Resting by Faith — George Verwer

Entering God’s Rest Through Faith

Now let's look at a few Scripture verses together that some of us have looked at many times in Hebrews chapter 4. By now some of you are probably quite frustrated over this whole conference. You don't know anymore whether you're coming or going.

Some of you probably wonder where whether you're even saved. It's a blessing to my soul in a large Brethren assembly not too long ago after a message that I wondered how I ever said there. I thought they would all stone me.

A dear lady came up, an older woman, and she said, I don't know what to say. You may, when you speak, I'm just not sure whether I'm saved. You know, Billy Graham said some time ago he went off to the mountains to get a reassurance that he was saved.

Billy Graham. He's led a few hundred thousand people to Christ. He wanted to make sure of his anchor. And I hope that we are reaffirming our anchorage in these days. Some of you have been really stricken by the Lord through a book, through a message.

It's good to have a variation of messages. I wouldn't pretend for a minute that what I'm saying is reaching all of you. I'm sure some of you are been quite happy never to look at my face and hear my voice ever again the rest of your life.

That's wonderful. Because there's many other men with the same message, and I just hope that you'll not allow my personality, my human failures, or anything I've said that's miscommunicated. When I think of some of you who English isn't your first language and you don't have those earphones on, I just wonder what you're hearing.

And when I look at those of you with the earphones, and then I see the go slow sign up, I wonder what you're hearing. It's all very difficult. Let's look at these verses. So much out of heart. And if you're at the end of yourself by now, you're really a bit anxious at heart, your knees are trembling, you're wondering just what you're going to do.

Mixing the Word With Faith

This message is especially for you. Let us therefore fear, lest the promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them.

But the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Now, there's the secret. Now, I've never preached on that part of the verse before. Some of you have heard his, I think you've heard his message.

Wake up, please. Being mixed with faith in them that heard it. The secret in this conference lies in whether or not you will mix what you've heard with faith. Without faith, Hebrews says in the 11th chapter, it is impossible to please God.

Stand on your head, cry all night, read all 1 ,080 books that I recommend, study the Bible through five times a year like Ralph would recommend, don't mix it with faith and you have zero. God has given us the promise of a victorious life.

God has given us a promise of the rest of faith, rest of faith. And it's the privilege of every Christian to have that rest. It's such a concern on my heart. You said to me that you've got to preach this for the next eight hours, and then you've got to meet with me in prayer, all of us, for another eight hours after that, and then for two days of fasting.

And after that we'll have this victory. I would say let's go right now. Just bring me a glass of water. I'm so concerned that God's people come in and know this rest of faith. Why am I so concerned? Because I see it again and again in the Bible, the first reason.

Secondly, because I see God's people all over the world bound up, just bound up with fears, with inferiority complexes, with tension, with nervousness, with worry. And I've seen such people trying to serve God.

Human Strength and Spiritual Burnout

And every time, like one of our Volkswagens trying to go to India. We only tried one Volkswagen. It got as far as Pakistan. Volkswagens just not made for that long, hot, steady journey. That little engine, and it's a very little engine, just burns out too quick.

And some of us trying to accomplish great spiritual things with our little human engine, sooner or later we need a valve job, or a total overhaul, or something else. If you go out this summer in your own strength, you've heard the challenge.

You've grit your teeth. Boy, if that little squirt George Burwer could do it, anybody can. You're going to find out very soon just how quickly your engine will fail you. You can grit your teeth and stamp your feet.

You can memorize all your verses. You can arrange four alarm clocks to get you up in the morning, and everything else. But sooner or later you'll end up discouraged, depressed, worn out, physically and emotionally.

You cannot separate physical illness from your emotions. It's impossible. It's all tied in together, so intricate that still the doctors haven't been able to figure it out. Though Jesus spoke about it way back 2 ,000 years ago.

Like Dr. McMillan says in his book, None of These Diseases, science is only 2 ,000 years behind. Trying to catch up. God to know this rest. Clear. Let us therefore fear. You should be scared. Fearful.

Lest they promise being left us. This is verse 1 Of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short. And it goes on, it speaks about what happened in this old story in the wilderness back in the Old Testament.

There's a picture of this. I've got to cut this message a little short tonight, so I'm not going to get caught up in that. I can spend all night on that tremendous story. Coming out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, it speaks of salvation.

