in the scripture about what God wants to do in Great Britain. And we've mixed nationalism with our biblical faith, and it's an abomination to God. He is concerned about what we do in the world. And for 22 years, most of the people I talk to, they don't want to talk about world mission, they only want to talk about Britain, and some of them don't even like it when I go overseas and refuse some of their invitations to preach in Britain. And I love Britain, and have adopted it as my home country. We should still be one of the great missionary-sending countries. Most cities I've been in in Britain are 10 to 100 times more evangelized than the places I visit overseas. And if you want to personally correspond about it, I'd be thrilled, because I'm not just saying this. I'd never say it if I couldn't back it up with a thanks. Secondly, because so few are going. I believe in short-term, I believe in long-term. I know God leads different people in different ways, but when you add it all together at present, so few are going. We've heard the statistics, it's not time to over-dwell this. Number three, because few, please get this, few ever get as far as you have right now. I heard there were going to be 2,000 at this conference, and I believe the fact that there are not 2,000 is an indictment against the state of the Church in this country. And if you're hurt by that, those of you who listen to this tape, then check your heart, and if the hurt is not a result of pride, please write to me. And I pray that when Utrecht comes up in 1986-87, there will be an army to go there from Great Britain. I know these conferences are no total answer, but I've studied these conferences for 29 years. I've done my homework and my research. They are one of God's ways, just one of God's powerful ways to get information and action and commitment and spiritual reality into God's chosen, we hope not frozen, people. And some of you know that you will never be the same because you've been here tonight. So few get this far. So few get four or five days of dynamic missionary input. If you don't go, young people who are here tonight, who will? Those who spent the whole New Year's season basically in their own selfish pursuits, or just enjoying more spiritual blessings as we tramp around Britain from one bless-up to another, hardly concerned that a lost and dying world, in many cases, has never even once heard of Jesus Christ. And fourthly, because there are endless open doors, not just for missionaries, not just for preachers and theologians, church planters and well-trained men. There are endless open doors even for short-term helpers. I know in our feeble work we need carpenters, mechanics, secretaries. Many of us who have a gift of preaching are constantly hindered because we don't have enough practical people to help us. And it's only teamwork that's going to get the job done. I thank God for my own nephew who hardly seemed to be a missionary type. He was more American than even the Indians, much less ever think of him of being a missionary. He's on his second or third term in India. He went there as a mechanic. He actually came to our ship just to visit. They gave him a job to do. He never left. They ended up depositing him in India. He went back home. Things didn't seem very interesting there. He went back. The Indians love him and he's the head mechanic of OM, India's huge fleet that has been used of God with the people in the back of it to reach 250 million people face-to-face with the Word of God. Ordinary people. I've often wanted to change the name Operation Mobilization. Keep OM, but just change it to Ordinary Movement. God uses ordinary people and there are endless open doors for ordinary people. And with the increasing costs of full-time career missionary families, we must accept the logical reasoning of having a supplementary short-term guerrilla force, servant force, to help these long-termers, these spiritual men and women, be more effective in the job they have. Who could ever argue against such a strategy? And then number five, there are the resources. I see this as a Mount Everest. I see this as an enormous problem, but I believe through prayer we can release resources. I believe that full commitment to Jesus Christ will bring sacrificial giving and sacrificial living. It won't come easy. I see it as the biggest problem, perhaps equal to the manpower problem the Church is facing in Britain right now. And some of you are going to have to be very patient, because when you get going or you want to go to the mission field, you're going to discover it's not so easy to get that support. And I've seen hundreds of British people over the years, and Americans as well, eventually discouraged because they got so little encouragement in the practical realm. And that is linked with the complexity of the Church, with new denominations, old denominations, with all kinds of problems. I beg of you, don't be discouraged as you try to go through some of the religious fog of contemporary society. Being a missionary is a long-term challenge. And then number six, God can easily stop us. This is why I'm not afraid to challenge people to go, and I'm challenging you tonight in my second invitation to stand to your feet to say that by God's grace you're going. You've sensed the