World View of Missions (Bethany 1986) — George Verwer

Cooperation in the Body of Christ

I really believe the kind of cooperation and working together that we have, OM and Bethany and WECC, another group that we feel very close to, is something that really brings glory to God. I think in working with OM, if I were not able to esteem others and put a lot of my effort into what others are doing, then I would just be compelled to leave Operation Mobilization because there's only one body, the body of Christ.

These are tactical divisions God has given in order that the work may be accomplished. Just before coming here, I had the joy of speaking to the whole staff in Britain of Youth with a Mission. It's more exciting than speaking to my own staff, I can assure you.

About 250, I must have given about four hours straight of teaching, and what a blessing it was. I never did find out whatever happened to the book table. I just left it behind. I have a spirit of expectation concerning this weekend.

I think what we're doing here is incredibly important. I can't emphasize that enough. I know people are busy. America is a very busy place. I hope that tomorrow morning you might take some time to just encourage people to give this weekend, to being with us and considering this task.

Reaching Those Who Are Not Yet Committed to Missions

Many great churches now no longer have any Missions Conference. It is actually considered an old-fashioned, out-of-date thing in quite a few churches. I was at a very large church in Iowa some time ago, a couple of years ago.

I don't take so many Missions Conferences anymore because I find the people I want to preach to often don't go. That's right. My greatest burden is to speak to young people between the age of 15 and 23 and to speak to those who are not yet committed to world missions.

OM has been called a missionary group, missionary agency for non-missionaries. A lot of the people that are full-time with us are long-term people, never dreamed of being a missionary. They just drifted into a meeting where I happened to be or someone else happened to be, and they heard the challenge.

I had a series of meetings in England a couple of years ago with Sheila Walsh, the great Christian singer. She brought them in, and I preached them out. No man spread the vision of world missions in the United States as much as Keith Green, both before he died, even more after he died.

Some of his tapes are there on my little book table. Through his memorial concerts, thousands made commitments to go to the mission field. Last year, I took a series of memorial concerts in Great Britain, and even there, we had 3 ,000 young people make a commitment to world missions through those concerts.

Some came to the meetings, they didn't even know what it is. They thought it was a rock concert. We showed this videocassette of Keith, and then we preached and gave an invitation. But I was going to this missions conference in Iowa, and the meeting started, I think, maybe on Thursday.

It's a church with thousands of members, and on Thursday night, maybe there were 100 or 200. Sunday, of course, we had three morning services. It was packed out. You couldn't even get in the door, the traditional American Sunday morning church service.

I said to the pastor, I think it was Sunday evening, I said, you know, why don't your people come out for the missions conference for the Thursday and Friday night? He sent something to me I'll never forget.

He said, you know, they don't see what's in it for themselves. They don't see what's in it for themselves. I believe this is really the crux of the issue in the great struggle to get interest and involvement in world missions today.

Missions Conferences and Considering Others

You know, a lot of the books we have are books that minister to us. I visited your printing house and a little bit your publishing house and placed a big order, what I think is a big order anyway, for a few hundred books.

And I noticed in going through the catalog how many of those books are to minister to us. There's nothing wrong with that, and tremendous books. And some of the books I have brought with me are books that minister to us.

One of the distinctives of a missions conference is that we are here to consider others. I know you have needs. Someone once said everybody in the audience in the church is a missionary or a mission field.

And I'm sure God is going to minister to some of your needs. I've already had feedback that that's been happening this morning. But I believe one of the distinctives of this kind of conference is that we are here to consider others.

We are here to forget about ourselves a little bit. Many of us in the present day evangelical world go mountain climbing over mole hills. You see someone out in Iowa with rock climbing gear and helmets and ropes and carabiners and all that.

And you ask him what he's doing and he says he's going mountain climbing out in this field. You might want to call a doctor. But sometimes we as believers are like that. We have our little problems, we have our struggles, we have our frustrations.

