Spiritual Balance in World Missions — George Verwer

Spiritual Balance in World Missions — George Verwer

I want to speak to you this morning, again on a somewhat practical area, the subject of balance, spiritual balance, especially in relationship to world mission. The booklet Extremism is required reading, I hope you have all read that.

I don't want to have to go over that material. OM stands very firmly for what we have set forth in that booklet. And we are convinced, perhaps more than ever before, that this is God's way. And trust you know what it says.

If you have read Revolution of Love and Balance, then you have read also Extremism. It is included in that book, together with four other important lectures that we would like you to read. As we think of the great task of world evangelization, many problems come into our mind.

In OM, though we are activists, we believe in getting on with the job. We also believe in study, in research, in staying up to date on what God is doing around the world in many countries. We don't want to be some sort of closed-in work where we just live in our own little cardboard box.

Balancing the Missionary Call With Objective Decisions

What are some of the areas where we have got to find the balance? And where some of you, I believe, in these days are trying to find the balance. First we have got to find the balance between the call, being called to the mission field and making an objective decision.

Some mission groups very strongly emphasize the call. They want to know when did you get your call to the mission field. Some even narrow it down to particular countries. We feel in a training movement that we do not want to overemphasize this.

We have seen many people confused by this. We have not even found it that very much in the New Testament. Though we will not argue with someone who really feels he has a call. It brought confusion when there were so many people called to China and they were all kicked out of China.

And many of them never went back to the mission field. They became confused. Some of course did. Many great missionaries came out from China working in many different places. We believe that God has given us a mind.

He wants us to use our mind. We believe that we should function in fellowship with the body. Sometimes others can more objectively determine where we can make a vital contribution to world evangelism more than we can ourselves.

So there has to be the balance. We want to respect people's emotional guidance. Sometimes people get rather interesting visions and revelations and whatever else. But you won't mind if we are at times a little bit cautious.

The old poser says if even an angel appeared and spoke forth something with a great shining light and beauty and splendor and if it was contrary to the scriptures he wouldn't believe it. And I believe what he has said carries a ring that is needed in our day.

Also a whole problem of guidance. We must be willing to understand God guides different people in different ways. We've often had our brother Buck Singh go through our camp and he always gives us his message on guidance.

And after he goes we always have several little Buck Singhs trying to pretend that they're Buck Singh and trying to get that type of guidance. Most of them end up really mixed up. Buck Singh is an unusual man of God.

It's true in one way he's an ordinary man subject to weakness like all people. But I mean this man I tell you is a powerhouse of prayer and faith. God has led him in a unique way. If there is such a thing as apostles today another controversy we will avoid this morning.

Certainly he's one of them. And we just of course have learned much from him. At the same time it's foolish to try to copy such men in terms of their total way of doing things. Spiritual balance is so important in this area.

If you're not going to end up in a cul-de-sac a dead end street. We need to study more of the facts like we have in the prayer cards. Some of these fantastic books we have in the bookshop on Islam. And on missions.

And believe me I'm embarrassed by our bookshop but there's not much room here. And we really don't have so much money right now to invest in more books. But don't be frightened if some of your favorite books aren't on that shop.

We just can't afford at present with our priority on Asia and the Middle East. And 400 production projects in 40 languages to have everybody's favorite book. Many of my favorite books are not on the table.

Of course I have about 100 favorite books. And we do change from time to time. A book we really want to be pushing this coming year is Destined for the Throne. A new book on the subject of intercession and prayer.

And when you get to Europe you'll get a whole new exposure on other books. That will help make up the goal mind of your little library. Spiritual balance in this area of the call, guidance, making an objective decision.

The Need for Mission Versus Guidance From God

Secondly, I have a lot to cover. In fact I may try to cover two full messages which is in fact 19 points. So please if you can turn your mind on or you're tired that will be helpful. The need versus guidance from God.

Does the need justify the call or going there? We hear about these tremendous needs. Some of you feel like going in 10 different directions after being here in four days. Somebody gets up for the Arab world and somebody's up for India.

Then the ship and pretty soon people start to talk to you personally. Wait till you get to Europe where there's 900 people have been on the year program. And they're all looking around for new recruits for their particular field.

They're not 900 because some of those are out in Asia. But there's many. And don't let this confuse you. Praise the Lord for so much exposure. Don't feel you have to decide immediately after somebody talks to you.

