Gv4342 Gv Discouragement in Leadership — George Verwer

Dealing With Discouragement in Christian Leadership

Dealing with discouragement in Christian leadership. Now, I'm sure some of you have heard me speak on discouragement. I usually read Habakkuk chapter 3, which I'm not going to do now, and speak on some very basic things about discouragement.

The message I've been preaching the most in the last two years, I think, anyway, the response is amazing. So many of God's people are discouraged. It's just unbelievable. And I was in a Christian union, and I gave this message, and I don't always give an invitation, but at the end of the meeting, I just said, I sense some of you are really discouraged, and you need to respond to this, you need to believe God, to take you into encouragement, and to stand against this in your life.

And I asked them to stand, it was only a small meeting. Many of the meetings I speak at are just small meetings, not big, huge meetings. And so many stood, I don't remember the number, and it does seem that this is one of the most subtle, it's almost overused message of the enemy, to get us discouraged.

And I found in ministering to Christian leaders, that often they're discouraged in their ministry. Pastors, so often I found, discouraged. Missionaries, I'm sure many of you have a wrong idea about a missionary.

You've got him written up as some spiritual giant, up at five in the morning, having his two and a half hour quiet time, launching out to plant a church, tearing down the strongholds of the enemy, so by the end of the first month, the first church is born, and he can move on, and plant another one.

But you know, many of the missionaries I've met, over the years, are discouraged people. They've tried hard, they dreamed dreams that didn't come to pass, they prayed prayers that didn't get answered, they couldn't get on with their fellow missionaries, that's always a real encouragement, isn't it?

And they got somehow discouraged. I've met them on the field that said, I said, well why don't you go home? And they said, there's nothing I can do home. This is my career, I'm a professional missionary.

I can't do anything home. That discourages me, I'll tell you. You know, this evening is a special evening for many of us, because it is the first evening of the conference, which now has become a series of conferences, and my mind goes back to September 1961.

That's a long way, some of you weren't born. How many of you weren't born yet, September of 1961? Well, some of you are older than you look. You say, what was going on in the September of 1961? Well, I had just come back from the Soviet Union.

You all know my good friend, God Smuggler, Brother Andrew, he sometimes comes to these meetings, speaks to us. And you know, of course, that tonight you've got Brother George, God Smuggler. The summer of 61, I went into the Soviet Union, no need to tell the story, you probably heard it.

Due to my own stupidity, Roger Malsted was with me. Due to my own stupidity, we got arrested by the Soviet secret police. It wasn't due to my stupidity that Roger was with me. The English language is a tricky language.

Operation Mobilization's Early Vision

And we had come back, and just the idea of OM was born on that trip. You know, you've heard the top of the tree experience. We got back in Spain, where a group of Spaniards had left good secular jobs to throw their life commitment in with this unknown skinny American who had arrived from Mexico.

And we went with these Spaniards out to the mountains of Madrid, and we prayed as to whether this Operation Mobilization vision that we had just received in the day of prayer after we got arrested and thrown out of the Soviet Union, whether this was really from God.

And these Spaniards, it was a day of prayer and fasting. They felt it was, and they were willing to be the leaders, even though this kind of work could not be done in Spain at that time. In Spain, we were working incognito.

We were distributing literature at night. We were sending literature out through the post. We were working through all the telephone books, working in secret meetings, addressing envelopes, driving around the country, using the cheap benzine of the American Air Force personnel to get literature all over the country.

But a little group had arrived from North America and Mexico. In this group, there were such unique characters as Dale Roton and Paul Troper and others. Because most in that first group are all on the mission field today.

Most of them in Europe or Asia. And so we had our first September conference. 1961, every September, every year, this is where I've been. And it's so overwhelming for me that God has been so gracious these 22, 23 years.

I can remember prayer meetings in that first conference as if they happened last year. I remember Big Dick Dreyer. And I remember out in front of this building in Spain just praying and crying out to God for world evangelism.

And we have literally seen hundreds of those prayers prayed in Spain in 1961. Hundreds of those prayers literally answered these past two decades. And as we come into this conference, we come with a spirit of thanksgiving for all that God has done these past decades.

Our big thing in OM, I can assure you, is not looking back. We are looking forward. But if you look into the Word of God, especially in the Psalms, you will see biblical challenge, that we should give thanks for the great things that God has done.

And when I think of how feeble we were, in some ways how extreme we were, how naive we were, as we met there in Madrid, only a few dozen of us, a few dozen. And then how God worked, as Paul Troper and his little group headed for Austria, as Maynard Tom and his little group headed for France.