The Passover speaks of redemption, deliverance from the world. That story isn't in the Bible, so that Cicely Mills could put out a great film. Threw it all up, so you hardly recognize what happened. That's in the Bible for our own example, that's what it says in in Corinthians.

Salvation and Crossing the Red Sea

Speaks of salvation. I want to ask you, are you sure tonight you've been across the Red Sea? Are you sure you've been saved? And if you're not, I pray to God that through the conviction of the sin in your heart by the Holy Spirit, you'll respond tonight and cross the Red Sea.

There's some here who have been saved in these conferences. We've had them saved in all kinds of places. Somebody in Scotland one day was going out door-to-door, got to the door one of our weekends, the world's most unusual weekend, OM weekend.

Got on the door and forget whether it was a boy or a girl, realized she didn't have anything to say. Gave her heart to Jesus Christ right on the doorstep, and then knocked. Then she had something to say.

But you know, I'd prefer that you'd at least get saved now, not wait to the first door in France. Make sure you know you've crossed the Red Sea. Religion doesn't take you across it. Baptism doesn't take you across it.

Church attendance doesn't take you across it. Raising your hand, making a decision, doesn't necessarily take you across it. Writing on an OM application, I'm born again, that doesn't take you across it.

It's faith, absolute faith, in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for you. Takes you across the Red Sea. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow we're going out in evangelism. Can't go out and tell people what you don't know deep in your heart.

Maybe you're a visitor. You think God has brought you into this fantastic conference that you can go away and just say, wasn't that nice? No, you're a visitor. He's probably 99 sure he's brought you here to save you.

And if you miss tonight, you don't know when you'll ever get another chance in which the Spirit of God is striving with you in such a way. Thousands are praying for this conference. Brethren in India, Britain, they were praying.

People all over the world are praying. Thousands and thousands of people are praying God is going to work. Then of course you have that story of the people in the wilderness. And unfortunately too many Christians spend most of their life in the wilderness.

Wilderness Living and the Double Life

Up and down. Singing one minute. Groaning the next. Lord, we'll follow you anywhere Lord. Then when the troubles come, who's the guy that dragged us out here in the wilderness? I wonder if we have any who are going to be like that with OM.

You're here now, oh praise the Lord, wonderful. But if you go out and have a really rough summer, you'll have a few interesting words for OM when you get back home. Just a few people every year who go back from a crusade.

It's usually only a few. But just a few people who go back complaining and groaning and gossiping have done more harm on the human level than anything else to this world. That's right. Rumors and stories that young people who were planning to come on this crusade heard and just immediately stopped ever writing us again.

Most of them had very little foundation. Imagine what it was there in the wilderness. They wanted to get rid of Moses. The same ones that were singing and praising when they crossed the Red Sea. The next minute they were complaining they wanted better meals, lousy wilderness food.

And they wanted meat, they wanted Egypt. And they started a revolution. And they built a golden calf and dozens of other terrible things. And the judgment of God had to come and destroy many of them. Terrible story, the wilderness story.

It's terrible. And the lives of many Christians are marred by such kind of living. Up and down. Praising God one minute, blasting and cursing or mumbling or complaining the next minute. Living for the praises of men.

Always wondering what others are saying about you. Like a lift. Up and down. Not God's will. This is what confuses the people in the world. This is what's confused many of your friends at your school, your college, in your office, in your home.

It's confused your parents. Wilderness living. Up and down living. Inconsistent living. Double life. I wonder how many of us here know very well this past year we've been living a double life. Sunday morning right there in church.

Maybe even going out in evangelism. But in your free time, in your private moments, when you're away from the others, the life is completely different. Double life. Believe me, do not think for a moment that we think the miniskirt is the big problem in Britain.

That isn't even one percent of the issue. Our problems are so beyond that. Our hypocrisies and difficulties and our immorality go so beyond that. That's only a mere aspiration of the day. Mary Quant, the founder of the miniskirt, explained it very well.

She explained how we're living in a day when girls want sex in the daytime and the miniskirt marks the day in which we live. Not the length of the skirt. It's the wretchedness of the human heart that's the problem in Britain today.

And when that gets right, the styles will get right and a lot of other things will get right. Let us be delivered from running around, judging by the exterior. Young girl, you can go back to Britain and wear a skirt four inches below your knees.

You can wear a bag on your head and your heart can be as black as pitch and you can be as lustful as anyone out of Hollywood. That's the curse that's upon the church in many places. Double life, phoniness, and it drives people in the world further and further and further away.