I know I do. And somehow we allow them to become bigger and bigger and bigger. And if we were more involved in the real world, in reaching the lost, you know a lot of our own problems would become small.

I don't know how students even stay sane when they're not reaching the lost during Bible school. There's only going out in the streets three, four, five times a week in Chicago as a Bible school student that kept me sane.

The very environment was just so stuffy I could hardly breathe. With endless, endless jargon and cliches, most of which these people never lived. And to go out and work with drunkards and prostitutes and go down to the jail.

And fortunately there was no room for me at the institute. They stuck me in the YMCA with homosexuals and perverts and weirdos. And I ended up as the chaplain of the YMCA. I learned more, I think, in the street than I did sometimes in the classroom.

Not against classrooms. But you know, unless you can convert what you receive in the head into your feet. And the Word of God says not blessed are the heads of those who preach the gospel. Blessed are the feet of those who preach the gospel.

My wife's had a lot of trouble with that doctrine actually. In the practical realm. Because whenever I take my shoes off there seems to be a pretty heavy aroma. I learned years ago to carry plastic bags with me.

Or you get in the airplanes, they give you these free bags. You can use those for your socks. Save your wife a lot of difficulty. Blessed are the feet of those who preach the gospel. Putting into practice that which we hear, that which we learn.

Prayer as the Center of Missions

And I wanted to, before I get to my main message, just share a few prayer burdens. That I've gleaned from places that I've been to recently. And you may want to write some of these things down. I thought the prayer meeting, because I always like to hear the announcements about the prayer meetings.

To me that's where the action is. I thought the prayer meeting was going to be in here. And I discovered the prayer meeting was in a little tiny room in the back. And there weren't very many people there.

I thought I was in the wrong place. I thought maybe we were divided into groups. And that I just got in one of the subgroups. But I didn't particularly care who I was praying with. Because I came to talk with God.

So I checked up later on and found out that was the prayer meeting. Now probably you're all having other spontaneous revival and prayer meetings around the campus. But if you can get free from your other prayer meetings.

Or don't have other appointments. Maybe you could consider praying. Because really if we don't wait upon God. And I know people are praying privately. And don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But if we don't wait upon God.

Then we're only going to get a small portion of what God wants to give us in these days. It's not a long prayer meeting. People are afraid of me in some places. They would never invite me to come to their seminary or college.

They're afraid I might start a night of prayer. I'm known for dragging people into nights of prayer. Usually they're chasing you into nights of prayer. This is a little short little mini prayer meeting.

You barely get started. Choir is walking in and you're going out. Because they use the same room for dressing I think. Not dressing, rehearsing or whatever they're doing. But I'm getting in trouble here.

Where did they go? But do come to the prayer meeting. Because that's where they've probably gone back to pray. That's where the action is. And that's the blessing we want to see upon these meetings. But let me share a few prayer burdens.

Prayer for China and Unreached Peoples

Burden number one is for China. I've been reading a lot lately about China. I had the joy of a very mini visit to China. God opened the door and answered a prayer for the ship Lagos to go to China. Chinese government officials came to the ship.

Saw people from 30 nationalities living together in community and harmony and love. It just blew their circuits. They just couldn't figure it out. What was causing these people to live together and share and work together there on the ship.

They even gave us permission to put a book exhibition in Peking. God is working in China. I don't think we'll go back to China with the ship. I don't think China needs the ship. China has millions of believers.

More believers than North India. It's more evangelized in some ways than North India. There'd be more mass evangelism in North India. But there'd be more personal evangelism and spontaneous evangelism by believers in China.

I just heard another report from a lady, a Chinese woman. And she believes that the number of believers is over 50 million. I feel it's probably an exaggeration. Because she's just seen so much. But there are just millions and millions of believers in China.

But there are unreached, very, very unreached sections of China. Don't be deceived. We have many believers in Andhra Pradesh, India. But that does not affect Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. Because you have such a great huge nation of 700 million.