I was just with Maynard a few months ago. As a little group headed for Turkey, I believe. First group to Turkey. And as few of us remained in Spain, the vision for England was only just a seed. I was still working in Spain.

Some English brothers came down from Spain. I had met these English Methodist young people in Vienna when I was giving out literature there, before going into Russia. And in my mind, it was just a vague island off somewhere.

My grandfather had come from there. And more and more it was beginning to come. There's a lot of people up there sitting around. And, you know, why bring Americans, thousands of miles from New Jersey, when we can get these British people, we had heard of people swimming the channel, we can get them just over into Europe so easily.

So within a few months, I was on my way to England. Actually, it was more than a few months. I went to the States first, and Mexico, where I bumped into Steve Hart and Ray Lynch, who's just standing in the back there.

And then I came back, and my wife and I turned the work in Spain over to nationals, and one or two others. And we went off to England. God's faithfulness. And I tell you this, because God wants to be faithful to you these next three, four, five, ten years.

Young people, you can trust Him with your life. You can trust Him that what He has begun in you, Philippians 1, 6, He will continue. Almost all those people who met in Madrid at that time are going on for God today.

By the next summer, OM was born and moving. And a small band of 200 gathered together in Paris. Summer of 1962. I can remember that crusade better than I can remember three years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve years ago.

It's the beginning. It's new. It's burned fresh in your mind. Heidi Van Damme, who's here, reminded me of some of the things. She must have been the first Austrian to come. After that summer, I moved to Gopen in southern Holland.

And this was a strategic part called Limburg, down between Belgium and Germany. And a fellow sold me on going there during the summer crusade. He said, look at this strip of Holland. And I thought, like fathers from Holland, this is where I ought to go.

I still hadn't got the total vision for Britain. We were there, and I thought, well, Jonathan, he can go to Britain. Jonathan had just joined. Let him take Britain. We had an old military camp in Britain.

No one used it in the winter. Whitcliffe used it in the summer. Only a reindeer would use this place in the winter. And whenever I visited it, Jonathan was always there, wrapped in clothing, near one of these old kerosene stoves.

That was the birthplace, really, almost, of STL. We had the year before when I moved, or some months before, February 62. First I lived in 8 Tasso Road, Fulham. Then I lived in 30 Middleton Road, Dalston.

And in a sense, STL, that unique literature ministry, was born at that time. Hosey Burks, a black American, who was with me in England in those early days, who's now got a ministry in New York City, he was the first book packer.

I don't think this was his gift. To pack one box, it took him a long time. A long time. Mind you, there wasn't much business. This is where the first million tracks was printed. We used to go from printer to printer, looking for people who would undercut the man down the road.

And we even, back then, we even believed that Britain was un-evangelized. We were uninitiated. Of course, it still is in some ways. And so we distributed hundreds of thousands of tracks in the streets of Great Britain.

And what a challenge it was. But after 62, I moved, after my second son was born, first one born in Madrid, and the second one born in England. I didn't believe any of this birth control stuff. That's from the devil.

Birth control. I believed in self-control. And I, you know, prayer and fasting. Self-control. We were going to wait a couple of years through discipline and spiritual warfare. Nine months after the wedding, my son Benjamin was born in Spain.

He was premature. That was interesting. It seemed pretty soon after that, Daniel was born. He'll be walking around here in a couple of days, so I better get this part over with before he comes. But as soon as he was born in London, it was one of the worst fogs in the history of the city.

People were actually dropping dead from smog. We moved to southern Holland because we had this vision for Germany. And we took meetings in Germany. You could just drive 20 minutes from where we lived in Germany.

20 minutes the other way, we were in Belgium. And through that came the birth of Zaventem. Because I was always driving to the Brussels airport. And eventually I thought, what am I living over here in Limburg when we got an airport over here in Zaventem?

I'll never forget driving to the airport, saying to our Dutch director, Dick Swart, at that time, hey, I think we ought to base here. Let's move here. And God in his providence brought us, first only a team to Zaventem.

Because after the summer of 1963, that was a really big push, the central office of OM Europe was in Switzerland. That's right. The vehicles were in muddy fields. We launched a big year program and we were in such a financial strait, I don't think we've had it that bad until maybe last year.

So we couldn't go. And the tradition, which we believe God has given us, of waiting on God before we leave, was born because it was a sensible thing. If you don't have any money, you shouldn't borrow a lot of money to launch a major offensive against Satan.

