Forward Planning & God in You — George Verwer

Forward Planning in the Work of God

I want to just share just a few thoughts, bring this to a close, that I'm working on which eventually I'll be sharing with leaders probably in Kathmandu. OM is always dealing with a whole number of different major subjects, all of it geared to try to make this a work that will glorify God more, that will be more effective, more efficient, more spiritual.

This is the work that some of us have day and night because we're concerned with the level of spirituality, we're concerned with the level of reality that there is in OM and in the work of God. One of the things we've been talking a lot about lately and it will be the main focus of the next Area of Use meeting is forward planning.

It's a word that I guess has come into use just in the last couple of years but other similar words have been used from the beginning, planning ahead. We as human beings, especially in the English language, we have one upmanship we play in language that when a group of people are speaking something, we want to say something that's different.

It's got a good factor, I try to engage in it all the time even to the point of the ridiculous. But it also becomes very confusing for people who don't have English as their first language because they just get to know what we're talking about and suddenly a new word is popped on them without definition.

So we talk about forward planning, we mean planning ahead, perhaps it would incorporate into it in a little more thought through and systematic way. Now it's important to understand why this has become so big, it's a big drum that Alistair Hubbard has been beating since he stepped in the door.

Because of course someone like Alistair who came in originally as a paid consultant into OM at a very, very low fee, almost in some ways partly a gift of his time because he loves Christ and partly he was brought in by the Board of Trustees.

Totally unique in OM's history. Now I think it's good for you to know he is the acting managing director of STL, he is now in and also a consultant. This is an emergency measure because we have no one for that job.

Alistair is there in God's providence. Mike Wheat and Dave Brown as co-deputy directors. Alistair is only here three days a week, they're here the whole week, right under Alistair. Dave Brown is moving out of London Road, long story, because of his new responsibility.

Is it true that your whole team is going to go to London Road or is that still a thing? It's pretty well planned out, it's good to know that. We'll all be under one happy roof, people like Philip Morris and Neil and everybody else all functioning together.

But anyway, one of the reasons a man like Alistair Hubbard was brought in during the time of financial crisis gets into this is because he sees a movement like OM that does all these different things.

It's going on all over the world but doesn't have the money to do it. So forward planning is very much linked with budget. If you got this much money, you can do this much work. OM traditionally has had this much money, this much.

A traditional OM is Philip going ahead with the typesetting of the Hindi Bible in Delhi without any money. That's the old-fashioned way that people like Alistair Hubbard would like to stop, much less why we are.

Or at least have a guarantee that there is this money coming. Very, very few people can grasp what budgeting has done for OM. Nobody knows the number of ulcers that have been created, the number of friends that have gone, there are different ways.

But there had to come, there had to come. When OM was bordering on being out of control, especially the ships a couple of years ago, this had to come. And it came after a lot of discussion, prayer, meetings, etc.

Seeking God's Plan for Ministry and Personal Life

But as I was thinking on this subject of planning ahead in the work of God, I just came up with these few points. How do we do this in the work of God? We are not a secular corporation. We have not a guaranteed income.

We have to face that reality. Even if we have pledges and promises we have seen in OM, that is no guarantee. And the bottom line problem in OM, there are a number of them, but one of them is we've got one third of the people in the movement who are short of a minimum support level.

In fact, on the do lots, if everybody just sees basic support, there will be no bills. The whole thing, according to Roton's figures, will be completely covered, including the ministry, including the fuel of the ministry, everything, if all the people on that ship saw their support.

However, support has always been a goal within OM. It isn't something that just falls out of a tree. It's a goal that we work toward. And I think coupled with a lot of dynamic faith, there has been a lot of down-to-earth common sense and flexibility without which OM would have never got this far so that we could even have men like Alistair Hubbard who would even look at us and sit down and talk with us about our problems.

But I just listed these few things that you may want to pray about because you're planning ahead in your own life. How do you get God's plan for your own life? It's actually got many similarities. And one of the things we failed to do with OM people in the past, we did it to a degree, an area of failure, is to really clearly teach them the problem of finance in terms of their whole future.