Deacons with nice prayers and all of that, whose lives are filled with things no one would ever dare to even mention. That can happen in this movement. Right. It won't take long. If we don't stay close to Jesus, if we don't become doers of the Word, if we don't stay out of the wilderness, into this leadership of this work can come every vile reptile imaginable to man.

Oh, young people, come out of the wilderness, come across to Jordan, into the promised rest, into the life of victory, into the life of consistent Christian living. Michael Griffiths wrote a book by that title.

You ought to read it. Look at some of these other verses. Down in verse 9. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. There it is again. For he that is entered into his rest he also hath ceased from his own works.

Do you see it? He ceased from his own works. Do you know why you're frustrated, worried, fearful, bound up? Because you haven't yet ceased from your own works. You still think it's you who's going to have to knock on doors.

It's you who's going to have to maintain unity. It's you who's going to have to get on with your team leader. It's you who's going to have to sleep on the floor, on a stony field. You haven't yet come to the place where you've ceased from your own works and now you're resting on the Lord and the sovereign grace and power of God.

Ceasing From Self-Reliance

We need a fresh view of the greatness and the sovereignty of God and the total hopelessness, absolute hopelessness of man. Realize when we come to the end of ourselves, God can take us up. He who has entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works.

As God did from his seventh day. Verse 11. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Again, you can link that verse right there back with the verse, verse 2, where it mentions that nothing happened because it wasn't mixed with faith.

A young man came to me the other day. How am I talking to him? He had come into victory in his life. He had read that little book, The Life That Wins. Come to realize that victory is a matter of faith.

Believe in God. Today, tomorrow, the next day, God said it. You believe it. That settles it. Stop complicating it. To know that rest. I've seen people over these years come into this rest. Some by process, some by crisis, some, both.

There's always got to be some process involved. I've seen them healed. Church is filled with people with every possible kind of psychosomatic illness. Some of you don't like that big word. Call it whatever you want.

It's illnesses that are caused because our emotions and our spiritual life are upset. Worry is one of the biggest causes. If you're worrying about anything tonight, be honest. Oh, I'd love to do it. I won't.

I'd love to just have everybody stand around and worry. Not some. Now, if I went out of here tonight, you found me necking with some other girl other than my wife, that's a slang word for kissing, you'd have the hottest chunk of gossip you've probably ever had in your entire life.

People would leap up in the air, Roton would tackle me, McCroskey would hit me on the head, Peter Condon would drag me down the hall. So you can be sure I'm not going to do that. And if you did that, you know that we would probably say something to you.

But we'll go out of here and we'll worry. We'll engage in all kinds of worry and no one will say anything. And I want to tell you, worry has done a lot more than what I've just told you about. Worry has put people in an early grave.

Worry can produce more than 30, 40 sicknesses. Real sicknesses. A man who has a psychosomatic illness is not a man who has a sickness. He's imagining it. That's a wrong understanding. It's often a very real sickness.

But the cause, that's the key word, the cause comes from worry, or resentfulness, or deep fear, or a deep insecurity, any one of the things. Resentment is a tremendous cause of all kinds of sickness. I wonder, are there any of us that somehow are bearing resentment, holding something in our heart against someone, way back, you think it's gone, but it's there.

Oh my. I had a boy tell me that he had such resentment toward a man that when he looked at that man, his heart began to pound two, three times as fast. He had to sweat. I've had more testimonies along this line you can imagine.

I wouldn't dare speak this way if I wasn't 100 convinced about what I'm saying. And doctors, scientists, church leaders are getting more concerned about these illnesses and about emotional illnesses than ever before.

That's why we're seeing a flood of books out now along this line, because they don't know what to do. I can name top men in the church, big names who have gone down in the past seven months with nervous breakdowns.

I can think of men whose names were spread all over the world who today have just completely cracked and broken and are laying in bed. Can't even hardly talk. It scares me. I want to make sure I'm in that rest.

I want to make sure it's not me grinding away, worrying and strife. Oh, we can work for Christ out of strife. Paul tells that in Philippians. You can do it on your team. You can sell books out of strife.

You can preach out of strife. Preacher's pride is deadly. I've had to repent of it many times. I've sat in a chair listening to someone preach, thought, well, I can preach as good as that. The moment it came into my rotten heart, I had to just cry, mercy, Lord.

