Enemies of World Evangelism — George Verwer

I have several scriptures to share with you this evening as I want to speak to you on the subject of the enemies of world evangelism. You know, it's exciting to be in a place where people are taking notes.

That really warms my battery. Or charges it or whatever else? A .W. Tozer said the whole world is an emergency situation. Nothing is right nor will be right until put right by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

Some of us continue to be deeply concerned about the situation in Iran with all those hostages who have been there for so many months. Meeting some time ago a young man came up to me. He said my father's one of those hostages that made it more real.

Many of us also are concerned about the millions through our hostages in the hands of Satan. Who need to be set free by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. I was thinking as we were singing and Just a few minutes ago the tremendous potential just in this auditorium tonight all that God Would move in our midst and that we would also be obedient.

You know, there's a great danger if we expect God To do more than his word says he will do. Young people sitting around waiting for some kind of special call. I Have never had a missionary call. Most of my best workers.

Some of them on the field 15 20 years speak the language fluently. Church planters soul winners. Never had a missionary call. I Want to tell you the likes of some of us in North America, it's not a missionary call.

It's a missionary kick. And if you need one, I'll be happy to see you at the end of the meeting. May God have mercy on our spiritual sluggishness and all of our excuses why we're not going. Let us look at Mark chapter 1 let us see the Lord Jesus Christ in action 2 ,000 years ago.

Jesus Calls Fishermen to Evangelism

As he walked along the Sea of Galilee. And he saw Simon and Andrew his brother in verse 16 casting an ad into the sea for they were fishermen. Mark 1 16, this is the Word of God. The anchor of my whole Christian life my whole Theological framework everything I do and say day by day is the fact that this is God's Word.

And I would be thrilled to correspond. I was told years ago to get a hobby and so I have a hobby of corresponding with people. And I'd be thrilled to correspond with any of you, especially you have doubts about whether this book is the Word of God.

There are many books in the bookshop about this. Now wrote on wrote one called can we know. This is God's infallible word. This is God's authoritative word. This whole Bible Institute. Which has touched many areas of the world for Christ is built on that principle.

And I hope your life is being built on that principle. And if it is then you cannot take lightly any scripture even if it comes from a feebling funny or whatever skinny Person that you've never met before or even heard of before.

Some of you are still wondering how I even got here. It's all mine. Mark chapter 1. Jesus walked along the Sea of Galilee. He saw Simon and Andrew and Jesus said unto them come after me and I will make you fishers of men.

Great way they forsook their nets and they followed him. When he had got a little farther he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother. Who also were in the boat mending their nets and straightway called them and they left their father's ebony in the boat.

Must have been an embarrassing moment with the hired servant and they went after him. We see the same strategy over in chapter 2 where Jesus spots Matthew Verse 14 as he passed by he saw Levi the son of Alpheus Sitting at the tax office and he said unto him follow me.

And he arose and followed him. God has not brought us together in these days. Just for Bible study. God has not brought us together in these days. Just that we may feed more on his word. They'll praise God for that privilege.

My heart was touched as I listened to part of the message last night. I wanted to be here, but in my particular work. With 1 ,400 people spread across across the globe and the ship arriving in Barbados and about other 15 other crises.

That I'm in the midst of including a automobile accident in Germany in which the parents of our German director were both killed. Simultaneously just a couple days ago. I Had to be on the phone last night.

My father's also had a heart attack. He's in hospital in Florida. But in between the phone calls, I I got enough of the message last night to just have my own heart stirred and challenged. One of the great blessings I've had in my life is cassette tapes.

If you go down to the OM display, you will see that we're a bit neurotic on the cassette tape thing. You can get tapes down there so cheap if you don't like the message just record over them and then you save money.

And I listen to these cassettes all the time. I had I like to redeem the time. I hate to waste any time. It's it's an easy thing for me because my temperament is somewhat geared that way and I don't want everybody to get Into some redeeming time neurosis.

What a wonderful thing. It is to make use of every minute driving your car. You can listen to the Word of God. Listen to tapes when you're shaving. I hate shaving Women I I've never been able to understand my wife 20 years.