And just how big that would be when they left OM, how big the financial question would be to go to Bible college, to get into an established mission that wants $25 ,000 a year, or $15 ,000, whatever. So this is relevant, I think, to all of us.

And I can only just give you my outline. The first thing is seeking the face of God. This is the thing that makes us totally different than the secular company down the road. And you know, the moment we lose this, we've lost it all.

And you can go through, I can give you dozens of verses, seeking the face of God. And a lot of the plans that God gave to us in OM came actually in prayer meetings. And they were visions, they were God-given ideas.

And perhaps we ran into trouble when we presumed that, of course, any idea we got in a prayer meeting was from God. Or we fell into other dangers that I haven't had time to talk about. Maybe we didn't realize as much importance of the human factor.

I remember, let me touch on that later point. Number two, walking day by day in the Spirit. I don't think there's anything more important than our personal holiness. And as we walk in the Spirit, He leads us.

He guides us the next step. He may show us a five-year plan. He may only show us a one-year plan. We're all different. But He will definitely guide us as we go step by step in the Spirit. And that needs to continue to be the great emphasis in OM.

It's not what we are doing. It's what we are. It's our life, the first chapter in the old leadership manual. And then number three, reading and research. I'm concerned that in the last couple of years, some decisions have been made in OM without proper research.

This is why, even in this financial issue, I am just reading and I am getting feedback from the widest range, probably the widest range of Christian leaders that I've almost ever been consulted on this subject.

And it is really amazing what we're learning from that. Because these people, I think of the wife of one of our board members in New Jersey, typed up three pages. In fact, the feedback from without OM is six times better than anything from within OM.

It's actually a bit of an indictment that many people within OM are not even giving feedback. I guess we're just... Because we had the general counsel and people spoke verbally, they don't feel any written feedback.

It's necessary, though I did urge them at the general counsel to still give written feedback. And there has been some good feedback from within the work. So reading and research, the facts are important.

A lot of the visions God gave me in the early days, and the reason that a lot of the visions came to me in the early days, they weren't to many people. It was only being born. We weren't even sure. We weren't even sure that it was going to come, anything out of OM.

But a lot of the burden and vision for Iraq and for Turkey and the Muslim country came in the Moody Bible Institute library reading books that I wasn't even required to read. And I feel sad that we've had to put the research department of this team on the back burner and then it fell off the stove.

There's a lot of unofficial research going on here. And the amount of information that this team is generating and circulating throughout the work, which is almost completely taken for granted because OM is not an information conscious organization.

There's no budget for information within OM to any great degree. There's a budget for free literature. That's a section of information. And of course, if there's any movement into information, I can assure you it's operation mobilization.

What a task if we can systematize this and organize it in a better way. And there will be a day when this team or some other team will have a full-blown research department. One of the reasons I'm pushing that now is because so many other missions have it.

And we need to take what they have, not duplicate, and get it out. That's more argument. Distribution. We were the ones that took all this information that Patrick Johnson had, which was going almost nowhere, and made it public to the Christian community.

But that doesn't mean we don't continue in this area. And in forward planning, research, homework, is absolutely essential. Before we can really intelligently discuss this subject, we have to research, how has OM done forward planning for 28 years?

And then see, what do we want to change? What do we want to keep? In fact, this kind of research in OM has to be done on a national basis. There's no sense talking about an international conglomerate that has done forward planning because OM has not functioned that way.

And even to this day, if you think the area leaders are leading OM, you don't know what's going on. The leadership muscle in OM is on a national basis. And we want the national people to do anything. We have to get on our knees, and we have to persuade, and we discovered already, the simplest decision we've made on an area level, the national leaders have done it without us being able to do anything.

Because they are the ones that have to carry it out. We can't force anybody in Switzerland or France or Turkey to do what we decide. It has to be persuasion. There are a few exceptions, we think. Number four, faithfulness in what God has given us at our hand to do.

We're wrestling with an awesome problem in OM. How much time do we give to discussion, philosophy, forward planning, argumentation, which is going on twice as much as ever in the history of OM, and how much time do we actually give to work, W-O-R-K, actually going out and doing what we decided we were going to do a year ago.