Be a little careful to commit yourself. When some heavy-handed hard-selling dynamic leader tries to recruit you to your field. And says he feels that boy you're one of the most potential young persons he's spoken to in the last 10 minutes.

And really feels that you're God's man for his field. You might want to feel a little awkward if no one tried to recruit you. We've had people like that as well that felt really rejected. So it's hard to keep the balance in this.

But really the need does not totally justify going there. The need demands action first in prayer. The need demands prayer. Prayer will lead us to a strategy. In a God-given strategy some will go. Some will pray.

Some will give. Some will encourage others. When the war declaration is given. And a nation goes on a war alert. What does everybody do? The men, the women, the children. They all drop everything. Run into the house.

Find the nearest ship. The nearest airplane. And ask the pilot to fly them to the front lines. No, there is such a thing as preparation. For some of you that's going to mean Bible school. In OM we are not against Bible schools.

We have seen God use them. We are very linked to the Bible schools in Europe. Many go from OM into Bible school. What we are against is stereotyped preparation. Thinking everybody has to go this way. Everybody has to go that way.

We've seen beautiful brothers. Never been to Bible school. Some never been to college. They've learned from this book. They've learned on their knees. They've learned through personal study. That there must be one way or the other.

And different people go different ways. And it bothers me when we find people attacking some of these institutions that were born in the Spirit of God. I am grateful to this day, despite the many weaknesses I found there, which I also find in my own work, for my time at Moody Bible Institute.

I'm glad it wasn't more than two years. I personally think that's a good period of time for my type of personality and for the burden God had put on my heart. There is a tremendous stress in the country today to not just get two or three years people want you and seven, eight years of formal training.

I think many people are making the mistake in this. I think it's alright if every summer and every opportunity you throw yourself right into the battle and really stay red hot and really stay radical and really stay active so that you don't just dry up.

I've seen so many people just dry up in their studies. Whatever they're studying, even theology. I was just reading an article in Evangelical Newsletter about how many are drying up during their time of theological study.

It's really amazing. I won't take time to read it, but it's significant. I believe we need to, one way or the other, get all the truth that goes into our minds translated into dynamic reality and action as quickly as possible if we are not to become another Evangelical schizophrenic on the rocks.

The need versus guidance from God. To go on OM, I believe you don't need a special call, you don't need an electric shock or a bolt of lightning in the night, somebody tickling your Evangelical funny bone, but you need guidance.

You need guidance from the Lord. How do we get guidance? There's no one simple way. There's no Evangelical Ouija board I can sell you in the book room. You've got to get before God, waiting on God. His Word, get into His Word.

Others, listening to counsel, thinking, praying, reading, letting God touch your heart through things you read. And then, of course, circumstances. Circumstances are one of God's greatest tools for guiding us.

I am often guided by circumstance. I believe in the mystery of Providence, like the old Puritans. And it's so beautiful the way God can use Providence. And lead us, and guide us. Also, the push the door policy.

God seems to be leading. All right, let's push the door. If it doesn't open after several pushes, maybe we better look around. There may be some kind of a tunnel we have to go through or something. And you'll read books on guidance, and perhaps some of you, the more books you read on guidance, and the more messages you hear on guidance, the more confused you become.

Because you find God's way with you is seemingly so different. Don't worry about being confused in some things. I am confused in a number of things. After studying for 22 years, that isn't much. No doubt after 44 years of study, I'll even be more confused.

In this mysterious planet, in which God is working in so many different ways, let's not come up with all of our little easy cookie-cut American answers. Some of you are going to really have some of your spark plugs reignited as you get into Europe and discover the European scene.

As you mix with these 50 Singaporeans and Malaysians. We have the greatest cross-section of people from Singapore of any other country, even though it's the smallest country. It's the only country where the Bible Presbyterians, who in this country are spellbound to some degree by MacIntyre, though I think there's been a split now.

But if you know anything about Mr. MacIntyre, you know they are relatively rigid and slightly conservative, to say the least. They certainly wouldn't touch O .M. with a thousand-foot pole. Maybe they don't even know about it.

That's the best way to operate. But in Singapore, Timothy Tao, the great disciple of Carl MacIntyre, the great leader of the Bible Presbyterians, is an avid supporter of the ship, commending young people every year into O .M.

And he and I sat down and talked about some of our differences, and yet he believes that God is in this. He, of course, wouldn't agree with everything, but he's committed. So we get these Bible Presbyterian young people.