I've been trying to understand her and I've just decided to accept her as she is. Can't believe what she does with all that time in the bathroom but Cassettes is a wonderful thing for women that you know, they have to have all this time arranging that which.

Maybe too late. But anyway, I want to challenge you to make use of cassette tapes. I Had brother Andrew with me recently in the bathtub. I mean I was I was listening to brother Andrew in the bathtub. Cassette tape and my heart has been challenged to get it again.

Alan Redpath. Steven Alford. I've had more than a hundred and fifty men of God Minister to me through their cassette tapes when I was isolated living in Nepal when I was living in Bangkok. When I was living in India when I spent hundreds of hours in the backs of our OM trucks traveling out to India traveling back.

When I was seasick in the Red Sea. Laying on my bed taking in hours and hours of dr. Francis Schaefer by tape. I can't tell you what a blessing that has been in my life. And I hope that you'll get in to cassette tapes and the ministry of cassette tapes.

But God has not just brought us here to receive messages. I believe he has brought us here for a very important purpose and That he has something very real very heavy to say to many of us. If not all of us in these days together the way the world is going we may never gather again like this.

You're a fool. If you don't think the world can take a sudden shift. To make meetings like this even in North America impossible. May we redeem the time in these days in prayer together in reading the Word of God in Searching our own hearts.

And I believe that God wants to speak to some. Not all but to some in the same way. He spoke to those fishermen 2 ,000 years ago. I Believe there's been some of you meditating about this for years. Wondering whether you could ever be a missionary.

Many young people have more kinky foggy ridiculous ideas about world missions than then. I think you could put into a book. That only certain types of people can go to the mission field or only people with a certain amount of education.

Or that you'll have to go to Bible school to go to the mission field. I want to tell you in Europe. They won't accept that I Believe in Bible school or on this channel more people in the Bible school in Europe than any other movement I know of in Europe today and we have a deep relationship with almost every single Bible school.

Training, Calling, and Flexibility in Missions

We don't believe in any shortcuts. But we stand very strong that that is not God's way with everyone and some of our greatest men in our work have never been To Bible school and they know the Word of God some of them better than the Bible school graduates.

That is really interesting because we have some are almost like walking concordances. We get more recruits out of Cambridge and Oxford University. Then we get out of Bible colleges in the USA. Any one Bible college in comparison to Cambridge or Oxford?

Or any Bible colleges in Great Britain and they all know Ten times more about OM than anybody would know about in Canada. Now some of these Cambridge students believe it or not in Oxford graduates with their degrees because of OM actually some of them go back to Bible college.

But others just move on but then we have other people come into our work. Who are basically working people and though they may start in in practical work in carpentry as an engineer on the ship or? Maybe in the office.

They they they get into the Word of God on a day-by-day basis. They grow they learn to pray. They learn to resist the enemy. They learn something about Christian literature and soon. They're in all kinds of ministry and I think it's wrong that we sometimes emphasize that everybody must go this way and every young person who talks about the mission field is.

Well, you must get more training and more training and many young people are turned off. We're losing many candidates through this. In an emission society wonder why they're not getting enough candidates.

We are not flexible enough. We are not adaptable enough. We are not guided by the Spirit enough and It it frightens me a W Tozer said if the Holy Spirit left many of our churches No changes would be made whatsoever.

And I believe we need a bigger view of the way God works. And that he's working in different people in different ways. We have people come to our ship. To work down in the engine room as a junior engineer, I think of one Think he was a Cambridge graduate.

He was hopeless in the engine room when he started but you know with a Cambridge degree. He's all paper, but he learned and while he was on the ship visiting countries God began to use him in other ways and He decided to leave the ship.

He is now a professional missionary or a non-professional missionary in Bangladesh and God is using him in a mighty way in that country. Our plumber from the same ships crew is a full-time missionary with a major mission society up in Nepal.

In fact people from the crew of the ship ordinary people working people are literally now beginning to move in almost every nation in the world. Some have gone back for more Bible College others have not but I believe with all my heart That we need to ask God to give us give us a greater view of the many different ways That he works.

Why was OM rejected by so many Christians, especially in North America for so many years? Because people could not understand the way God was working through our feeble little fellowship. And when something is no, we don't trust it if it's not quite according to our traditions.