In China you have the Uyghur people. You have several million Uyghur people in China with almost no witness. They're Muslims. And we need to be praying about these unreached massive people groups within China.

Tibet is slowly opening. One of our workers has just done a survey. She actually went there with a WEC worker. Dear elderly soldier of Jesus. Wanted to go back to Tibet. My friend thought she was going to die there.

She got ill. But they had this survey trip. And Tibet is now open to tourists. A land just north of Nepal. So let's pray for China in the coming days. The second burden is for the Soviet Union. A couple of years ago I was again back in the Soviet Union.

Sacrifice and the Persecuted Church

A little house meeting up in the northern part. Where things are a little more open. I was amazed what God's people are willing to risk. You know I just feel and I may touch on this in the message. But I just feel there's just such a lack of willingness and desire to sacrifice.

For the sake of the gospel and the work of God. In our present American Christianity and British Christianity. And the word sacrifice is almost dropped from our vocabulary. And someone once said well compared to Christ we can make no sacrifice.

Which is true. So then we decide to drop the whole thought. Which is a cop out. The job is not going to be done. The world is not going to be reached. Unless we are willing to sacrifice. I'm not talking about asceticism.

I'm talking about going the extra mile. I'm talking about obedience. I'm talking about sensible use of our resources. And as I visited and met with these Soviet believers. Who were risking imprisonment even to have me into the meeting.

I sensed that I was very, very small in some areas. They shared with me some of the recent happenings. And some of the underground presses. I'd like to know is Fred Renick here? Mr. Printing Press. Are you here?

Are students allowed to tour this press? How can they tour the press? Do they have to pay five, ten dollars? CU, is it possible to have a tour? I mean, I got a special tour. It's possible. How many students have not yet toured that tremendous printing press?

Raise your hand. You've not yet toured the printing press. Don't be shy. Just raise your hand. They've all toured it. Well, that's good. Because, you know, it's so easy to take something like that for granted.

That is solid gold. That's gold plate. And I'm not talking of the tent making ministry, but just the spiritual ministry. You know, in the Soviet Union, they have little printing presses. They're in the ground.

They are literally underground. People drop out of society. They disappear for seven months. And they go underground. They live in a way that's not humane. And when I was in the Soviet Union sometime back, I received a report of another dear woman who died underground because of the intensive fumes and the lack of ventilation.

To get one more, you know, set of Bibles or one more package of gospel tracts, and in attempting to distribute this literature, they all risk imprisonment. Informers are everywhere. You never know. In that very meeting I was in, there could have been informers.

When I went to leave the country, I was raked over the coals. Everything was taken off me, every paper, every pen, everything I had on me. And I thought, because earlier, 20 years ago, I'd been arrested in the Soviet Union, I thought I was going to have another possible longer-term visit.

Somehow they let me go. Amazing. Pray for the Soviet Union. Pray for those that are trying to accomplish work in that land. We've had a work in that part of the world for 24 years. Only a few years ago, the people who were doing this work in OM had a change of policy and allowed me, who started it in the first place, to at least tell people that we have that work.

That's about all we tell about OM's work in Eastern Europe. We at least can say that it exists and we need workers. There are tremendous literature projects right now. There's an awesome lack of literature in Czechoslovakian languages and in Hungarian language and some of the other languages.

And Satan has fought that work into Eastern Europe. Not just OM, but other groups. So that's a great prayer request. And it's something that's very much on my heart. I'll be in Poland again this summer.

Very distinct from those other countries. Very open. Almost anti-communist. I'll be having an official invitation, Lord willing, from the Lutheran Church. And I'm told I can expect an audience of 3 ,000 Polish young people.

So I'd appreciate prayer. I was there not so long ago and the response was quite overwhelming. Prayed for this little town. It's called Atheist Town. It was the model town for atheism and communism, supposedly, in southern Poland.

