Gal 5 Canterbury 1978 — George Verwer

Training in Spiritual Life and Practical Ministry

Our great burden is to give people training in spiritual life, is to get what they have in their heads, many of them, down into their feet, into their life, so that they can eventually make an impact in their own hometown.

One of the young men from Cambridge who went with us to India two years ago, not far from here, is an executive in a large company. These large companies need missionaries as well, don't they? But he learned what it was to relate to people, what it was to see enemy strongholds torn down through prayer, what it was to really witness effectively and appropriate the promises of God, so that he can use that now in his practical life.

One of the most important things we have to learn as a Christian is how to appropriate God's promises. They're all there. I don't have any more than you. The Apostle Paul had even less than you. And yet we have to learn how to appropriate the promises of God.

And that's one of the challenges. Now, the scripture I want to read tonight, based on the subject that we're considering, about service and serving Christ, and whether this is freedom or is it a form of bondage, I want you to turn to the book of Galatians.

Somewhere along the line, there'll be some other people coming in, and let's not allow that to bother us, but just concentrate on the Word of God. Oh, here they are. Galatians, Chapter 5. Difficult to know.

I'd love to read, in some ways, the whole chapter. But I think we'll start in verse 13. For you were called to freedom, brethren. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed one by another. But I say, walk in the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other. To prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are plain. Immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousies, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like.

As I have warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace, long-suffering, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another.

May God add a spirit of obedience to the reading of His Word. I'd like to begin by sharing a little of my own testimony for several reasons. One, it will help you understand what I'm trying to say. And communication is not easy.

Love, Human Relationships, and the Divided Church

When you're talking to a person and trying to communicate with someone, one of the most important things is to try to understand his background. I believe the greatest problem in the Church of Jesus Christ is lack of love for one another.

Churches split, the best of friends split, families split. It's unbelievable, even what I've seen on the mission field these past 23 years. And I believe that one of the greatest challenges you have even at your age is the challenge of learning to love.

The challenge of learning to give love and to receive love. The challenge of learning to relate to people. The challenge of learning how to love people. My little daughter came home from school, she's not so little anymore, 13.

She came home from school very upset because she comes home with her very close friend. Her very close friend is a Pakistani. The Pakistani mother has sort of a deep, inburned hatred for the British. Of course, because they think, though my daughter spent almost her whole life in Britain, they think because she's American background that they can un-pour, she can release some of her venom.

And my daughter just can't understand it. She lays cursing at people and screaming in her car as she's trying to drive. And I'm trying to explain, you know, that we shouldn't be too surprised when people are like this, especially if they don't know Christ.

This is the way the world is. Sometimes we live in a nation, think our nation is filled with prejudice. I've lived in 20 nations. I've traveled to 50 nations. I've yet to go to a nation where there's not major racial prejudice.

I once went to a place in South India, I didn't think there was any racial prejudice there. And I discovered there were two types of Christians among the nominal Christians. There were the scheduled caste Christians who were converted out of low caste backgrounds.

And then there were the higher caste Christians who traced their ancestry to St. Thomas. And these two people would not even sit in the same church. Just like in the southern part of the United States, years ago, and it still goes on to some degree, they constructed some old, crummy old church building down the road and let all the people down there.

So they had the scheduled caste Christians in one place and the regular Christians in another place. They wondered why they had a political revolution over this minor one not so long ago. And I think that if we could only get to understand why people are the way they are.

You may end up rooming with someone or staying in the same room who is incredibly untidy and really gets on your nerves. You may end up marrying someone like that. Not only get on your nerves, it can make you short your circuits out permanently and end in a divorce court.

But I believe, and of course one of our greatest tasks is we live together on a ship. We now have a second ship. The first ship was only 140 people living together from 25 nationalities. We estimate the second ship will be 250 people living together, except when we have residence conferences, which is most of the time.

There will be 400 people living together from 40 nationalities on one ship from every religious denomination almost you can think of and some you probably never thought of. So you can imagine some of the interesting situations that we're going to experience.