Well, we we put it down or we back off. God in his mercy shifted us to Europe and the thing exploded among the Europeans. And then it shifted to India where we now have 350 workers and then he shifted in Singapore Malaysia where we have a hundred and twenty Five full-time Singaporean Malaysians almost all of them backed in prayer and financed by their churches.

Which you do not always find I can assure you in this part of the world. And we now get more recruits from Singapore Malaysia. Than we do from Canada and we have been pushing pretty hard in Canada in these last few years.

It doesn't mean God is laying Canada aside. You can be sure. Of course Canadians are going out with many many different mission societies far greater than our little weak mob of people learning about Jesus and that's what counts and that's my burden tonight and I believe there's some of you that tomorrow and the next day need to be having serious interviews with missionary leaders here about your future and Really getting into the facts about some of these fields and some of the needs and I believe with all my heart the Lord Jesus simply wants to say to some tonight as he said to those fishermen.

Follow me and I'll make you a fisher of men. I was reading a story some time ago about a group of men. It was sort of a parable that got interested in fishing. They started a fishing club and they they boy they got excited about fishing.

Everybody should fish and they were telling people about the lakes and about the streams and about the fish and the kinds of fish. And this thing really got big in this fishing club spread all over people were gathering together for fishing club.

They were showing slides films men were giving challenges about fishing. Then they opened some some higher institutions for fishing and men were taking advanced degrees and getting doctors of physiology and there was tremendous vision about fishing.

Books were written about fishing and and then they went into intensive research about fish the length of fish what they eat how to catch them all kinds of things. Libraries filled with books how to fish.

The only one problem this group had nobody fish. Round and on they had a World Congress on fishing made major decisions to have National Congresses on fishing and at those National Congresses they decided to set up citywide cells to teach fishing to everybody that every soul may know about Fishing and the art of fishing and the importance of it only one problem.

Nobody fish. The spread all over the world and two fellows finally, you know, I really got courage bit radical. They were who grabbed the fishing pole. Whoo out to the nearest lake and they fished and the one fellow actually caught a fish.

This was unbelievable television game radio got a fish they asked him to come back to the to the Congress on physiology and they asked him to give his testimony in various schools of Fishing and he never could go back and fish again because his time was busy giving his testimony about the fish he caught.

Do you get the point? Beloved Jesus said follow me and I will make you fishers of men and in the mission field today. We need some ordinary fishers of men men with a passion for soul. Men who want to win other men to Jesus Christ.

It's good to have the support forces. We need them desperately as well, but we need today fishers of men. Follow me and I will make you a fisher of men. Now I want to keep those verses in mind if we can and go back into the Old Testament and look at two men in The Old Testament, I doubt if you've ever had these people all linked up before in the book of Numbers.

Caleb and Joshua: Faith Against the Obstacles

The book of Numbers if you think numbers is so you certainly haven't got the chapter 13 and 14 and 15. And here in numbers we have the report about the spies. Going out into the promised land and they come back and most of them have a negative report.

Verse 31 of chapter 13. We are not able to go up against the people. For they are stronger than we. Verse 28 tells about the people and the walled cities. In other words, most of the spies saw the problems they saw the obstacle and Many of us today are just like these spies.

We know about the mission field we've had the facts we've had the information the slides the challenges and yet somehow we see the Problems we see the wall the language barrier our emotional problem barriers.

All kinds of barriers and problems we see we feel we're not the missionary type. This one really gets me. Young person says to me. I'm not the missionary type. What in the world is the missionary type?

Am I the missionary type. Well to the poor missionaries there is no such thing as a missionary type. Somebody's it. Oh, but I'm so frightened of the insect Snake as if the main thing in a mission field a big, you know boxes and spiders and snakes.

It's put under your bed by the local nationals or something else. You know when it comes to our theology and it comes to our study and when it comes to some of our praying Our God is very very big when it comes to our action our God suddenly turns into some kind of midget.

Who's lost his arms and his legs and is really quite unable to do very much at least for you. Oh that God would burn into ordinary people tonight that he specializes in you ordinary people. Fifty percent to eighty percent of all the people that we have worked with and trained around the world are incredibly ordinary people.