I was there recently. The Holy Spirit's been working overtime. He's very good at responding to a challenge. And there's some very aggressive believers there. They got a gospel tent and pitched it in a field and started evangelistic campaigns there in Atheist Town.

They started distributing books in the streets and in the supermarket. Some town drunks got saved. Some town communists got saved. There's a church that's flourishing. And we now have legal permission to take truckloads of books into Poland.

You don't need to take it any legally there any longer. We function both ways. We prefer the legal, of course. And God, though the other ministry leads to a lot more of in-depth prison work. And it's just amazing what God is doing in that one town.

Little Atheist Town, southern Poland. Just literally 17 days ago, I was in East Berlin. Pray for East Berlin. Germany, East Germany, also has far more freedom than, say, Romania or Albania. Albania, of course, is the world's most unbelieving, most atheistic, most anti-Christian state.

I wonder how many of us pray for that country. There's a little book on the book table. It's out of print. We are rescuing copies, copies that got stuck in somebody's closet. Bethany Press is going to print the new edition of this book, which is going to be one of the most significant contributions to world missionary literature in all history.

But it's taking a long time. It's on the computer being typeset in England right now. Just getting this for six months or a year before the other edition is worth getting it. It's available at a special price.

It happens to be a hardback edition. But you'll read about some of these countries. In fact, every nation in the world is mentioned in this book, Operation World. You can get this together with a map of the world, Operation World and OM map of the world for a special price.

But Albania claims to have no believers. Maybe we ought to pray a little more for that country. People say, you know, what do you do during one of your nights of prayer? We never have enough time to pray for all that's on our heart.

There's just so many burdens, so many needs, so many crises, so much suffering. And we are an information pool. I never have less than a few thousand prayer requests in my mind and in my heart from my experiences and travels and ministry in 50 nations across the world.

So pray for the communist bloc. Then I'd like you to pray for the land of Turkey. I've been to Turkey about 25 times. If I'm honest, I must say that every time I go there, I get mildly depressed. We have battled so hard in Turkey.

We have put a lot of manpower into Turkey. And in 23 years of working there, we have not seen significant breakthroughs. In fact, the whole church we were involved in planting in Adana, I don't know how many months ago, the whole church, five or six people, they were all arrested and thrown into jail.

They won their case in court, but they're so devastated by their relatives that they have not regathered. The persecution has just been so great. You know, we get a false idea about believers in other countries.

Believers in other countries aren't generally so different than believers here. There are the exceptions. There are the remnant. But just as in our country, it's a minority. We're carrying the load. A minority who know Holy Ghost, discipline, reality in their life.

So in many of these countries, it's also a minority. And when we hear some of the great stories, it's often about a minority of the people. I read something about Poland recently. Made all American Christians look like materialists and all Polish Christians look like dedicated, committed soldiers of Christ.

The fact of the matter is a large percentage of Christians in Poland are in the grip of materialism right now. And there's a lot of corruption going on because of a lot of things being given to the country during the time when they were going through a period of suffering.

Satan is not a fool. Whether he's attacking a Polish Christian or an American Christian or whether he's attacking a Baptist or a Lutheran or Pentecostal or a Watacostal or whatever else, you know, he's not a fool.

He's not an idiot. He knows how to get people in their weak spot. But I'd like you to pray for Turkey. I was visiting our team in Berlin. We have teams in Berlin working among Turks in preparation for going to Turkey so they can get something of the language before they go to Turkey.

We've been laboring there over 10 years. We don't have one single adult male really committed leader among the Turkish believers. Not one. You cannot grasp what these unreached people's groups, what it's really like.

Very difficult to grasp. Pray for Turkey. There are many other prayer burdens on my heart. Spain, which when I lived there, it's the first country I went to apart from Mexico. It was under Franco. It was closed.