Somebody will get up on your team and give the testimony. You'll think I can testify as good as that. Why didn't the team leader ask me? I'm one and a half years older than that fellow anyway. And all these things, when kept in our hearts, resentment, envy, jealousy, grief, pride, worry, fear, it affects the physical body.

No wonder God has promised this great rest. And he tells us the man who enters into this rest has ceased from his own works. That's God's desire for you. God planned for you to take you out of the wilderness across the Red Sea.

I mean across the Sea of Jordan, the Jordan River, into the promised land. Have you ever experienced that in your life? Either over a period of time or through a crisis when you knew that by God's grace you had come into a whole new level of your Christian life in which there was a peace, a peace that passes all understanding, the Bible says, in which there was a rest so that things don't worry you like they used to.

Somebody says something about you and you just, well Jesus, that's for you to take care of. Somebody criticizes you, thank you Lord, I need that soul syrup. And all these things that can happen, can happen to us.

Divine Power for a Life of Rest

Oh my, without this rest, this movement's doomed. We'll end up the biggest pack of nervous wrecks that have ever traveled from here to India. We'll be the biggest nail-biting, tongue-biting, eye-twitching, we laugh but it isn't funny, group that has ever lived.

Because you can't take the pressure of this mad movement without the rest of faith. You won't be able to take it. If you think you've had anything at this conference of pressure, this is a picnic, except for poor souls like McCroskey, he's under pressure and a few others, the girl who runs the kitchen, the mercy of God she needs, who's ever in charge of the children, those people I can sympathize with.

But this is a picnic. If you want me to take the time, and I can't do it tonight because I've already gone long enough, I can describe you some real pressure situations. I've seen a few really interesting things in my short life that Christians have been thrown in.

I've read about some that I don't even want to think about. And you're never going to do it in your own strength. And you can go through all the spiritual gymnastics, read all the books, do all the exercises, and make 48 vows and 16 New Year's resolutions, and you'll still come out breathing from the bottom up.

There has to be a revolution. There has to be a movement from above into your life of divine breath, of divine power. And I believe that comes. And I believe that comes when by faith we put our foot in Jordan and we say, Jesus, I'm coming home.

A lot of you have this idea of discipleship so distorted it scares me to hear you. Although I love to hear you because then I can always at least correct something. Discipleship is not some excruciating pain-killing, I mean pain-producing life.

What did Jesus say? He said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you, what? Rest. That's what God wants to give you tonight. And you need this rest far more than you need that sleep.

And if you knew this rest, if you'd enter into this rest, you'd sleep better. And your sleep would mean double. Because too many of us in our sleep are going a mile a minute. Someone took my little son to a war film yesterday over in Waterloo where they fought a little battle some years ago.

And last night, because I never saw it, once I lied down, that's it. Bang. The whole building probably burned down and I'd be in there just out in cloud nine. When my wife saw it, my little son got up in the middle of the night, started walking around asleep, in his sleep.

So though he was asleep, he was really on the move considering how rested he was when he woke up this morning. And some of you, in your sleep, because of worry, fears, anxieties, an undercurrent of activity in the subconscious mind where 80 of our problems are, you're not really resting.

You wake up tired. Then you need more sleep. You get more sleep and you're still tired. So you go away and sleep for a week and you come back and you're still tired. God wants to take us into a rest that goes beyond anything we can imagine.

And we become carefree. That's right. The man who enters into this rest becomes carefree. I had a minor neurosis about neatness many years ago. I still have the battle. My mother was so neat. If I left one sock in the wrong place in my room, I can't describe it.

I don't want to incriminate my mother. But boy, she sure told me what was wrong. Everything in my house was in its place. My mother worked several hours every day just keeping the house clean. Many hours, sometimes all day.

And so I developed, I don't know, I was just confused. I hated it and I loved it. And I rebelled against a lot of things. I rebelled against brushing my teeth. I still have a major problem with that. It's one of the most ridiculous things I have to do.

I don't understand it in God's program. But anyway, I accept it by faith. And some of you may have similar problems. This very factory, it bothers you. The way we eat downstairs. You think we eat this way all year.

You're crazy. But we've got a few extras, you know. It bothers you. And maybe you go into the bathroom. You know, they're probably cleaning the bathrooms now 15 times or 10 times a day. But for anybody who knows, if you see it dirty, it bothers you.