So I want to share a little of my background to enable perhaps you'd understand what I want to say. Secondly, I want to share a little of my background because there may be someone here who doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ and I want to tell you how I came to know Christ because that's still the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

I wasn't from a Christian background. In fact, my grandfather from the Netherlands on my father's side was an atheist. My other grandfather was from Glasgow. He was a drunk. My parents, my father immigrated over to near New York City.

He didn't know Christ. He was just sort of a nice guy type good father but lost. Started to become religious but still lost. And I think it's important for me just to share a little bit of that. So let me do that very quickly.

A lady began to pray for me. She prayed for me for three years. She'd been praying for the grammar school that I was attending just before going to university for 15 years. She not only prayed that people would be converted in that school but she prayed that people would be saved and sent.

Saved to serve. Serving Christ is as basic to salvation as oxygen is to breathing. For a man to say that he's saved and he knows Christ personally and not to be serving not to be living for others, helping others loving others, ministering to others is a contradiction and it may be a fatal one.

In other words, it may prove that he's never been saved at all. It says so clearly in James that we demonstrate our faith by our works. We're not saved by works. If there's anyone who thinks that, you're on the number one side road to keep you from real salvation.

It's not by works. That's man's idea. I'm going to earn my way to heaven and I'm going to be moral. This is how we've produced generations of Pharisees and hypocrites, especially within the church. We know that's true because man often has tried to save himself by pulling himself up by his own bootstraps.

The word of God says, not me, the word of God says not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. Well, that was a little difficult for me to accept because I had become the president of the young people's group in my good church and the pastor he wasn't converted either.

He thought I was so wonderful, so versatile. I was teaching everybody how to dance on one side and reading the Bible on the other side and this is what he thought was real religion. When I wanted to bring revival and I didn't know what revival meant, but life into the church, I taught the young people how to rock and roll and got the jukebox, whatever you call it, into the church and we really started to go places.

Such was my view of life within the church. Anyway, this lady kept praying for me. She prayed for me for three years. She sent me a gospel of John through the post and I began to read this. It began to break down some of the prejudice in my heart.

Then Billy Graham came to New York City. He came just for one night at that time, just as a guest of some other evangelist and I went in mainly out of curiosity, partly because when I went to buy some pornography, I picked up a magazine about Billy Graham instead.

That's where I guess the Christian literature together with that gospel started to play a role in my life. I went that night and I heard Billy Graham preach the gospel and share the message of the Lord Jesus Christ and he asked people to repent and to come to Christ and I did that night.

I went back to my high school. Of course, you can imagine what people thought. It's just an emotional trip. This doesn't last, but it has lasted. Every day for 23 years Jesus Christ has been real to me and if you don't yet know Christ, we don't need to send for Billy Graham.

We've got the Holy Spirit. You've got the Word of God. You can come to Christ right here. Last week I was speaking at Exeter University on Friday and Cardiff on Saturday, but on Friday at Exeter University I was speaking mainly to people who already were believers.

They already knew Christ and yet the first person to come up to me afterward was someone that wanted to accept Christ and take Christ into his life and he prayed for salvation right there and the joy of God came into his life.

You know, it's a thrilling thing what God is doing in the universities here in Britain. Of all the places in the world I've gone to, different colleges, I think one of the great works of God is taking place right now here in the British universities and it's through prayer.

The Bible says that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty unto God to the pulling down of strongholds and I believe as we pray, as we learn to pray we're going to see even greater things take place.

Prayer, Evangelism, and the Earthen Vessel

I went back to the high school with a burden to pray. I realized that I had come to know Christ because of the prayers of that elderly lady. As I studied Billy Graham and I read his book Peace With God and began to see a little of his ministry I realized it wasn't Billy Graham, he was just a human vessel, he wasn't a great orator.

It wasn't that emotional but he was a man who believed in prayer his staff believed in prayer and he had a whole band of these elderly ladies praying for him thousands of them praying and of course God was almost obligated to work.