At the same time, we have young people from Singapore, even from some of the charismatic fellowships. The cathedral in Singapore has just exploded in some form of renewal. I spoke there twice on a Sunday morning, and it's mainly of a charismatic persuasion.

Of course, these Bible Presbyterians, they've had no contact to any great degree with this side of the fence, and yet we've seen them functioning together in O .M., learning to understand one another, learning not to generalize.

If you generalize about the fundamental conservative end of the church, and you lob them into all one box, you are only proving your ignorance, because that whole dimension of the Christian faith is very, very wide.

You have to define today what you mean by fundamentalism. If we go back to the original meaning of what was once a very great word, it simply means, man, it really believes the Bible is the word of God.

Now all kinds of different groups have all added things to it, so some people are a little hesitant to even use it. And if you lump all charismatic people, whatever in the world that means, into one box, you are proving that you have never studied neither church history nor what God is doing today.

You maybe have been hurt by some extremists. There are extremists in both sides, from people like Carl MacIntyre perhaps on the one side, I won't give names, people on the other side, who come out with every kind of ridiculous thing you can imagine, and would have us kissing the Pope's nose in Rome if they could.

Forgive me if that's a little bit unkindly, but it maybe communicates that in OM we have no plan to move near Rome. And if the dear Anglicans in England move closer to Rome, we are going to move further away from them, because it cannot be.

Justification by Faith and Separation From Roman Error

If we are justified by faith according to the Word of God, if Martin Luther was anything other than a cockeyed idiot, and we know he wasn't that, then we are not moving back to Rome. And we are not saying there are not converted Catholics.

There are converted Catholics, some of them maybe more converted than you, so don't get too puffed up. But that doesn't mean we can work together with a system that has false doctrines. Otherwise, what is my Bible?

What can I believe and not believe? What was the Reformation? Why did thousands of people get nailed on the stake and burned to death for the sake of the cause of Jesus Christ by Popish plans and all the rest?

No, sir, we are not moving on that issue. We love all individual brethren. I was just with a Roman Catholic priest in Ceylon. I feel he must know Christ. Eighty percent of the priests in Ceylon are against him.

He said two or three thousand people make some profession of faith. He is reading our books more than people I know ever reading our books. God is moving. Fine, I will pray for that. I will fan it. On the ship sometimes we get a whole load of priests and we preach the gospel to them.

I had the bishop of Ceylon and all of his friends, and then two days later we had the nuns. We gave them the word of God. We shared the new birth. And they brought evangelical books. But we don't mix and cooperate and mingle or compromise with error.

And this is where we need discernment. We need wisdom. This is an area where also people spread false stories about O .M. Simply because we are friendly sometimes to Roman Catholics. Don't hit them on the head with a mallet or tell them he is a pig.

We are compromisers with the faith. That hinders the cause more than helps it. It is extremists who push people into the other camp. Have you ever noticed that? People can see this extremist is loony, and so it causes them to react against that and go into the other camp.

So we must be loving at all times and gentle toward our individual Catholic friends. Despite our total disagreement with Roman error. And if you think that we are going to collaborate with Rome, I am talking now about the church in general, and not get swallowed up.

I mean what is the little Anglican church in Britain next to Rome? Oh dear me! It is a drop. Mr. Coggins, who some people call an evangelical. It is just a drop in the ocean. Rome will just suck up with all of her tentacles that little Anglican thing.

Unless there is very clear reformation first. When there is reformation within the Roman Catholic church, and there is a return to justification by faith alone, salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ alone, we will talk about a cooperative effort.

We would welcome more Luthers, Wingleys, Tyndales, and a few others who are murdered at the stake quicker than you could ever know. We know it is controversial, but at least you know where we stand. Let's move on to the next area before I get on a tangent.

The Lostness of Humanity and the Love of Christ

Number three. The next area. The lostness of men versus the love of Christ. Some people react to any discussion at all about hell. They say, we don't believe that hell should motivate us. We believe it should only be the love of Christ.

Well, wait a minute. We don't believe in playing one off against the other. Truly it is the love of Christ that constrains us. And in one sense, because God's love has grown so great, even if there was no hell, it seems to me, we would still preach the gospel if God told us to preach the gospel to every creature.

But the fact is there is a hell. And the fact is that it's difficult to have a mind and a heart and not to be some degree motivated by the thought that men are lost. Whatever hell means to you, I don't fully understand it.