And so we waited upon God in Switzerland. It was a hard experience because the mumps broke out. And if you want a mumps testimony, you talk to Ray Lynch. Ray, didn't you have the mumps? No. But you were there, no?

Yeah, you were there. I don't know if he was among those that thought those were the mumps and departed from the true and living way. But anyway, the Swiss government moved in and quarantined these people.

And they had done a lot of interesting things to get the blessing. You know, there isn't anything in OM we haven't tried to get the blessing. They even tried foot washing. They felt there was a lack of humility.

And so somebody found a verse. I don't know where I was. I was not in Switzerland. Anybody who would attempt to wash my feet, they would need a mask, oxygen mask. Anyway, they washed feet. And there were so many problems.

And in the mercy of God, in answer to prayer, a gift of 70 ,000 British pounds, which today would be equivalent to a quarter of a million pounds, came in one gift. And I tell you, this little band of renegades who weren't exactly overappreciated in Europe at that time by the traditional missionary community.

In fact, there weren't too many that appreciated us at that time. It's probably our fault. We had just distributed across Europe in one summer 25 million pieces of literature. And of course, sometimes things happened in the process of that.

But God in answer to prayer with people who didn't know what was happening, we didn't have that many prayer partners. God brought in about 70 ,000 pounds. If Steve Hart is here, he could direct me and tell me it was dollars.

It is hard to keep that straight in your mind. Pounds or dollars, either way. Then it was absolutely explosive. And eventually those teams got out. Some of the brothers hitchhiked. Some of them quit OM on the spot.

They said, Ichabod, Ichabod, it's finished. This thing's not from God. God doesn't work this way. Look at this. These vehicles stuck in the mud. Look at this. People with mugs. Look at this. Look at these leaders.

They left. You know, some of them I've never heard from. I'm sure the Lord blessed them. He's got lots of mercy. Others said, look, we've got to move to India. We're going to hitchhike. Greg Livingston was in charge of the India team.

He didn't have any call to India. I just told him to go. He didn't get caught up much in this call business. We were sort of going between the Salvation Army and the Plymouth Brethren. The Pentecostal thing wasn't too big then.

It was just beginning to come in. I just told Greg India was the place. I think I told Gordon Magney. He's here now, too. India was the place. And they got going. They were both Wheaton graduates. And they finally got to India.

People were converted to Christ before they even got there. I was swimming the other day in Crystal Palace Pool. I like to swim once in a while. And lo and behold, who do I bump into in the pool? Ray Mayhew.

He's the main pastor, together with Roger Foster, of the IFAS Fellowship in London. I'm sure you all heard of that. How did Ray Mayhew get saved? He was on his way to India. God's providence. He got picked up by one of our trucks.

And he was converted to Jesus through that. And his brother Bill, who's a missionary, I think in France, I think he had a team with him maybe this summer. And so through failure and struggle and discouragement and problems and mumps and no money and arguments and disunity, the first team launched off to India.

And they were by then the second or third year into Turkey. And another team that year, or it may have been just before that year, launched across North Africa. I remember that because they took the truck, the lorry that I had been driving in Italy.

I sort of coordinated the summer crusade then, rapidly turned that over to Jonathan, and then went off to Italy, my favorite European country, together with Spain at that time. Spain was not open to this kind of work.

Wounded Leaders and the Cost of Ministry

And oh my, what we saw God do in Italy. Now, I don't normally speak about these things, maybe twice a year. And forgive me if I'm reminiscing. This is a sign of old age. The truth is, from those days, those early beginnings, perhaps the greatest battle that some of us have faced again and again is the battle of discouragement.

Because we soon learned that it wasn't as easy as we envisaged. We soon learned that Turkey was not about to collapse in two years through our prayer meetings, which were pretty intensive and pretty fierce.

And we used to pray for every city in Turkey. We soon learned that some would begin to run the race and within one or two years they would not be running. And if you want to understand those of us who are your leaders today, and we're rapidly trying to train up younger leaders, you have to realize we are wounded people.

There's no sense pretending. There's no sense in me getting up here with a big goo-goo on my face. Isn't everything wonderful? We're wounded people. Our hearts have been broken a thousand times. I was on the phone last week with a man who lined up at my first meetings in England.

A Bible college graduate filled with the Holy Ghost. I lived in his basement at 30 Middleton Road. He never joined OM in a real way because his wife didn't like it. She thought it was a little bit too rough, a little bit too fanatic.