The Bible says that this treasure is in earthen vessels earthen vessels. I'm just a weak earthen vessel. Sometimes we have the idea if a man's a Christian leader or if he's a minister why he must be some kind of a super saint, some concord type evangelical high flying free from all problems character and this is false or if we hear that he's a missionary I'm supposed to be a missionary I mean who?

Of course one look at me people don't know what to believe anymore used to be that people whenever I went to a meeting they always wondered who I was they were waiting for my father. I was an electrician actually but I believe with all my heart that even as we have come here tonight it's not just for a message it's not just to have another Christian Union meeting.

It's because the Spirit of God wants to speak to us and the Spirit of God wants to urge us into a deeper walk with Christ. When I went back to that high school and we began to pray a few others came together to pray only a few Christians in the whole school within a year and a half 200 students.

This is an ungodly high school where 1 third of the students were drunk most weekends. 200 of them gave their lives to Jesus Christ. That ladies prayers were directly fulfilled. Different people went to different parts of the world.

I soon found myself in Mexico then in Spain then in Britain, then in India, then in Bangkok then in Nepal and other countries. It was just a band of us when we first went to Mexico three of us about 20 years ago.

Today there are 1 ,000 people full time with Operation Mobilization despite the fact that our main burden is just to get people for a summer or a year or two and get them to join some other mission, some other group.

I sent another letter two days ago another girl that had training with us on the way to Indonesia with OMF the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Many others have joined WEC or CLC or the International Christian Mission and literally 100 other different groups and agencies.

One lady prayed one Gospel of John was given out in the Lord. One of the reasons I take meetings like this because I don't have to take these meetings. This isn't my job. It won't ever bother me if I don't take any Christian meeting.

And one of the reasons I take these meetings is I know that God is working in the universities and I know one of the aspects of God's work is to take people into a deeper commitment to Christ that is going to last them the rest of their life.

And another great work of the Holy Spirit is to send some out from Britain to many different parts of the world to be his witness. Now to help with sharing this message we brought along some literature and I'd like to mention a few items after the meeting we'll probably just clear this table and display a few of these books that fit in with what I'm trying to share tonight.

One of the books we've been emphasizing the most is J .I. Packer's book. There's a need to understand who God is what is God like. And this has been considered one of the really great books published in Britain over the past few years.

Oswald Sanders was the leader of the OMF formerly the China Inland Mission for many many years and he has written what I consider the best book on spiritual leadership ever put in print. It's a book we try to require our leaders to read if they go through one of our leadership training programs we ask them to read this and it's just a book that you will want to get if you possibly can.

One of the most unique new books on prayer that have ever been written. I'm getting more people writing me commenting on this than any book this year. Paul Bilheimer's book Destined for the Throne. It shows that our highest calling is prayer and worship and praise and that we are called to a very high position with Jesus Christ and that this time here on this planet with all of its struggles with all of its suffering with all of its mystery with all of the problems and prayer doesn't always get answered just like that.

This is preparation for the day when we shall reign with Jesus Christ. And this man after 60 years 70 years on this earth has written one of the most in-depth studies on prayer that you could ever read.

Destined for the Throne. Michael Griffiths the present leader of the China Inland Mission. Give up your small ambitions. I always presume most people have already read this but believe me it is a book that's very, very worth reading.

I noticed they just put the price up from 95 pence to 110 pence. So what we're going to do to help compensate for that because we can't control that is whatever book you buy, I'm going to give you one free now.

This doesn't look like a book but originally it was printed just like this. In fact a new edition of it has come out in this form. It costs 60 pence. This exact same book is done on a high speed offset newspaper press like your daily mirror and we publish it for 2 pence.

Every single word is there. This is what we're doing to try to get the word of God out to third world countries. We're producing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books, millions actually in this form so you can have that free with any other book that you take just today.