I don't think man is meant to understand hell. I don't think our minds are capable of that to any great degree. We can have an idea. That's enough. That's enough to really cause us to do some heavy praying, some hard working.

And so, don't play one off against the other. We are motivated by the lostness of men. Jesus saw them as sheep without a shepherd. He was moved with compassion. And now the love of Christ does move us, but also the lostness of men moves us.

We're moved at times even by people's physical needs. Should we feel guilty about that? Is that carnal or secondary? Woe to people who become callous to people's physical needs. Number four. Closed lands versus open lands.

Closed Lands and Open Lands in World Evangelization

The big tendency today, as we are being bombarded by the church growth people and by other great men like McGovern, though he's adapted seemingly some of his teaching in the past few years, is that we must really go where people are responding.

This is the big move today. Of course, this is why many never leave America. People are responding here. There's so much to do. Every church needs five or six pastors, one or two music directors. I was in a church in California.

Even the man who ran the slide projector was a paid worker. He got paid. He logged in every hour. He ran the slide projector and he was throwing a little extra money, of course, no doubt, to buy his yacht or something else through showing the slide projector.

I wonder why he was so enthusiastic and wouldn't let me run my own slide projector. Professionalization is creeping into the church, yet it has crept in. And I call it one of the most destructive factors in the present evangelical mode.

If the affluency goes, a lot is going to cave in. A lot is going to cave in. I believe more of this work should be done by laymen. I believe there should be more laymen, I don't even like the term, should be preaching from our pulpits, should be in teaching ministries, and that there should not be such an over-dependence on all the full-time professional 10 ,000, 25 ,000, 50 ,000 a year paid staff.

That is my personal viewpoint. If you don't agree with it, I'll still love you. But we don't want you to think the only way you can serve Jesus Christ is become a so-called full-time worker. God may want some of you back in the office, back in the factory, back in who knows where, as a layman, involved in a church, taking your place in leadership.

And, of course, when it comes to these closed lands, they are so blantantly neglected, it's embarrassing almost to talk about it. Just look at the prayer cards that you now have. Unbelievable. Why aren't more people called to go to these countries?

Do you know one of the greatest problems when I preach in America? People get stirred enough to work for Christ in America, but not stirred enough to go out to the regions beyond and work for Christ. A lot of people want to work for Christ in our country.

Christian work is now popular, let's face it. Our seminaries are full, our Bible schools are full. It's now popular, but for 98 it's here. Because here you can get the best out of both worlds. Here you can have a nice home and a nice car and everything you want.

Insurance policies, the cradle to the grave, retirement fund, and still, quote, serve the Lord. But out there, probably, people will forget you even exist. And you'll have to come back after four years to remind your church that you're still alive, hoping that they'll still keep your $25 of support per month going for the next five years.

And now, good thinking people are rebelling against modern missions because they refuse to go around and visit 20 different churches as a beggar, hoping each church will cough off $25 a month for their support so that their picture can go on their bulletin board and they can be called their missionary for $25 a month.

They spend the same amount when they give a tip at one of their big feasts on Sunday afternoon when they invite all their friends over to the local restaurant. Now, I know that may have upset some of you.

It would certainly upset a few people who are not here. But I am burdened about this. And I believe we must speak out when God leads us to speak out. And we must believe that more of these people that feel they're going to be in the Lord's work will start thinking about Turkey and Afghanistan and North Africa and India.

At least they should go out there and see if there's a possibility that they could fit in. Instead of just automatically they feel they must be a pastor. Automatically they're going to join anyone of 1 to 200 major mission organizations who one sole goal is the re-evangelization of the United States.

And then people complain, why don't you ever come back to America? And I'm accused of being anti-American. Since we've gone 17 years ago, I moved away and have no intentions of coming back. And you know what I tell them?

When you send the next 100 ,000 to the regions beyond, I'm coming back. When I see us going extreme and sending too many to the places I've had the privilege of working, then I'll come back to help bring the balance back.

I believe in balance. We may think the number of missionaries from America is quite great. And to keep it in balance, it is a great miracle that so many have gone, relatively speaking. Compared to the total world situation, compared to what other countries are doing.

In Britain I can tell you it's worse. But remember that out of those 35 ,000 American missionaries, one third of them are on furlough. I'm not against furlough. But it would be good if somehow we could replace those who go on furlough.

One third are on furlough. Many, many, many are out there for their first term in which they're just learning. That makes up a very big segment of people on the mission field. And they never return. And yet while we're boasting, some people are boasting.