This is an awesome problem because you can't do both. If I give five hours to discussion, I cannot give five hours to work. In five hours of work, even on a financial basis, I might generate $20 ,000.

Five hours of discussion, I might generate a room full of hot air. You know, as a hyper-pragmatic, where my heart is. And for any days that I spend in discussion, there's much crucifixion, and that's what I need.

So I am fully in favor of these meetings. But it's not easy when you think of even a September conference, all the things we could be doing around the world instead of being in Belgium. But on the other hand, if we don't sort out what we do in Belgium that month, which is my most intensive month of the year, then a lot of what we may try to do during the year is going to come apart.

So we need both. It's not one or the other, it's both. But being faithful in that which God has given us is one of the best ways to lay the foundation for planning ahead. Number five, sharing our vision and our burden with others.

One of the first things we did in regard to the ship vision was begin to share this vision out and get feedback, what they think. OM is not a movement that is operated basically on high level laser beam communication.

We got this vision, let's go. I did get that kind of idea and vision in some cases, but the next step was share it with the saints and get ready for a shutdown. Eighty percent of all my visions over the years have been shot down.

And praise God because it's crazy enough as it is. One of the things some forward planners fail to realize is OM has already created, we already planned and created more than we can handle at present.

And very few of those fields are willing to back down on anything. And they have the clout. So how do you get any of these fields to suddenly close things down? India has been the easiest field to get to close some things down, but it already was to start with almost the biggest fields.

What about the man who is just surviving? I just read a three page letter from David Zidon to the financial management department. You know how they put the loving gentle screw on you financially, and I will tell you what David Zidon has written, it's brilliant.

The little people in OM easily get walked on because they are dealing with a very small budget. One hit cup of bungalow deck is enough to put them into the pool seven days a week to keep the sanity. So that's an important thing and we have to work on that.

Counting the Cost and Learning from Mistakes

Number six, really counting the cost. This is another thing we've always done but never enough. I launched out in 63, no 62, and in those days a lot of the strategy and policy just came from my head. I had a little more authority than today, not to the extreme as some people think.

But I announced 50 million pieces of literature. Can you imagine? I thought I calculated this. Empire State Building calculations, some of you have heard the old tapes. We are going to distribute 50 million pieces of literature.

Can you imagine that? We had only 10 months to organize it and we were nothing. 62, we were next to nothing. Three months down the road I continued to count the cost and I thought you are going to blow me.

There is no way 50 million pieces of literature. Some of it, I was living in London at the time. I had already started distributing. The first million went out to London before the summer campaign began.

I was looking for every kind of escape to get to this huge figure. Then I changed the publicity, and I have got both pieces of publicity, to 25 million. That is a big change, right? 50 million to 25 million.

In forward planning there has to be the counting of the cost, but there also has to be the grace, the humility, even the willingness to lose face in terms of your announced God-given plan. I wondered if old David Wilkerson would be willing to face up to what he wrote in The Vision, most of which, that was 15 years ago it was written, most of which has not come to pass, though he definitely communicated that this was a vision straight from God and it would happen within the next few years.

I did incorporate a little bit of apology on a tape. I wrote, but my acceptance of him as a prophet, getting direct revelations has never been very, very high, though I do love him as a weak, struggling, often confused dear brother.

I think we have to at times really eat a lot of humble pie in leadership, especially if we are the visionary, pioneer types, because we are the types who one minute lead the troops into a tremendous victory, and the next minute lead them right down a dead-end street.

We love to talk about the victories, but we don't like to talk about the times we led the troops down a dead-end street. That's why I believe in corporate leadership, not one-man leadership. Just bear with me a couple of more minutes.

Number seven, moving forward by faith. This is a danger in O .M.'s present move, that we are going to lose the ability to move forward by faith. Everything is going to be neat and tidy and budget, this and that.

I think there is a way we can have all this and still move ahead by faith, but I'm working on that, and it's going to be discussed on an area level. So you're not totally out of order there, Philip. Moving ahead by faith, but if we can carve the missing money a year from now out of your extra expenses you use for whatever you use money for, that might help.