Who have that struggles with China's struggles with inferiority struggles with emotional problems? And Yet God has put them together and is using them. That doesn't mean they are perfect. He who is perfect.

Let him throw the first stone at the poor struggling missionary out on the field. But there were two men Who took a stand and believed God. Now they were very different. And what they had to say was quite different.

Verse 30 we have Caleb speaking. I can identify with Caleb a little bit. I tend to think his temperament is a bit like mine. His vocabulary is a little bit perhaps the way mine was Still is to some degree.

He's still the people before Moses and he said let us go up at once and possess it in the land. For we are well able to overcome it. What are you sitting around here for you jerks who let's go the old CT stud style and A new book of quotations of CT stud has just been printed.

It's not even in the bookshop. It's not even in North America yet, and I had to preview that book. I will tell you it kicked me all over the place. Now Joshua he was different Joshua. Probably he had been to Keswick or I don't know but he had this sort of deeper life vocabulary.

Some of you will be happier with Joshua over in verse 8 of chapter 14 If the Lord delight in us Then he will bring us into this land and Give it us the land Which floweth with milk and honey. Studied under Ian Thomas.

I don't know but he had the right vocabulary. But they both got in the land hallelujah. You know, I had a great problem accepting myself. I told the story to the high school kids. I Was a Next to this beautiful girl was a real skinny fellow about my size and along came a big, you know tall good-looking fellow, you know a little bit like Paul and the.

He knocked this skinny fellow away and he took the girl. The bottom of the advertisement it said right in today Charles Atlas muscle-building weight-gaining guaranteed. So I wrote in for six months.

I was lifting weight. I Was eating extra food. I gained about half a pound. One of the greatest experiences in my Christian life was when I finally accepted myself. Realized that God loved me when I read some of these great things.

I thought that everybody spiritual was quiet. I hated my big mouth and I wanted to become a real quiet sort of mystic saint. I thought these were the spiritual people. I've never thought of myself as spiritual.

It's impossible for me to think of myself as spiritual after reading the books I read. You know Andrew Murray FB Myers all these books you read too many of them at once, you know. You can you can you can you can get problems and I had problems and I praise God for other books that balanced me out.

And taught me that I didn't have to try to be Andrew Murray. That Andrew Murray was human anyway you know and one of the biggest distributors in the world of his books and I accepted the fact and the basic fact about my temperament my metabolism metabolism.

The doctor said I have a very high combustion engine and if I didn't have low blood pressure, I would be in trouble. I will tell you much less my poor wife and I came to realize that God works through different people in different ways.

God is not trying to annihilate your temperament, but to fill you with his spirit and to work through you for his glory. Then I was willing especially with the help of Caleb to keep shouting. And I believe there's a need at times for some of us to cry out to cry out.

And I want to cry out tonight. That every one of us would consider whether we really are in God's will. And whether there should not be more of us even from this great senior class that should be specifically by faith.

Moving in a definite way toward the mission field. There are too many evangelical pacifists. Just sitting waiting for some some kind of an evangelical twitch to grab their backbone which years ago They already traded in for a wishbone anyway.

May God give men of faith. Who will say we by faith will begin to move. God has a hundred ways to stop you. There are so many obstacles to get to the mission field today. It isn't even funny. I Don't think the great danger today is too many people.

Especially in short-term missionary work out of the will of God on the mission field. And often it's when you get out there in some short-term work that you can get exposure and you can get God's mind.

To spend the rest of your life out there or to go back and send Substitutes and send substitutes and we counted just as much a privilege to train revolutionary Christians for their home churches. When they're with us out in Europe or India or the Middle East as we do to train them to remain out there.

Both are very important. The Mormons have thirty thousand two-year people on the field right now. They are making an unbelievable impact across the world. In Britain alone, they have won a hundred thousand to Mormonism.

Even though they preach the most distasteful message you could ever preach to the English race the forsaking of tea drinking The Mormons and we should be so ashamed. We should be so embarrassed. We should have some holy righteous in the nation that somehow God would move upon this great church in North America.

And give us an army of a hundred thousand two-year men and women and from that we could double the number of longer-term Missionaries without any problem whatsoever. Oh May God somehow show us the strategicness of even this time together here and That we may obey his word let us take courage from Caleb and Joshua that covers the two main different kinds of temperaments and Let us believe as these men believe.