call, you've sensed some guidance, you've sensed the holy push. That's all I ever had from God. And so by faith you're going to begin moving. It may only be short-term, temporarily, with the option that during that short-term you will seek God's confirmation as the long-term career missionary work. But by faith, when you leave here tonight, you're going to begin moving. You know our ships go very, very slow. One of them goes about nine knots. And when that captain takes it out of the port, suppose when our captain leaves Southampton to go to Africa, you know, do you think he's going to get down in Cape Town overnight? No. Months. Nine knots. And when you go out of here, you're not going to be a full-time cross-cultural missionary tomorrow. But I hope that when you go out of here, by God's grace, you'll be at least going in the right direction. I'd hate our captain to sail out of Southampton and go in the wrong direction. God can easily stop us. Many are stopped by health. Others are stopped by family problems. Others are just knocked out cold by this or by that. God is sovereign. I'm a great believer in divine providence. You say, so many people are going to rush to the mission field. There'll be a literal stampede. Is this the big problem? Is that what you're facing in OMF? Stampede. I tell you, if there's any stampede for the mission field, please phone me. I want to be there with my movie camera. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much we challenge, no matter how much we pray, because hate Satan will resist in such vicious, bitter ways, because the church seems to understand so little of intercessory prayer and abiding the strong manner of the spiritual warfare, it seems very few will ultimately go and stay and be those church planters among the Baluch and the Patons and the Kurds. And it's very difficult to know who is cut out for that kind of work, just sitting here, even with the best screening tests in the world. I say get out there, many of you, as quick as possible. And let's see what you're made of. And then come back and get some more training and get that church behind you. And I believe God will lead many of you into long-term overseas missionary work. And then number seven, as we go, others will follow. O. J. Smith, who was rejected by a great mission society and ended up going all over the world, winning hundreds of thousands to Christ, I don't know the character, he's still alive, 90-some years of age. His church, the church he used to pastor now, pastored by his son, just promised a million dollars to world missions. CNAC knows something about that church. You know what he said? If you can't go, send substitutes. And there are people right now, back in your Christian union, back in your church, take some of this literature, take some of these tapes, you can get them right after the meeting. Let's get the word around. Ayatollah Khomeini brought a revolution to Iran, mainly through cassette tapes. You and I with tapes and literature and films. These mission societies have so many films, they don't know what to do with them all. And they're not exactly showing them on BBC One. Let's become not only goers, let's become senders through prayer, through recruiting, through action, through prayer cells, through every possible means to reach some with the message of Jesus Christ. To me, there's seven logical reasons why many of us need to make a commitment to go. God in his sovereignty, he will lead. Let us pray. Let us bow our hearts in prayer. And I want to give the first invitation about reality. God has spoken to you. If you're really honest, you know that Christ is not really Lord of your life. You know that you're not really filled with his Holy Spirit and on fire for him, single-minded, totally committed, realizing, of course, that is a way of life, but that it has to start somewhere. I want to give this call to recommitment, to be filled afresh with the Holy Spirit, to make Christ the Lord over every area of your life. Even though you know there will be failure, there will be struggles. For our God has said, if we sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness through our advocate, the Lord Jesus. We're not promising an easy time, and we know in some ways this can only be a step, but I believe some of you need to take that step. The prayer commitment of last night is part of it. So often without the Lordship of Christ, the crucified life and the filling of the Holy Spirit, vows and covenants we make turn to dust and turn against us in guilt and soul agony. I want to ask you, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you on fire for Christ? Have you made an absolute Lord of your life? Can you say, I'm crucified with him? If you can't and you'll take this step of faith, I know a difficult step, and I'd ask you just to stand up where you are. And I want to pray a prayer, a quick prayer for you. Between you and God, make him Lord, absolute Lord of your life. Just stand up. As the Lord strengthens you by faith, it's not standing that will make the difference, it's believing, believing he is Lord. And for many of us that means repentance. It means right now as you're waiting before God to deal with sin and to repent of anything the Lord has spoken to you about. You do that, he shall cleanse