Number eight, learn by our mistakes. I've already touched on that, but it's incredibly important. And number nine, to just face the variety of ways that God works.

Security in God and Christ as the Anchor of the Soul

Now, why was David so scared? He was hopeless on a bicycle. This wasn't the first person he'd ridden over. The big problem in this case was who was the last person that he'd ridden over related to? And we had to go out sort of about two hours later and rescue his bicycle.

Me creeping along ahead to see if the police were anywhere. It's all a question of who he was related to. And you know Satan, when he attacks you, does it with fear and trembling. Because of who you're related to.

If only you could see yourself as Satan sees you. With God Almighty dwelling in you. God himself declaring that he is your father. This is such an anchor of the soul. In Hebrews chapter six we read that we have an anchor for the soul.

And the kind of illustration that Paul is using, if he is indeed the writer, is something like this. You imagine you're sailing a little boat and you've gone aground on a sand bank. The tide has gone out and you've gone aground on this bank.

But the tide is going to come in again. But the problem is the wind is blowing in the same direction as the tide. And as the water rises you're going to get smashed more and more repeatedly onto that sand bank until the boat is destroyed.

What does the sailor do under those circumstances? He throws out an anchor against the wind. So as the tide comes in and the boat lifts up it isn't smashed on the bank. You have an anchor in your Christian life.

God has given you the security of making you eternally his child. Christ is the anchor for your soul within heaven already. And although you may be accused by Satan and although you may find yourself in difficult circumstances, you have absolute security in your relationship to God.

I don't know whether any of you have ever had a lawyer to work for you. You get involved in some legal wrangle with someone and you're going to be accused of this and that. And so you hire a lawyer. It's the most wonderful feeling in the world practically to say to your accusers, go see my lawyer.

I'm not even going to discuss matters with you, you go see my lawyer. It is written in scripture that we have an advocate, a lawyer, Jesus Christ the righteous. One who represents you before God in heaven.

Who makes out your case. One who has never lost a case yet. It is important for these people in Luke 24 that they know that they are secure in God's relationship with them. They know that God is their father.

Peter's Restoration and Spiritual Maturity

And then the second character we meet is in verse 12. And it's Peter. Peter arose and ran into the tomb and stooping in, stooping and looking in he saw the linen cloth by themselves and he went home wondering at that which was come to pass.

Now what a failure Peter had been. Do you ever get discouraged at yourself? The way your mind wanders in the prayer meetings. I have sat in worship meetings, some of the most tremendous worship meetings and all the time I've actually been scoring some of the most brilliant goals ever seen on a football pitch.

You can get discouraged because you fail in the same way again and again and again. Peter had come out with so many bold words and then finally ran away. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want... Mary Magdalene could say that he leads me beside still waters.

And Peter could say he restores my soul. Peter is a saved man, a converted man. And yet as we come across him here in this chapter his soul restoring. He too must be discouraged and fearful. What is the problem with Peter?

It is simply this that he was immature and he thought he wasn't. I've been pondering spiritual immaturity in recent days. It's so like babies, how many of you have had babies so far as I know? At least half of you I'm sure haven't.

But you know babies sleep a lot. They spend hours and hours just apparently doing nothing very much. Not much sign of anything happening at all. And then when they do wake up they have all kinds of uncoordinated actions.

And it sometimes seems with young Christians that they go through long periods, months in their lives where very very little happens and then suddenly they do the most bizarre things and then go back to sleep.

We have people like this on OM all the time. You're praying for them that there might be some signs of spiritual growth and six months later they seem to be the same as when they came in. And then suddenly they wake up and do something crazy and then go back to sleep again.

Another thing with babies is that they dirty their nappies, their diapers for the benefit of the Americans. I can remember getting my daughter, my oldest daughter, lovely little blonde haired, sweet thing, dressed up to go and see grandparents.

And she was washed and bathed and powdered and smelt like only a clean baby can. We set off in the car and just about five minutes before we got there the pong was something else. And after five minutes before we got out I was so proud to be taking this little thing and I carried her in at arm's length and gave it to her grandmother.