Regardless of your vocabulary me when I find God's people fighting over vocabulary, especially the victorious life vocabulary. And we have endless books on sanctification. You read too many of them guarantee.

You'll get confused. I Believe God works in different ways in different people. We should judge one another spirituality less and get on with our own Life in Jesus Christ, I believe in the work in the great ministry of Keswick.

I'll be speaking this summer at the English Keswick Convention to the very humbling experience. But I think even Keswick has certainly made a strong stand that there is no little one way To present this thing and they don't want people talking about the Keswick message.

They want people talking about Christ and his Lordship and his sufficiency. But we see in the New Testament many different ways to express Praise God for that. Now when we begin to move. When we begin to catch this vision and we begin to go forward as an army of God's people in various aspects of the work Satan will counter-attack and I want to just try to share with you very quickly some of the enemies of world Evangelism that I have seen operating all over the world in these past 25 years 23 of which I've spent approximately overseas.

Unbelief and the Shield of Faith

The first enemy I believe is unbelief. Unbelief and I believe there's some of us that need to repent of unbelief and I will put myself in the middle of a circle. In our own work. We are faced with a crisis right now.

I cannot tell you about it. Between us and God and I find unbelief attacking my soul shaking me to my very foundation. Humanly speaking OM has grown too fast. There are thousand four hundred of us full-time that includes hundreds of families and hundreds and hundreds of children.

Spread across 35 nations with an incredible series of problems that that involved a fleet of 300 vehicles two ships. Involved in about 500 literature production projects and we're trying in the midst of that longer term work.

Including church planting in the number of Muslim lands and all kinds of things. We are trying to launch what a summer crusade which will involve a total of 3 ,000 people this summer. I will tell you I'm scared silly and one of my problem in problems is that I'm a sensitive person.

You may not believe that but even one person that I know about you know. And if I know it's even one who is in difficulty, it's a burden upon my heart. If I hadn't learned to cast that on God years ago I would have been wiped out surely through a nervous breakdown.

Most of my friends predicted I'd have a nervous breakdown 20 years ago. They're still waiting a number of them Have had nervous breakdowns. I don't know whether watching me or what but unbelief it never ceases to attack us.

And that's why we're told to take the shield of faith. Where with we can stop the fiery darts of the enemy and if I don't take that daily, I'm in trouble. There's something in my canny way that's always looking for some other option than the way of faith.

You'll probably find that tonight when you go to make this faith promise. That there'll be something operating in you that will seek some other way than the way of faith. Oh I'm good at that. I think of all kinds of things.

When I get down on my knees God says no, no, that's not my way you got to trust me. One time when I thought our ship was going to go down in the Bay of Biscay. Can you imagine that would be the biggest scandal?

But evangelical church has perhaps had for many years the way some people think not the way I think. But I was still scared four days in an emergency this old ship built in 1949 faced out into the waves 20 -30 foot waves everybody sees it.

No telephone communication. I was scared and I got. There's a bondage of the evil one and I shook and wept in my bed next to my wife like a little baby. How do you. Thought counsel from my co-leader George Miley who coordinates both ships.

He's an incredible story top seminary student one of America's biggest seminaries discovered through a series of tape recordings that he was living his own carnal ego trip gathering up his knowledge of Greek and becoming the number one student and God.

Hope into his heart brought him to the cross and I have watched that man for 15 years burn across the world an anointed leader. Preacher who coordinates both ships and without his help. We wouldn't even got into the second ship somehow that morning when I was shaking and fear.

Even though I didn't get in a sense the total victory until that phone call came from the ship. I Knew Jesus Christ was in charge of this topic. And Jesus Christ is in charge of your life and you can trust him.

Have you trusted him with your life your problems your burdens. Have you really trusted? Are you like many people talk the burden on him the next morning you take the burden back and put it on your own shoulders.

Some are very good at that. Unbelief it comes in many forms. Syncretism universalism. Even many of our mainline evangelical schools no longer take a firm stand that the heathen are off. We you know and feel like almost a group of oddball because we believe that they even are off.