Everything we did was in secret. Today, Spain is wide open. It's one of the most open, unreached lands in the world. Yet some of the provinces in Spain have almost no witness. I would have thought with your vision for South America, has Bethany Missions arrived in Spain yet?

Not yet. Anyway, you can put that on your prayer chart because with your Spanish books, you must be one of the largest publishers of Spanish books. You even published my book in Spanish. No, I guess they just ran out of things to publish for a while.

But certainly Spain would be a tremendous place for Bethany Missions to consider opening up and sending a few dozen workers. Let's just pray together about these places and a few other places. I appreciate so much the freedom you give in speaking.

So many places you go, they say, well, brother, we're glad you're here. We've allotted 25 minutes for you to speak. And I just appreciate the extra time you've given. Let's pray. Lord, my heart is just so full I can't even express it properly.

Intercession for the Nations

Think of these countries, China, the Soviet Union, the Muslim world. Think of obnoxious atheistic states spitting in the face of Jesus Christ, mocking him, calling him the son of a prostitute. We sit back and hardly seem to care.

Oh, God, shake us out of our lethargy, out of our spiritual paralysis, out of this materialistic brand of evangelical Christianity that we so easily adopt in this country that puts us out of step with a book of Acts.

Shake us up, oh God, as we meet you in these days together. May we be willing to search our hearts, keep us from the argues as we attempt to argue our case and defend the status quo, try to write off spiritual lukewarmness as spiritual balance.

Father, forgive us if we've traded in our backbone for a wishbone and abandoned the biblical radical principles of New Testament Christian living. We want the blessings but without the responsibility.

We want fulfillment and have substituted the great fulfillment for the great commission. And we pray, Lord, you'd move upon our hearts in these days together. Bring in others who the last thing they want to do this weekend is go to a missions conference.

Father, we pray for the Soviet Union, for revival, for strength, for believers that keep going the extra mile, for those in prison. For that great Christian rock singer who suffered so much, we pray for China, Lord, for a greater mobilization of the believers, for the literature needs, for the complicated church situations, the divisions, the complex tension between the house churches and the more established official churches.

Oh, God, give wisdom to the workers, those who are carrying literature in, those that are helping in other ways and radio ministries. Father, we pray for Turkey, these half a dozen churches among the Muslim converts in the whole nation, never more than a dozen believers in most of them.

Impossible beyond the impossible. We pray for Turkey, raise up workers. We thank you for Weck's work there. Thank you for David Hunter and his wife that are joining Weck after years with O .M. and going back to Turkey.

Lord, there are other lands, Iran and Iraq, locked in that horrific war, Afghanistan being torn apart week after week, Sudan and Egypt, North Africa, Libya, the heartland of terrorism. Jesus, raise up workers, raise up men and women who will give to this ministry as most of this ministry in the Muslim world is underfinanced, understaffed.

Lord, we believe you've called us to pray together in these days, break through in these different prayer meetings we're involved in, in our rooms, small groups, spontaneous groups. May the very snow melt around us through the heat of our prayer life.

Grant this, we pray, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Let me just say that I have no message. I only have a heart broken for souls. I haven't come here to perform. I know if I say something funny or I behave in a way that people are not accustomed to, they think there's some kind of performance going on.

I can assure you I'm not performing. This is the way I have lived for 30 years. And I am a little different. We're all different. Some are more different than others. And God showed me a long time ago that I was not Andrew Murray or F .B. Myers or Mr. Gordon, you know, that old St. Mr. Gordon who wrote all these books on quiet talks.

If you read too many Bethany books, you'll get overdosed on Andrew Murray. I was, as a young Christian, and I thought that all dedicated Christians were silent and quiet and had a lot of hang-ups about my big mouth and used to pray, Lord, help me to be more quiet.

And I ended up praying, Oh God, help me be more quiet. And that was more like it. I never have been quiet. You know, when you're saved by the grace of God, you don't lose your temperament. Your blue eyes don't turn sort of a halo color.