It's the way they are. Immaturity. She's nine next Sunday and she has learned to behave a little better. Because you give the young time and food and fresh air and forgiveness and they will grow. It's practically inevitable that physically a young baby will grow.

But spiritual growth is a battle every day. It is not automatic. Just because you're on OM that doesn't mean to say you're necessarily going to grow spiritually. There are some people who can go through months of this kind of thing and stay the same as when they came in.

Spiritually immature. The immature person seeks primarily its own happiness. It's looking first for its own happiness. The immature person. The immature person always seeks to receive rather than to give.

They want to avoid discipline rather than to welcome it. And we need to have day by day a sense of how far we need to go. And yet a total confidence in the God who can restore and remould and make us.

I'm amazed reading Philippians chapter 3. The Apostle Paul saying I've got so far yet to go. This is only 4 to 5 years before his martyrdom. It's 13 years after he has started the church in Philippi. And yet he's hungry to grow.

He wants to go on with God. He wants to hear God's voice speaking to him. How many days do we go through an OM conference and this be true of us? It's easier sometimes to dodge the meetings. Slip out of the prayer meetings.

Forget our Bible. Do you come to this tent anxious that you personally might hear the voice of God speaking to you? Are you hungry to know God more deeply? The Apostle Peter is a saved man. But he needs the restoration of his soul when we meet him in Luke 24.

Do you remember that verse in John chapter 10? And verse 9? Jesus says I am the door. By me if any man enter in he shall be saved. And he shall go in and go out and find pasture. What does that mean? Does that mean he goes in and out of his salvation?

Well it can't mean that because it would mean you'd only get food when you're on the outside. You have two needs perhaps in your Christian life. The need for security and the need for feeding. Jesus says there is a sheepfold and I am the door.

And if you want security you find it through me. You go into the sheepfold through the door. And if you want to be fed from the word of God you find it through me. You come out through that same door to the pastures where Christ will lead you.

Jesus says I am the door. I will meet your needs. And if you find security and pasture you will be saved. And so the Lord meets with Peter privately. We can see reference to that in Luke 24 verse 34. He restores his soul.

He leads him in the path of righteousness. And then there are two more characters in Luke 24. These unnamed disciples walking quietly on the road down towards the village of Emmaus. And we see their story between verses 13 and 35.

Walking home full of despair. Shattered expectations for them too. All the hopes that they'd had. Christ it seemed was going to be the answer to every need that they had ever experienced. And they expected all Israel to turn to him.

And the politicians and the soldiers and the priests ganged up and they got rid of him. And these two men are walking home. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death thou art with me says Psalm 23.

Jesus comes in on a side road. Walks with them as they tread along in despair. Asks them what they're thinking about. Shares with them in their sorrow. And the Lord begins to expound Scripture to them.

God in every crisis of your life is going to bring you back to Scripture if you're to be brought unscathed through the problem. God is going to bring you back to Scripture with the problems at this conference.

Or problems may be on the team or when you get home after this conference, some of you. Some of you may well face death or bereavement within the course of the coming months. We've had people go all the way out of the field and then be summoned home because one of their parents has died.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death the Good Shepherd will draw alongside me and anchor my heart in Scripture. Between verses 25 and 27 the Lord says these words. Foolish men. Slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.

And he began from Moses and he went through all the prophets interpreting to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. How is the Lord going to be shepherding you in these days? Through his still small voice that you hear in your own heart as you read his word.

God's Word in Times of Crisis

Six months ago I went through one of the most traumatic experiences probably of my life. My wife was taken into hospital with cancer and we were wondering just what the future was holding. She was going to have an operation and the result of that operation would let us know whether cancer had spread throughout her body or was simply in one local place.

And it seemed like days and days before the medical people could give us any answer. And God spoke through one verse that became an anchor for my heart in those days. The Good Shepherd drew alongside me.

I was having to travel 160 miles a day because of the work that I was then involved in. And time and again this scripture was coming home to my heart. I was having to prepare to preach the gospel in a university in Britain.