She wanted to join a more mellow mission society. When she joined the mission society she discovered later they were more crazy than we were. It lasted six months and everything after that went downhill.

The marriage broke. His second marriage broke. He overthrew the faith. She remarried a communist and I talked to him on the phone yesterday. That's 22 years later. A lost, unbelieving, defeated, depressed, working on his second divorced man.

You know, that doesn't happen without pain. He was a leader of the work of God in England, not necessarily with OM. I know he used to every Monday sit under the great ministry of Martin Lloyd-Jones, first Monday of the month.

He was the man who first told me about the doctor. And I think of another man who met me in England and went to one of Britain's great Bible schools where they emphasize a little bit a more passive type of Christian faith.

And when I came to England and he discovered that I wanted to evangelize he said, hey, you know, I don't believe in that. I'm going to Bible college. And he went to one of the best Bible colleges in Britain.

And within two years he was a committed, dedicated Mormon. And I will tell you if you don't think that can break a man's heart, I was only young. I was naive. You know, I believe, you know, we pray God words.

And that's what we're taught. I had prayed for these people. I had fasted for these people. And I could list many, many more. I don't want to depress you. Who we thought they were running well. We thought these are going to be God's men.

We can build upon them. God's going to do a work through them. And we gave of our lives. We gave of our clothes. We loved them. We spent time with them. We had read all the books. How to disciple people.

How to be a leader. How to be a disciple maker. Dawson Trotman. You know, we were into that up to our neck. Then we saw them shot down or go into extremism. Like that very Dutch director who was with me that day when God led us to Zobington who came to me a couple years later and said, I'm leaving.

I don't believe you people are filled with the Holy Spirit. He thought I was filled with the Holy Spirit because I was noisy. Yeah. You know, I mean, in the early days in OM, you think I'm an emotional case now.

You should have been around then. I tell you, when God hit me in a prayer meeting, I always went to the top of the table. You're closer to heaven than the top of the table. Here I was on the top of the table praising Jesus, believing that another 50 grand was going to come down.

And my wife said, you know, I don't think you ought to do some of this. You know, a wife is a very valuable asset. And I can talk to you about that. She said, I don't think you ought to do this because as you're doing this, dancing around and praising and jumping, people are not praying.

They're watching you. And God had to humble me. And God had to give me discernment what was from the Holy Spirit and what was from George Berwer. And I discovered a lot of it was from George Berwer. And that I needed to be a little more self-controlled.

Anyway, he thought I was filled with the Holy Spirit, but he didn't think some of my other co-leaders were filled with the Holy Spirit, especially the quiet ones. Where do we get this cockeyed idea that if you're quiet, you're not filled with the Holy Spirit?

I tell you, right now, OM is looking for some quiet people. With me around, we need some quiet ones to bring the whole thing into balance. And God's Holy Spirit works in different people in different ways.

And I tell you, when that dear brother left this work and then in Holland they spread rumors, very ugly rumors about this work, it hurt. It hurt very deep. And they started a counter-movement. They spread the rumor that we didn't have the Holy Spirit because we didn't manifest it in their way.

And so they started a movement called Operation. We got Case Roses. He's our Dutchman. He's here. He knows this is true. He wasn't. Where were you, Case? You were still in Bible school, though. Case went to Bible school.

Then he joined the Belden Gospel Mission. I felt Case was one of the most unbroken new recruits we had ever found. He was also there with us in 1962. And it is one of the most beautiful testimonies that Case and I are still together.

That's Case. Back by the pole. He is in charge of this whole conference. Raise your hand. Amen. Thank you. But anyway, he wasn't around least near at range at this time with his other dear Dutch brother who we do still love.

And so Operation Pentecostal Fire was born in Holland. This is one of the few divisions I know of in the whole history of OM. I want to tell you about a division. I had to go back a long way. It wasn't really a division, but there were a few who had worked with OM and this brother and others who had never been with OM.

They thought this OM thing doesn't have the Holy Spirit. We've got the real thing. Operation Pentecostal Fire. You write the history of that. You'll be able to write it up in two pages because it didn't go.

It didn't go. It had a tremendous name. I like that name. Maybe I should have got that name on the top of the tree. I was in the wrong tree. No, it was Germany. It was a non-charismatic tree. But, you know, God is so gracious.

God is so gracious. And God raises up different movements at different times Simultaneous with these events, God was touching the heart of a dynamic young man in California named Lauren Cunningham. And around this time, I think it may have been even that time I went back after I lived in Spain or it was, yes, after the Summer of 62 Crusade.