If you can't get immediately into the little room beyond, it bothers you. You've never waited for that in all your life. And lots of things on OM are beginning to bother you. Little things that others are doing.

The way they act. Little aromas that come around once in a while. And the way some people talk. And maybe the very kind of food reading. And oh, so many things can bother you. But when you come into this rest of faith, when you come to that place of casting all upon Him, you'll discover less and less these things bother you.

You'll become like a bird. Now, it won't all happen at once. It takes time. And you'll have to make a recommitment many times. But you'll become carefree. That's what saved me in this work. In 1962, the first truck, I was driving it over the Thames River, down toward Dover.

Casting Anxiety on Christ

The engine was exploding. Eight more vehicles behind. The last one had an accident. And I developed a psychosomatic migraine headache right on the spot. Not migraine, but headache. I thought, this is the end of me.

The craziest, ridiculous thing I've ever done. We'll never make it. We'll never make it even to Dover. Much less two months running around Europe, these old trucks. We had no mechanics. We had no truck drivers.

I was steering that thing. I might as well have been on the way to the moon. And I want to tell you, I was tense. I was just bound up tense. Nervous. And I was bearing OM. George Rover was going to try to bear OM.

It lasted, it seemed, maybe about one hour. And it just came to me in a very fantastic way that this was God's work. And I was God's instrument. And it was His responsibility. And I can't explain it, but I just, I just started to sing.

And I just cast it on Him. And I said, forgive me for being careless. I don't care what happens. Let the engine right now explode into the sky. It was almost like being drunk. Some of you have been drunk.

You don't care about whatever happens. It doesn't matter. And we need that. We need to be lifted right out of ourselves. Out of our tension, fear, worry, anxiety. Some of you can hardly get enough strength up to go over and shake a leader's hand.

Afraid of people. Many of you have a fear of people. But when you come into this rest, you're not going to have that fear of people. You'll be the first one to rush up and shake the Queen's hand next time you meet her in the streets of London.

I don't know if she goes around the streets. I've never seen her there. And the Bible says it's a snare. Right. It's a snare. And when we come into this rest, this carefree spirit in Christ, we come into this place of promised land living, he sets us free.

The only way to live. The only way to live. It doesn't mean we become careless. It doesn't mean we're not disciplined. You've heard enough messages to know that's not what I'm saying. Any message you hear here must be kept in tune with all the other messages.

This is what we want you to have more than anything else on O .M. The rest of faith. Victorious life isn't a one-shot experience. I'm not promising any spiritual pet pills tonight. But it has to start somewhere.

You have to make a decision somewhere. Not that you can make a decision. That's going to cause God to necessarily do something. Because it's only God that can convict you and even cause His message to do anything but put a slight ripple in your conscience.

But I believe the Holy Spirit of God is convicting some of you. And you've come here and you know God is striving with you and He's wanting to bring you to that place where you'll put your foot in the water and you'll say, Lord Jesus, I'll follow you.

I'm resting in you. I'm casting my cares upon you. You, from now on, I believe, are going to be my all-sufficient Savior. That's another whole message. All the wonderful verses about His sufficiency.

We're complete in Him. We're accepted in the Beloved. Many of us are insecure. If we'd be honest, we'd have to admit we're insecure because of poor parental care, because of problems when we were young.

We're insecure and we're running around trying to get crutches out of this world and most of the crutches in this world are cracked in the middle and we're falling all over the place. There's only one place for the insecure man that's in the arms of the Lord Jesus.

There's only one place for that insecure girl who's craving attention more than a camel or a... I don't know, I can't think of the animal that needs water the most. Not the camel. If you've ever gotten really thirsty, I have.

Out in the desert somewhere in India. But that's nothing. And that craving for water is nothing compared to the craving you and I have to be wanted. Oh, how we want to be wanted. How we want to be liked.

That's why many a girl falls in love with the very first boy who ever says, I love you. I know of many cases like that. And unbelievably so among Christian girls. So much insecurity and desire for love, the first boy that comes along hardly imagined him what he looks like when he says, I love you.

She caves in and 12 months later... Then she discovers that even that will not meet the longings of the heart. Even that will not meet the insecurities and the desires and the love pains and the incompleteness.

It's Jesus. The Lord Jesus who loved you and gave himself for you. The Lord Jesus who said, come unto me. Of whom it is said he loved us even until the end. Why do we resist that love? Why do we love other things?