After waiting a long time more copies of Josh McDowell's book have arrived in my hands. This has proven to be one of the most in-depth books on Christian evidence ever written. We hardly can keep it in stock.

We had a lot, it all sold out. The ship took thousands, they're all sold out. This young man has led thousands to Jesus Christ on the universities, mainly in North America. I would just recommend anyone especially has intellectual questions about the truth.

No one should be held back from becoming a follower of Jesus Christ on intellectual grounds because there are plenty of intellectual reasons. Now it's true, ultimately you have to take a step of faith.

That's the way God's ordained. Just like almost everything else you do in life. Eventually, no matter how much you get in your head you have to take a step of faith. Some of you are real scientific type.

You want to think everything through. You want to analyze everything. You want to spy it out, check it out. So someday you're going to get married boys part, you're going to find a girl. You're going to check her out, you're going to analyze.

You're going to check her mother out, have her psychoanalyzed. You're going to check her father out. You're going to read her history. You're going to read the history of her mother to make sure there's no diseases back there somewhere, pop up again.

But eventually, if you're going to get married you're going to have to take a step of faith. You can call it unity in the dark experience. Actually that was a book on ecumenicalism. Someone got confused about it.

But you have to take a step of faith. Here's a whole book of facts. If after you read this you want more facts. He's just published number two book just as thick, called More Evidence That Demands A Verdict and I think he's working on the third book that's called Even More Evidence That Demands A Verdict.

And if you don't like American authors you can read better books by F .F. Bruce. You can read John Stott. You can read Michael Green books like Runaway World. There are so many books that answer the intellectual questions that we may have about the resurrection.

Missionary Calling and the Great Commission

There are men that went out to disprove the resurrection. A man named Morris Morrison did that in the process of disproving the resurrection he was converted. So he wrote a book called Who Rolled the Stone and accepted Christ as his personal savior.

A man named Lew Wallace did a similar thing. He was a friend of the famous atheist Ingersoll. And Ingersoll said to Wallace well look you need to write a book and prove this Jesus thing is a hoax that he never lived in history at least as we read about it.

So Lew Wallace took up this challenge from atheist Ingersoll started to write this book. He went to the libraries, I think he went to the holy land. He did a lot of research in the midst of his research he got down on his knees on the side of his bed and took Jesus Christ as his personal lord and savior.

What a challenge that is. We very much like the writings of Roy Hesham. He's a man by the way I'm sure you could get down here to speak. His biography or autobiography is just being published by Hodder Stotten called My Calvary Road.

It's now in more than 40 languages. This is his recent book called Forgotten Factors a very unpleasant but a very beautiful book on the subject of morality he says an aid to deeper repentance on the forgotten factors of sexual misbehavior.

There's a great chapter here on multiplied duplicities a chapter on homosexuality a chapter on dishonoring the body then a chapter on amazing grace. Then that's unmessed. That's typical Roy Hesham terminology deeper repentance forgiveness the divorce court or the cross.

This book is destined to be another great book that God is going to use. One of the reasons I mention books is not just that you can buy some or get some tonight but that you can make use of these books.

If we had an extra hour perhaps we'd take you on one of our world tours not to tell you about O .M. but to point out some of the needy nations in the world that are represented on this prayer map. We just printed pray the Lord of the harvest that he'll send forth laborers into the harvest.

And if you're going to be serious about your faith in Christ then you're going to be serious about the commands of Jesus to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And one of the ways that you can begin praying for these places is to get a map.

We've been challenging people all over Britain to get one of these maps and hang it in their house. If they ask us where we say we'll hang it right over the front of your television set. It's the best place for it.

And we printed some little cards to go with this map 52 of the most needy nations in the world for people to carry in their pocket. We're trying to mobilize tens of thousands of people who will pray systematically redeem the time on the train waiting here and there.

I had to change trains three times just to come from Bromley to Canterbury. Lots of time to pray lots of time to read. And this is a great way to redeem the time. And I recommend strongly you get a package of these cards.