All those who belong to the Optimist Club, which I'm an unofficial member as well. The Mormons have 24 ,000 men alone on the field. The one little rattlesnake, cockeyed band of nitwits that come out of Salt Lake City.

Some people think that my words are hard on some of these groups. They obviously haven't read their Bibles and see what the Bible calls false prophets. And I'm just shaken by it. So we believe, yes, the work must continue in the open land.

We don't want to neglect America. We know America has more alcoholics than almost all the nations of Europe put together. And we must not neglect the alcoholics. So we have more people working among alcoholics in America than we have evangelizing the entire Muslim world and throwing 15 other countries on top, if you wish.

Just among alcoholics. The most evangelized group of people on earth. And I worked with alcoholics for two, three years. I don't despise that work. I don't feel worthy to tie the shoelaces of those who stick with the alcoholics for 20 years.

But the alcoholics I witnessed too in Chicago, they used to laugh at me. They took 20 Gospel tracts out of their pocket. They received from the last 20 Moody Bible Institute students who were assigned to Skid Row to tell people about Jesus, who had already heard about Jesus, 55 times.

I'm not against that. But where is the balance going to come? What about the hundreds and thousands of winos and drunks who walk the streets of Paris who've never had one soul talk to them about the saving faith of Jesus Christ?

How many Skid Row missions among alcoholics do you think there are in the great metropolis of Paris? I've never heard of one. Paris. We compete in our cities. One Skid Row mission down the street from the next.

You can go in some areas in Chicago, not just for Skid Row missions, but for churches in general, and you'll find eight churches on one street within a few blocks. Can you believe it? Each one of them claiming to be the new final apostolic, Holy Spirit, etc. etc. church.

All of them one against the other. Everyone, adamant. They'll all tell you, we preach only the Bible here. We don't believe in man-made arguments. We don't believe in the traditions of men. Only the Bible.

I went into one of those churches once. I almost passed out. All women. Plenty of them dressed in white robes. And this guy with his organ, I tell you, this guy could do with an organ what you couldn't do with fixed hypnotist.

And he had everybody moving and swaying. All the girls started to go out of their minds. He got up there, you know, and boy, everybody was wooing him and cooing him. Then after the meeting, he went into this little private office, and one by one the ladies went in and had their personal time and fellowship with him.

And then they went off praising the Lord. I couldn't believe that I was in a church. Yeah, there's a need here among the religious. That's for sure. And I praise God for dynamic ministries in this country.

And I praise God for any of you who after exposure to World Evangelism and getting the vision for World Evangelism, God lead you for a dynamic missionary work here. I'll be right behind you. We believe in the open country.

We believe in the closed country. Only 2 of the missionaries in the world are laboring among 1 7th of the world's population. And we've got to move on. The responsive and the non-responsive. This is mixed in.

I really should have brought out, of course, that many people don't even think about going to closed countries. By the fact that they're closed, we don't believe that. We want to keep the balance and go to both.

Many lands are wide open. The ship has been in some of those recently. Don't think the ship just goes to closed countries. That is a total misconception of the ship. We only go to a few closed countries.

We go everywhere. Open, closed, responsive, non-responsive. The world is a field. The world is a field. Non-responsive lands, of course, are harder. Dear David Morris, oh, it's wonderful to have brothers like that in the work.

He came up here and gave a list of the kind of people we need in the Muslim world. Well, I knew that wasn't for me. But I'm sure Dave would share with you and mix in what Dick Griffin said last night, that it's weak people who want to learn these things.

Yes, we've got high standards, but we don't expect them to take place overnight. And we don't just need some kind of spiritual concord type super jets that are going to reach into the non-responsive lands.

Our burden should be to do the will of God, with or without response. God has told us to go. We must go. I love to see fruit. I love to see people coming to Christ. And I praise God for people willing to work in those Muslim lands without much fruit.

It's got to be kept in balance. All these things have to be kept in balance. Six, teams versus the local church. We've already touched on this. I don't want to go over it again. Both are scriptural. Don't play one off against the other.

Teams and the Local Church

God will not be pushed into some kind of theological test tube. You try to push God into a corner, and he'll push you right off the map. God is working in different ways. It is true, the local church is God's cornerstone.

We see that in the Word of God. Every true missionary movement, one way or the other, should lead from the local church back to the local church. What when you're working in countries where there is no local church?