We don't understand it. We don't like it, but we see in God's Word. There is no hope outside of Jesus Christ. And I know that prairie stands for that as well. No wonder God has linked our hearts together.

Underneath and it's subtle vicious form. Is probably one of the greatest if not the greatest enemies to world evangelism. Let's stop looking at the problem. Let's stop looking at our weaknesses. Let's stop operation introspection and look out to a God who can even in our feebleness.

Use us on the mission field. How more of you sitting here tonight should be praying and beginning to move toward the mission field. At least in terms of a couple years. Oh, may God grant. We get into this syndrome that people have to be in perfect health to go to the mission field.

I will tell you have you ever read about Gladys Elwood my dear silly soul. Have you ever read anything a missionary history to think that men have to be in perfect health to go to the mission field. We've got so many different screening tests now.

We'd screen out the Apostle Paul if he applied to many of our missions and forgive me. If I step on any toes, you can come up and step on mine after the meeting. We'll end up operating the same way the IBM Corporation operates.

No, we'll have less faith than they do. Coca-cola has already opened a bottling plant in China. And the McDonnell hamburger chain has just become the biggest restaurant chain in all of Japan and sold 134 million dollars worth of hamburgers to the Japanese last year and have a goal to put a hamburger in every stomach.

And when they came to England the British said, you know, where will this go in England. Picking up. You ever see an English meeting a hamburger. He takes his knife any pork. He cuts it up comes in telling them they have to pick this up with a hand.

It will be a total failure. It's the biggest restaurant fastest-growing chain in Great Britain today across the country and They're picking them up and they love it. They're going out of their mind all started with one man.

One man who bought one crummy little dinky hamburger stand and decided to do something for the sake of money. Divorced his wife in the process and a few other things. But the church, oh, well, you know, I mean, I mean we got to be careful, you know.

We're gonna have another committee meeting and really well, you know the problems. Would Caleb and Joshua make it into your mission society? I believe health is important. Do not get me wrong and I believe it's good to have a health form and know where you stand.

We have one in no end. So don't misunderstand me. But there are times when God is going to meet people even with health problems on the field. The director of our work in Germany is a diabetic. One of our best girls in Belgium is on crutches.

And I wouldn't want to tell you some of the other people that are hobbling around the old world. Filled with the Holy Ghost and winning souls to Christ and planting churches. May God get all the glory not man.

Oh, I pray that somehow our excuses will be broken down. I Know some people will get nervous when they hear this kind of message and I cannot even get into some institutions. Especially our cemeteries seminaries because I preach this way.

Because they are afraid that this skinny little loudmouth is going to come along and pied Piper the poor Greek students off to the regions beyond and they will never come back. This is not true. Most of them have come back and believe me some of the things I say you must try to understand this some of the things I say are only to bring some other things into balance and If other people weren't saying so much over here on the other side I wouldn't say so much to bring it into balance and I praise God for some of our great seminaries and They have graduated some great men and we have some of them.

But how easily we get caught up into intellectualism. This school is one of the few That seemingly has stayed free from this very subtle tentacle of intellectualism and pseudo intellectualism. Which I believe has stopped more people from going to the mission field than the world will ever know.

And I am not against knowledge many of our men have as I've already mentioned graduated from Cambridge and Oxford and some of them have had to take their degrees spiritually speaking and Just crumple them up before Jesus and say here.

I am a sinner use me all that God would give us a Vision in that area and then the next enemy and we won't get to all of them is materialism. The love of things. I wonder how many of us would be willing to sell some possessions to give more to work for world missions.

Materialism and Sacrificial Giving

Wait a minute. This is really fanaticism. Sell something. I remember when the Spirit of God moved through Wheaton College among a few students. They started to put their possessions up for sale it and I don't think that's ever been forgotten.

It was considered extremism fanaticism. Asceticism everything you can think of. We're so worried about people becoming fanatical. As if this was a real big problem within the church today. Over enthusiasm people so in love with Jesus Christ, maybe a problem of a few Posers said to think that this was the biggest problem in the average church too much.

Enthusiasm was like sending a squadron of policemen out to a cemetery to guard against the midnight demonstration by the residents. Not really the biggest problem in the average church in Canada. I would say all that we would have such a love for Jesus Christ.