Christian Freedom Requires Discipline and Balance

Well with that in the way of background let us consider these words for ye have been called to freedom brethren only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. John Stocks written a very good book on balanced Christianity.

I've written a book myself it's not very good called Revolution of Balance because I am so convinced that one of Satan's main targets is to polarize and therefore paralyze the church of Jesus Christ get us into different camps.

The devil is very clever. And it says in Corinthians be not ignorant of Satan's devices. Be not ignorant of Satan's devices. It says in Ephesians chapter 6 that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers.

It says in that same chapter that we should hold high the shield of faith wherewith we can stop the fiery darts of the evil one. There are many areas in which Christians are polarizing separating not fellowshipping with one another criticizing one another and one of them is in the area of freedom.

There's an emphasis on freedom that goes to extreme and begins to give us the idea if not stated openly that discipline, any form of discipline is bondage. This type of message creates a very undisciplined person and ultimately a very dangerous person.

Because I believe an undisciplined person is a dangerous person. I don't believe an undisciplined man will ever make a good father. He'll never make a good husband. I don't know whatever he will do. I don't know how he'll get through university without any discipline.

If you can just study whenever you feel like it go to classes whenever you feel like it wake up at any time you want go to bed at any time you want. And of course if you get out into the world of course Christians supposedly don't believe this way but the people of the world they carry it to the extreme.

If you feel like having sex well go have sex. Who ever heard of restraining these normal desires. And now they're telling us and I'm not telling stories. If you feel like having sex with someone of your own sex of course don't restrain that you'll get mentally ill if you restrain that desire.

And if you think that's the end of the line as far as perversion then you haven't been around very long because the big thing now is sex as well with animals and you can go up to London and you can sit for a pound or two in a nightclub I've been told and you can watch people have sex with animals.

People say wow where is the world going to. It's nothing new some of these people they think they're so intellectual they're so modern they're so twentieth century over two to three thousand years ago in the book of Leviticus it talked about sex with animals.

It talks about homosexuality. Leviticus chapter 18, 19 and 20 there are three hundred verses in this book on the subject of sex and yet for a while the church, stuck in the mud of their own mentality, felt we certainly can't speak about sex in the church and no wonder we got an invasion of perversion and an invasion of all kinds of repressed emotions which eventually pop out and when they pop out that way they're even more weird than you can get in the Soho that's exactly what's happened to the children of God.

I predicted what has happened to the children of God five years ago when they were in Bromley I knew they were going to go into immoral, way out weird practices. This past week the headlines on The Sun which I never buy but when they're standing in front of you on the train and every other compartment reading The Sun page three or otherwise you can't help miss it and the headlines were about the children of God the whole inside feature of the children of God and how the main teaching now is that the girls must give their bodies in sex to win into the cult if we think this is new.

Do you know what the message of the children of God was? We're free we're free. There was a freedom message I once confronted one in Bromley I said what was everybody hugging and kissing and they say they're kissing and hugging in the spirit and I said don't you think it's a little dangerous all the boys and girls hugging each other so much?

Oh no he said we're learning that in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female. Keep in mind that all the false cults have scripture verses. That's why I prefer to study the whole Bible and I've been taking a survey around the Christian unions and I've discovered less than 10 of the students have ever read the Bible through.

Isn't that interesting? I won't take a survey here. It's too small a group we can see each other. Less than 10 have read the Bible through and yet they claim to believe the Bible is the Word of God.

Christians claim to believe the Bible is the Word of God and spend more time watching television, more time reading the paper than they do reading God's Word. They haven't even got through it once yet you know if they read it once at least they can say well I've already read that.

They can't say that because they've never read it through once and so I believe that freedom without discipline, freedom without service freedom without the other balancing factors is deadly and it's not a biblical freedom.

It's a licentiousness. It's something that the devil really wants to get us into. We are called into freedom. But in the very same verse we're told that we must take this freedom not as an occasion for the flesh but to love one another and to be servants of one another.