That's when I may have met Ray. I always sometimes get things mixed up by one or two years. Ray, when did I meet you? Was it after 62 or after 63? After 62. Okay, I think I met Lauren Cunningham in the same time.

God's providence. A very humble brother. I think his ministry had started with the assemblies of God. And he said somehow through correspondence, can I come on Operation Mobilization? I want to learn how you do this work.

And I said, sure. And Lauren Cunningham, today, founder, director of Operation Mobilization, a bigger movement than we are certainly in numbers, now with certainly a much bigger ship, that brother walked humbly among us, was in charge of the literature warehouse in Paris in 1963.

I mention that because someone started to spread the rumor that that was a division. That was never a division. Lauren and the work of YWAM was already born. But I tell you, we could be here all night and we can't risk that.

The beautiful way that God has raised up in the last 25 years powerful, beautiful ministries, YWAM, Navigators, Youth for Christ, older than us by quite a bit, Billy Graham with them in the early days, and many others.

The InterVarsity, I was just reviewing the history. One of their founders was a man named Stacy Woods. He was a radical. He was outspoken. And God used him as one of the founders of InterVarsity, especially in North America.

And it's interesting, Stacy just died, that when OM was highly criticized and just being born, Stacy Woods gave us the word of encouragement. And Eric Fyfe, one of the main leaders in InterVarsity, as far back as 1968, pushed and pushed and got George Merwer into the Urbana Convention.

I saw a magazine about that in my big junk pile just last week. And it was quite an interesting article. That will be a very historic relic. Eric had a nervous breakdown through that intensive conference.

I don't know if I was to blame for that. I don't think so. Never recovered totally, physically. But I was with him a little while ago, some time ago, and he's pressing on for Jesus. What am I trying to say in this conglomeration of history and sharing tonight?

God's Faithfulness and Perseverance in Ministry

I'm trying to say that God is faithful. I'm trying to say that when you launch out into ministry, whether it's with OM or one of these other groups, if you stand on God's word and if you hold high the shield of faith against discouragement, you will also be able to reminisce a little bit 20 years from now.

And our burden, even in this leadership training conference, brothers and sisters, is not a year program. It's not to get you prepared to be a leader with OM next summer. Our burden is not, firstly, to get you in OM.

Our burden is to see you have a life of fruitful service for God. Our burden is that you may run the race to the end. Our burden is that you'll not be as that young man who became a Mormon or that other young man who went into adultery, but our burden is that you'll be as Keith or as Ray or hundreds of others that I know who began the race 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, and are still running today.

I want you to be encouraged to know there is enormous hope for the weakest person. You come to a leaders conference, what's the first thing you think of? What am I doing here? I'm not a leader. I can't even get my dog to obey me.

We know that you're not an apostle. This is not an apostles conference. This is an epistles conference. We're going to study the epistles and see how we can be apostolic in our witness for Jesus and in world evangelism.

We know you feel weak and inadequate. Some of you are saying, I don't have my prayer life all together. How can I be a leader? Others are saying, I don't have my Bible study life all together. How can I be a leader?

Others are saying, I don't really know how to do personal evangelism. I haven't led anybody to Christ myself. How am I going to be a leader? We understand that. We don't overrate you as much as you may think.

We didn't get a letter from your pastor saying so and so, Susie Wong or Sammy Chong is the most outstanding potential leader in our church. We recommend him to your leadership conference. That's not how it works around O .M.

Things are going too fast. There's too many people to get it that systematic. But you're here in God's province. We don't want you to feel you're better than the group that comes on Monday. Some of those who come on Monday, they should be here now.

Some of you are here now. Perhaps you should have waited until Monday. We're not going to make a big thing of that. But God has put you here. I pray you will get the most out of this week. I pray that you'll go back to your room tonight and ask God if you don't already have it to give you a spirit of expectation, a spirit of faith as to what you're going to get from these seminars, as to what you're going to get as you fellowship around the meals, as to what you're going to get when you fellowship around cleaning the toilet or scrubbing the floors.

And I will tell you, there's nothing we're going to ask you to do in the way of mundane tasks that we haven't done a hundred times. And some of us now have to spend extra long hours just counseling, counseling, counseling and wrestling with problems and wrestling with the enemy.

You know, sometimes we would be just rather in there doing the dishes. I've done more dishes this summer than any summer in a long time. It's been such a relaxation. I've been under pressure at times.