Why do we try to squeeze from the broken cisterns of the world that which can only come from the fount of living water? From the promised land and milk, honey, victory, blessing. Oh, there'll be battles.

Don't get the wrong idea. You get into the promised land, no more battles. You get into the promised land, more battles. But now the secret is the Lord of hosts goes before you and with plenty of battles you make this decision tonight, you'll probably have your worst day tomorrow on the door.

I've had people write me. I never had any trouble until I made that decision. Jesus said, come. But he didn't promise a picnic. He didn't promise a lounge. He promised a revolution. But in his strength, in his wrath, in his sufficiency, in his power, daily you will have to appropriate it.

If you don't write anything else down, write that. Daily, by faith, you will have to appropriate it. What is said tonight has to be mixed by faith, with faith. And tomorrow, mixed with faith. As you read the word, as Ralph has exhorted us, you mix it with faith.

Daily you say, God said it, I believe it, that settles it forward. Some of you have hardly started. I give you the opportunity to stand and to make some kind of act of faith, some kind of outward action of an inward compulsion that's upon you by the Spirit, just like they put the foot in Jordan.

Burning the Boats and Entering the Promised Land

May you determine to do that tonight. As you pray, and as you cry out in your heart, Lord Jesus, take into your rest, as you labor, like it says in Hebrews, as you travail in your soul, Lord Jesus, take me into that rest.

I believe He will hear. Let's pray. Please pray silently for a moment. Search your heart, if you ever put your foot in Jordan. Believe with all your soul that He would roll back the water, take you into the promised land.

Are you living in the promised land these days? Do you believe in victory, reality, fruit, consistency? Say, well, not really. Do you believe God answers prayer? Do you believe that if you pray tonight, Lord Jesus, take me into this rest, begin this new thing in my own heart?

Do you believe He'll hear? Or do you think you'll turn a deaf ear? But this act of standing is going to seal it. It's not easy to stand. It's not easy. I'm going to ask in just a moment if you really mean with all your heart business with God tonight.

Do you really want to burn the bridges? Some of you have come along. You think you've crossed Jordan, but you've left some bridges in case it all doesn't work. The life of faith and discipleship, you've got a nice bridge and you can run back over it, right back where you came from.

Remember when the Spaniards went to conquer Mexico? Cortes ordered, after they got on the land, to burn the boats. Too many of you have launched out into somewhat of a quasi life of faith, but you've got all the boats right there ready to go back.

Get back to Egypt, quick. Back in the wilderness, quick. Tonight, as you stand, you'll say to God, I burned my bridges, I burned my boats. From now on, it's straight ahead. Jericho and all the other promised land enemies.

Do you mean it? Do you want to make this commitment? This act of faith, this outward action, listen to this, this outward action of an inward transaction. When you see Jesus constantly called men to make a decision, to do something, may God give you the grace.

Right now, do you want to make this commitment? Take this step and believe that God will take you into the rest. And I want you to just stand right where you are in prayer, right now. Take the earphones off between you and God.

He knows your heart. You can think about it for a minute. God knows your particular need. I don't know. The Holy Spirit will interpret this message to different people in different ways. You know, you've been listening.

You've been listening. Now God wants you to do something. This may be the very smallest thing you can do, but the smallest thing will lead the way to other things. But if you can't do this small thing, what are you going to do about the other big things?

God knows it's not going to take too much longer. Praise His name. Months, prayer and preparation, I believe, are behind this very moment. Just like when those priests put their foot in Jordan, I don't think it ever described.

So as you put your feet, spiritually speaking, in Jordan tonight, I believe it is a very real thing. What you're doing as you do this is you're mixing the word with faith. See? As you stand, you're saying, God, I believe something's going to happen.

Maybe you don't have the faith to believe for all kinds of fantastic things, but you're mixing faith and you're saying, God, I believe. I believe this is going to work. I believe you're going to change me.

You're going to give me this rest. So you're mixing the word with faith and then God answers. Is there anyone else before I pray? It's humbling to stand, isn't it? Some of you have stood before. It's humbling to stand again, isn't it?

Many times God called me to make such decisions. Each time I felt more miserable. I thought, God, couldn't you handle me with one kind of commitment? But He knows how wretched and blind and He knows that we're very good swimmers and many of us swim back across Jordan every year and get back in the wilderness and in the muck.