This treasure is in an earthen vessel. But I'm not here to perform, though anything I do will have the verwer earth dirt factor. Just let that slide and try to get what God is saying. I don't like to have any difference between the way I live and the way I preach.

It's all the same. People often, if they find me dictating letters, are on the phone to England three minutes before the meeting and say, When do you prepare for your messages, Mr. Verwer? I prefer to be called George.

I say, Every step in my life, everything I read, everything I do, every soul I win to Christ is preparation for the next message. I'm not against people who are more homiletical and more hermeneutical.

That sounds musical. But I'm just not that way myself. I don't rate myself among the top ten preachers. I don't even rate myself as a preacher. I'm just a broken vessel that God invaded 31 years ago. And what God puts in has to come out, and it comes out sometimes in funny ways.

So don't get put off. If I turn you off, God can turn you on. Nothing's impossible for him. It's good to be back in America. I'm a poor missionary, and I always feel I'm a refugee until I get back to my own hometown, which is a little village in New Jersey.

And as far as I'm concerned, Minnesota could be the regions beyond. But I hope you will listen. It's easy to sit propped up in a nice soft chair like this and think about your last five girlfriends or your next five girlfriends or the fact that you've never had a girlfriend and probably never will.

But I hope that you will listen to what I have to say. If I seem a little humorous, it's because by spiritual nature, the new nature, and what God has done in my life, I am hyper serious. And basically, as far as I know, every day since my conversion, I have lived with seriousness of purpose with one main goal that has never left me not a single day in 31 years, to make Christ known and to know him better myself.

I thank God that doesn't mean the liquidation of the human side of my personality and me, whoever and whatever that means. I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12. One of my greatest struggles is in connection with my pushing books.

I was in a little church out in California. What's the name of it? Grace Community Church. Pastor John MacArthur, yeah. Little church out there, a few thousand. And they really gave it to me strong. We don't want any book pushes.

Sunday night service. One or two minutes. And so I was feeling a little nervous, and I just took about three minutes for pushing books and weaved about six other major book reviews into the message. But I will tell you, when they finished that church service, I have never seen such a mob storm the OM book table.

I thought people were going to be injured. I left a lot of books behind in the church, and they have completely disappeared. They were in boxes. Anyway, that's a mystery. But, you know, John Wesley was constantly criticized for pushing books.

He believed in books. He said you'd never be a Christian leader without reading. He recommended five hours a day. He even read on his horse. Contemporary evangelicals tell me they can't even read in their car.

They get sick reading in their car. Imagine John Wesley reading on the back of his horse. Amazing. And I hope that you will become an avid reader. Certainly, going here, you ought to read all of your own Bethany Press books.

That's only one new book a week. Some of them are pretty heavy. And I brought some books just to keep the balance. We wouldn't want you to just read Bethany books, though they are very balanced. I'm sure some of your authors wouldn't even agree with each other.

But I brought a few other books just to keep things exciting here for this weekend. The greatest book in the English language in this century. Nothing gets near it, in my view. Well, it gets near it. You know, I don't want to exaggerate.

It's written by Dr. Lloyd-Jones. Even Karl Barth said Lloyd-Jones was the greatest preacher in Europe. He's now in heaven. His book on the Holy Spirit recently has upset a few people. He's a man that was just so balanced in a number of areas.

And this is his outstanding book, Spiritual Depression, Its Cause and Its Cure. I never bring enough. I lack faith when I order books. Probably after tonight, there won't be a single copy left of this book.

It's published by Eerdmans. It's one of the most popular Christian books in all of England. But since Americans mainly read American books, they don't even know who Dr. Lloyd-Jones is. His two volumes on the Sermon on the Mount are classics.

This is better than those two volumes. The title puts people off. It's not about depression. It's about spiritual warfare. It's about discipline. It's about suffering. It's about God. It's about the kind of victory that we need to know in our Christian lives.