The word balance I think is one of the most important words in the English language. We will see in the Word of God certain strong truths. For example Luke 14 33 you know that verse? Except you forsake all that you have you can't be my disciple.

Wow! Children of God preach that verse. Now I preach that verse as well. They heard that and thought I was going to join them and they had me over there and boy they were really going after me because they knew that I preached a strong message but I didn't just preach except you forsake all that you have you can't be my disciple.

I had to preach all the rest of the New Testament. And there are many other verses like Philippians 4 verse 19 my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. And I could give you a hundred different areas where we must get the whole counsel of God.

We must not just get one aspect of the truth. We must get the different aspects of the truth without which we become lopsided Christians or we become extremists. Or even worse get ourselves into a false cult or even start one.

Every ego trip in one sense is the beginning of a false cult. So stay away from ego trips they are very very dangerous. The Apostle Paul for example he wrote many of the verses about liberty. He wrote the book of Christian liberty.

What is that. The book of Galatians showing what freedom the Christian has free from the curse of the law. And yet the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 very interesting verses. I buffet my body and bring it into subjection lest after preaching to others I become a reprobate.

Billy Graham preaching at the Urbana Inter-Varsity Convention many years ago said to a group of students. I think 9 ,000 were there. He said look if you are not willing and ready to live a disciplined life forget it.

You will never live for Christ. Whether it is the area of sex or the area of money or the area of self control for example. Just think of the tunnel now. This has always been a major problem in my life.

The tunnel. A .W. Tozer in one of his books says. Keep your chimney cool. Well that is difficult for me. I don't know if it is my Dutch background or the Irish background or what. But I found it very easy to lose my temper.

Sting people with my tongue before I was converted stinging with my fists. I can remember fighting from almost the age of 4 even fought with girls once in a terrible experience. This girl beat me up and you never forget that.

I found out she was converted some years ago. That is encouraging. But as we think of the challenge of the gospel we realize it has got to be practical. It has got to work. When Christ came into me I knew that he had to change my temper.

Billy Graham has a very strong message about temper about the tongue. My tongue went faster than my brain. I don't know if any of you have that problem you are at university now you are intellectual. Your brain is functioning at full speed.

So you should get your brain going faster than your tongue. Well my tongue went faster than my brain. So I would always say things to this day. There is no sense in pretending that I am totally delivered.

And my tongue would say something hurt someone. And then my brain would come along just seconds later. Hey you shouldn't have said that that was untimely. That was stupid. That wasn't Christ. Like now that I am a Christian.

But it was too late. I already said it and I went into the word of God. Especially after times of failure when I hurt people and hurt my own parents and I went into God's word. Is there any solution for this hot head.

I used to give people a piece of my mind just that quick. You know that could be dangerous. You go around for many years giving away pieces of your mind you could run out eventually. Some of you are afraid of that self control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual Growth as Crisis and Process

But we make a mistake if we think well all I need is a great experience with the Holy Spirit. I've had many experiences with the Holy Spirit. I'm sometimes afraid to tell about them because people but I'll tell you you won't copy some of the experiences I had.

But I know one thing any crisis that's not followed by a process will become an abscess. And that's what some of you will be if you don't get serious about God's program of discipline God's program of meditating on the word God's program of prayer God's program of dealing with the weak areas in your life dealing desperately seriously.

It's not a game. We are in a Christian warfare. Some people have the idea. Well we're just young people. We're just in training as if the devil says now now that you're saved you go get training so you can come and destroy me.

The Bible says be not ignorant of his devices. And I can assure you that the devil is not encouraging training of believers so that they can destroy his strongholds. Satan begins his attack the moment you're converted.

And some of you have experienced that some people give a glowing gospel message. You know when you accept Christ you'll have peace and joy. Everything will be wonderful. I've talked to people you know what they told me.

They were doing fine until I got converted. Laughter. They were feeling fine they had friends laughter. And when they got converted they really started to get problems now. That's not everybody's testimony others have.