from all sin. Praise God. Let's be in prayer. Thousands are praying for this conference. You're here in God's providence. You don't know where the others are who should have been here. We leave that with Jesus. We're thrilled with you who are here. Thousands are praying for us right now. And I believe this is a turning point in many of your lives. Whether you go overseas or you remain at home, you're not dealing with geography yet. You're dealing with spirituality. Is he Lord? Is he Lord? Time, relationship, future, intellect, emotion. Is he Lord? Father you see each one standing before you right now. We know that in some ways this is a select group that you have brought from all over this nation who are already in most cases concerned about mission. But you are taking them one step further. We believe into the inner sanctuary of communion and spiritual power. Fill us afresh with your Holy Spirit. Bind areas in our lives where the strong man, where Satan has been defeating us. That may have come under your, that it may come under your precious blood and that self might be crucified and Jesus may be exalted tonight in our lives. Grant this we pray. Even as we stand before you weak, perhaps scared, feeling inadequate. We surrender our all to you. We trust you through Jesus Christ. Amen. You be seated as we all pray. Father guide us now as we talk a little bit about geography, spiritual geography. We know your Holy Ghost brings a Holy Ghost. We know you're not leading everybody to move toward the unreached people, to move overseas, to move toward world missions, but we know you are leading some. I want to ask as you're praying, with a show of hands, how many of you have already made a commitment to move toward overseas service? You're in touch with a mission society. You've already made a missionary commitment of some kind. Raise your hand. That's a great help to me. That's about a third of the audience. Praise the Lord. You pray, you can renew that commitment, but I don't want you to stand. You pray. You thank God for the day you made that commitment. You renew it in your own heart. But for others who have never made a missionary commitment, to begin moving, you've heard the voice of the Lord. You've heard it in your heart, maybe before you came, but maybe here. And by faith, because Jesus has said, go, you're going to begin to move. You're going to push doors of mission societies. You're going to do, you're going to take some steps of faith. You're going to get involved in some short-term missionary training work. If you're in that category, and we have no way to condemn those who don't stand, because those who've already made this commitment, they're not going to stand easily. But if you want to make that commitment to go, by God's grace, as He opens the door, as He gives the strength, as He provides, know it's not easy, and I want you to stand. A very special invitation that I want you to stand right now, before the Lord. Praise Him. Praise Him. Be in prayer. I know it's a scary decision. Some of you have been waiting for a long time for some special supernatural knock on the head, some lightning bolt to pull up your toes. Forget it. God's Word is clear. Keith Green said, if you're not called to stay, go. Well, you see, that's a bit extreme, but you can talk to Him about it when you get to heaven. But with the way the situation is, maybe it wasn't too extreme to bring things a little bit into balance. Because you do. 99% of God's people in England say, in their own culture, 99% of God's people, and that's probably an understatement. So you, praise God, by His grace, His sense, His call, His guidance, I like that word better, to begin to move. God bless you. Anyone else? God bless you. Yes. Yes. God bless you. Way up in the balcony, forgive me if I didn't look up there enough. Anybody else up there? You see, this decision is very much linked with that last one, isn't it? The last one is possible without this one, because you need more time. But this one is not possible without the last one. Reality first, geography second. Anyone else? Young couples? Men? Women? Praise the Lord. The unreached people will feel the impact of this divine moment. Father, we stand once again before you in prayer. First of all, to pray for perhaps 25% of the people here who have already made this commitment. As they are in their seats right now, fill them afresh with conviction about it. Bring healing to perhaps areas of difficulty. Break down walls of discouragement. And may they once again get on the move, pushing doors, praying, writing societies, getting involved. But we pray right now for this group who has stood afresh, to make this commitment for a first time. To begin to move to the ends of the earth, the regions beyond, the Acts 1-8 commission. We thank you for each one of them. We thank you that a few minutes ago most of them made you the Lord of their life. And now they're willing to go one more step and begin to move in obedience to you, to your word, so that others may hear, so that there may be someday churches in every unreached people's group in the world. Lord, we sense this is serious business tonight. And so we pray, fill us afresh. Send us, guide us, give us wisdom and discernment. For we go forth, we go forth in your precious name. Amen.