It's 300 pages. Equal to any seminary course. And I commend it to you. Spiritual Depression, Its Cause and Cure. While the quantities last. The book I've been pushing the most lately in my top ten. And I push books almost every day of the year because I'm preaching almost every day of the year.

Is Healing for Damaged Emotions. We found about 50 of all the young people coming on OM, even out of Bible colleges, have serious damaged emotions. Some of them even got their emotions damaged when they were at Bible college.

And this is a greatly needed book. It's in line with the tremendous books you are publishing that I referred to this morning. About Misbelief Therapy. And I just, again, remind you that you have now four books on that tremendous teaching.

And I hope you'll get all of them. I ordered a few hundred of them today. But this is a book of a similar strain. Comes from the pastor of the church at Asbury where the great revival hit back in 1971.

A Methodist. Spirit-filled Methodist. David Siemens. My favorite author who was introduced into Britain by Dr. Lloyd-Jones is none other than A .W. Tozer. How many of you read Tozer? Raise your hand.

I want to find out where I'm going here. That's mildly depressing. But anyway, we'll get over it. The most powerful American author of all times in my feeble opinion. I've only examined a thousand books.

I'm still a learner. But if you can read this book and not find some spiritual dynamite to blow some of the unbelievable cobwebs out of your lukewarm head, you write to me and I will send you as a gift 20 free books.

I've only had one person ever claim that. Recently, a Canadian. The best of A .W. Tozer. These are chapters, 52 chapters from his writings. Again, equivalent to at least one year at seminary. A .W. Tozer's the best.

A powerful book. Take My Life is the best book I know on discipleship. Written by an Englishman. The president of London Bible College. Former director of OMF, one of the great mission societies. Michael Griffiths.

Now, be honest. How many of you have never heard of Michael Griffiths? This shows the cultural barrier between Britain and America. No British Christian would not have heard of Michael Griffiths. One of the great leaders of our nation.

Isn't it good that once in a while you bring in a foreigner to speak? Michael Griffiths, Take My Life, a book on discipleship and commitment that is hot. Talks about prejudice or conviction. Talks about failure.

Talks about spectators or players. Some of you know William McDonald's book on discipleship. Also on the table. This carries twice the blow and it's twice as big. Gems from Tozer. A book on growth by Ralph Shallis.

A man used in revival in North Africa. Another Englishman. Lived in France most of his life. Dying right now of cancer. He's written ten books in French. This one is translated, though he's an Englishman, from French back into English.

Amazing. One of the best books on spiritual growth you can ever read. From now on. So you can understand this is International Book Weekend. Sell what you have. And get some of these great books. Maps of the World.

Even have music cassettes. Tomorrow, I'm going to be interviewed. I always like to be interviewed. It's a good way to get another sermon across without people knowing it. By a woman who's going to write a book on Christian music.

And Christian rock music. Boy, this is hot. I mean, I smuggled a few Resurrection band records with me back into the country. They actually came from here in the first place. But I didn't have the faith to put them on my book table yet.

I'll wait until after the interview tomorrow. But I am very happy that Bethany is considering publishing a balanced, of course all Bethany books are balanced, book on Christian music. Praise the Lord.

Maybe we should have some more prayer. Some of you are getting worried. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 12. You're already there. Some of you are now worried that this is going to be a long meeting. The Bible says, cast every care upon him he careth for you.

Some of you know my favorite story because you've heard me before. And I was in Germany, the land of hyper-punctuality. And I was going on rather long in the meeting, an hour and a half or two or so.

I don't remember. I've always despised clocks. And the young people were listening and taking notes. But one elderly gentleman was sitting in the back. And I guess he wanted to go home and watch the tube or something.

So he held up his watch to try to get me to stop. And I was preaching on discipleship and world missions, forsaking all. And I saw this watch. And I said, praise the Lord. Look at this, my friends. This man's already donating his watch for world missions.