Well, those who go there, and this is basically true in O .M., few exceptions, they are sent out by your local churches. Boy, old Paul Troper's really got conservative over the years. I couldn't believe it.

He told you. How many prayer partners did he say for the summer crusade? Five. That doesn't even get you out of your own family. We'll have a discussion on that. Where did he go? That doesn't get you out of your own family.

Fifty. You aim for fifty. If you hit five, okay. You know what old Fred Jarvis... Have you ever heard Fred Jarvis speak? If you think I speak fast, he speaks twice as fast as I do. He's got six times as many ideas as I do.

And when I'm around him, I'm scared to death. Anyway, he's a great brother. But you know what he says is a great sin in the church? It's not failure, it's low aim. You write that down. That's not original.

It's not failure, it's low aim. You aim at five prayer partners, you probably get two. Aim at fifty. Your program, aim at two hundred. You know, there's a lot of people who love Jesus. I want some of you to write to Jimmy Carter and say, Dear Jimmy, you tell him about me.

I've been eating peanuts for years. Say, Dear Jimmy, will you be a prayer partner for me? And he won't probably see the letter. Who knows, there's some other praying men around that White House. There better be or we're going to be in for trouble.

There's lots of potential prayer partners all over. And you ought to write to him. I've been corresponding with, oh, what's his name, former Senator Harold Hughes. And he may be wandering over to the ship one of these days.

He's a very dear brother. You talk about honesty. Oh, I had a beautiful time with him and about ten others down in Washington. We're all sitting around the table. And everybody's sharing their spirits at work and what they're doing for God and this and that.

And he just blurts out and just shares what a hassle it's been since he became a Christian. He doesn't understand Christians. He doesn't understand the terminology. He just poured out his heart. His life was really going all right until he got saved.

And people, you know, were amazed. But God used the honesty of this man who has been through things that we'll never understand. Non-responsive and responsive teams in the local church both are necessary.

Let's find the balance. If so many people are emphasizing this, let's emphasize that. Seven, the balance between personal work and mass media. Some people look very much down on O .M. This is mass evangelism, superficial.

It's canned evangelism. Have you had that? Campus Crusade, of course, they're supposedly the leaders. All the rest of us, we're just sort of following the leaders of canned evangelism. They are attacked.

Old books are against them. But have you read the article recently in Eternity Magazine? One of the great opponents attacking canned evangelism decided to go around and make an objective study, an objective study of the kind of evangelism God was using.

And he went to Evangelism in Death in Latin America, and he fellowshiped with Campus Crusade, and he went to different places. He has now written a devastating article stating clearly whether we call it canned or not, God is mightily using these movements.

Isn't that too bad for all of our sophisticated people who get paid good money to write articles against people about things they don't even know much about? And you wonder why some of these magazine articles come out?

I'll tell you why. Because they pay a couple bucks a line. I can make a living just writing rubbish, very rare rubbish, and there's people all over America who would read it. Money is behind a lot of things, beloved.

And we need to learn that. And we need to learn not to believe everything we read. But get the balance, read other articles, see what other people are saying. I know there is such a thing as canned evangelism.

I actually have always attacked sort of canned evangelism. But that doesn't mean there's no room for methods. Maybe some are on extreme, but God in His mercy, God in His sovereignty, He can overrule that when He sees hungry hearts trusting Him.

He knows we are weak vessels of clay. He knows that the vast percentage of Christians don't go to six years of theological school to become sophisticated and get an answer to everything. The church is mainly consisted of ignorant men who have gone out filled with the Holy Ghost and shaken the world for Jesus Christ.

And we've gone off balance into intellectualism that's dry, crusty, and it kills in many cases. I'm not against intelligence when it's on fire. But when it gets proud and it becomes to judge others and it writes so many books against others and criticizes others, it grieves me because it puts aside the sovereignty of God.

I praise God even for groups I don't even agree with because God is bigger. God is working with us as human beings. Write that down and remember it. You are not an angel. God is working with us as humans, therefore He will not say to us, I will not work with you until you dehumanize.

God would never work with George Berwer. And this has so helped me because I was so idealistic. Everybody was bothering me, including my wife. And it's so helped me to realize that God is working with people where they are.

God is going to work with you this summer where you are. You don't have to be where I am, wherever in the world that is. God is going to work with you where you are. If you're all, you know, just a babe in Christ, just popping out of the shell, barely looking, frightened, God is going to work there.