I didn't want to look at another letter. I didn't want to look at another person. I felt, you know, it's getting too big. There was a memo a day coming in with problems. Boy, just to get in with the dishes.

You know, I usually break one and my wife is a bit neurotic and nervous about my dishwashing. But the Word of God says that whatever you have to do, do it with all your heart as unto the Lord. Not just coming to the meeting with all your heart.

Not just pray with all your heart. If you see a piece of rubbish anywhere on this premises, pick it up and say, Thank you, Jesus. Now, I've just been convicted. I remember now. It's vivid in my mind. There was a cornflakes box laying over by the tennis court and I didn't pick it up.

I don't know how I missed that. I must be tired. Whatsoever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord. We want to emphasize this week that a leader is a servant. A leader is a servant. Different leaders serve in different ways.

And it's an enormous struggle to get the balance between the different ways we can serve one another. Because you know what you're going to find in a couple of years if you haven't found already? You've got so many opportunities you don't know what to do.

And you start to get frustrated. So many open doors. So many opportunities. You won't know what to do. God is faithful. God is faithful. Great is thy faithfulness. We often sing that. Do you believe it?

Living Sacrifice and Spiritual Warfare

Many of you made recommitments to the Lord this summer. Look at Romans 12. Many of you this summer, and I haven't been able to get my letters off to many of you. I've prayed through your requests. And I've written some of you.

But my, we are behind on correspondence. And if any of you know how to type more than 35 words a minute, would you consider before you go out to plant churches in the ends of the earth spending a year typing?

Would you do that unto Jesus? Really? Because if we don't get some typists and some secretaries, we are not going to be able to continue the way that we want to in recruiting, and we're already recruiting for next summer.

But many of you made a tremendous commitment. This summer was one of the highest percentages of people responding to the challenge of any summer I can remember, both in Akron and here. Some of you are here from the doulos who made a very strong commitment there about lifetime missions.

And you remember me speaking on this verse, New International Version, and therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

You've made that commitment. You're on the move. Wonderful. Now Satan is going to counterattack. How many of you have sensed some pretty heavy counterattacks upon you since you've made that commitment?

Raise your hand. Some pretty fiery darts. You don't want to exaggerate. Some pretty heavy stuff has come your way since you made the commitment. Raise your hand, just real quick. About a third of you.

Beloved, you've heard us emphasize this. Would you write it in your notes again tonight? This is total war. And we have not gathered here for these four weeks for some kind of evangelical fiesta, some kind of evangelical retreat, some type of evangelical retirement program.

This is a battle camp. This is a training ground. We have seen the enemy already trying to harass us. And this is why we must pull together as an army, in an army camp, and not be thrown off balance by some little hardship, by some little thing going wrong, by somebody stepping on one of your little gospel corns, by somebody not showing you enough appreciation, somebody forgot your name, or some other trivial thing.

May God, by His grace, deliver us of trivialities and bring us into reality. Because otherwise we behave just like the people of the world, just like the pagans, when they go have a beer party. We are going to be hit by enemy fire.

Our hearts are crying out right now for Beirut. Those of you Americans know that a couple of your marines were killed yesterday in Beirut. And short of a miracle, there will be another civil war in Beirut.

And our hearts ache. We know the whole Middle East is on a semi-military footing. They're using real weapons. People are being killed. Beloved, we are on a military footing. The devil is using real weapons.

And his most subtle weapon, I sense, even at this stage, is discouragement. Some of you, your summer wasn't all that you thought. And if you're honest, you're a bit discouraged. Your prayer life hasn't grown the way you'd hoped and envisaged since your recommitment to the Lord.

And you're discouraged in your prayer life. Your Bible study hasn't got the impact and the grip that you want it to have. And if somebody gets up and preaches a Bible study, you'll just get more discouraged.

Some of you are wrestling with relationship problems. And you thought somehow several months ago, you were getting on top of this relationship thing. You were getting a greater control over your tongue and your temper and the carnal side of you.

And yet, somehow, you've displayed ugly carnality this summer. Maybe even this week. And you're discouraged. And you wonder, can God use me? Can God ever get a hold of my tongue? Can God ever get a hold of my whole being?

Many of you made a recommitment in the area of morality. And you claim greater purity from God. You claim victory. You made the mistake of even claiming more victory than I told you to claim. That's why some of you are discouraged.

That's right. You went out of this tent so heffed up. Boy, if that little skinny big-nosed gospel rabbit can get that much victory, I can get more. And you went out of here and you said a hundred percent victory.