Most of the time my mind just wasn't on it. God was bringing me back to these verses. There is no temptation, no test, no trial that has taken you but such as man can bear. Who decides that? God decides how much you can bear.

You feel you're getting to the end of your resources. God says you will not be allowed to come into a test that He has not already gauged for you and measured for you. God is faithful. He will simply not allow you to be tested beyond what you're able to bear.

That may speak nothing to you tonight but I tell you that was a tremendous encouragement to me last February. There was absolutely nothing that I could do except throw myself back on God. When my wife was finally brought out of the hospital she could hardly walk.

She was brought into a room of some Christian friends of mine. She was going to stay there. I had to go back to the university and finish the mission that night. She was given a cup of coffee in a Christian magazine to read and the first article she reads is about cancer in women.

And one of the very first things they said was that with that particular cancer two thirds of women are dead within five years. There she is just out of hospital. Reading this in a Christian magazine.

God allows some pretty heavy trials sometimes. And yet God is the one who measures every test that you ever come to. He wants to anchor your confidence in Himself and His Word. Turn back to Psalm 42. Let me give you a quick example.

In Psalm 42 the psalmist has got four problems. This isn't going to be a long Bible study, just a series of notes. You can look it up afterwards. His first problem is that God seems so unreal. My soul is panting after God.

My soul is thirsting after God. When shall I be able to come and appear before God? God seems so far away to him. And in verse 3 he's being taunted by his enemies. And in verse 4 he's looking back to when things were so much better in his past.

Do you remember times when things were better in your Christian life? The psalmist says, I remember how I went with the congregation. I led them to the house of God and they were such singing and rejoicing.

They were high and happy days. Now in verse 6 he finds himself in exile, his fourth problem. So what does he do? In verse 5 the psalmist simply talks to his soul. Have you ever learnt to do that? Soul, what are you doing?

Soul, did I hear you right, soul? Are you grumbling and complaining, my soul? Soul, is that a trace of discouragement I hear? Soul, what on earth are you moaning about? Soul, why are you discouraged? Stand to attention, soul.

Put your shoulders back. Come on, soul. That's the kind of way he talks. Soul, why are you gloomy? Put your hope in God. Have confidence in Him for the future. He begins to talk to himself. Now they do say that talking to yourself is a sign of lunacy.

It may well be. Except under these circumstances. You Christians are to learn to talk to yourself. That doesn't mean wandering around the corridors mumbling. Or getting on the telephone. Hello, soul, I didn't want anyone to think I was a lunatic.

Soul, I just wanted to tell you to get a little bit discouraged. But that is the beginnings of the improvement. Telling himself to take right and biblical attitudes. And then he talks to God. Because God is your Father.

And you can go to God with anything. Some of you don't know where to go. At the end of this conference. And you're becoming almost paralyzed by indecision. Go and talk to God about it. Some of you are angry with God.

Or upset with OM leaders. Go and talk to God about it. There have been hundreds of OMers over the last 20 years complaining to God about OM leaders. You're not the first. You may have complaints about the conditions or about something else.

Go and tell God He knows well how to deal with that problem. He's been dealing with it for so long. And as he talks to himself and talks to God, he finds in the last three verses, four verses, that his confidence returns.

I have this written in a little card in the front of my Bible. Every problem a person has is related to his concept of God. If you have a big God, you have small problems. If you have a small God, you have big problems.

It's as simple as that. When your God is big, then every seeming problem becomes an opportunity. Is your God big enough? Have you been allowing God to speak to your heart through His Word? Have you got these days, day by day, that which is fresh from the Word of God for your own heart?

These disciples, who are being spoken to in Luke 24, are going to have to go through prison, some through crucifixion. They're going to have to face emperors and princes. The Lord is teaching them from the very beginning, every day, to have their experience anchored in His Word.

Christ's Presence Among His People

And then let's look at the next paragraph in Luke 24. Verses 36 to 43. And what is the next verse in Psalm 23? Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Here we find the disciples sitting terrified.

There are enemies all over the city. And these people are talking in whispers behind locked doors. And the Lord comes. Can you imagine Him coming up to the door? I imagine Him like this. He raises His hand to knock on the door.