The How of Missions — Paul Ravenhill

Christianity that we've got to understand is a hidden essence revealed only by the Spirit of God. We can't even understand human things, natural things. We can't even understand the world around us. It's very different to speak of a sunset and analyze the colors and the colors which are lost and the colors which are gained and the colors which are twisted as the sun falls lower and below the atmosphere of this earth.

We can talk about the reality of the reflected loose and maybe the refracted and the diffracted or any other thing, but when we see it, there's an impact of something beautiful, which is totally lost in a scientific analysis.

We can look at a painting done by one of the old masters and we can try and discover how he made his pigments and what ingredients went into those pigments, what kind of brush he used, what kind of hair, what kind of technique, how he moved his hand, but the important thing is the result.

The Hidden Essence of Christianity

And our problem in 20th century Christianity, and believe me, behind all the wonderful reports, somebody told me that 25 years ago, according to statistics, everybody in South America had been saved at least once.

Isn't that wonderful? But behind all the glowing statistics and behind all the, there's a word we use in Spanish, propaganda, behind, maybe you should use it more in English, behind all the propaganda, there is a sense of something being wronged.

And our problem in the Church and our problem in going to the mission field is that once we've got there, it's not that God is not able to do what is necessary, but that we are not able to do what is necessary.

We believe that God has the power, but he can't somehow transmit it through us, and there's a breakdown. They used to say that a chain breaks at its weakest link. God's power breaks when it comes to the servant, inevitably.

The devil can't hinder it, the circumstances around can't hinder it, God wills it, the problem is always me. And we live in a day in which the, as all through history, the enemy is building a kingdom.

And I've got an argument against people that speak about statistics and mission statistics, and I get literature even down there in South America from different mission groups, and they're talking about evangelizing the world by the year 2000, and some of them have got, you know, cute themes on this, two tribes per year multiplied by this, by that, ends up that by the year 2000 it's all finished.

There's a lot of talking, a lot of different circles, as though we were, okay, painting a room. And the more we paint, the less there is to paint, the more we, the closer we get to the end, the closer we are to our destination, but it's not that way, because we're not dealing with a static world.

We're not dealing with a static enemy. And in God, and maybe you've heard me say this before, in God everything that God gives has life. Everything that has life grows. We go from faith to faith, and we should.

We go from revelation to revelation, we go from light to light, we go from transformation to transformation, we go from victory to victory. Everything that God gives us, every gift, every word, every indication of His will for our lives, every aspect of ministry is something which should grow and increase.

Maybe not even limited by the end of our life, but all through eternity we'll be growing in that knowledge and in that awareness and in that participation of God. And just as God works that way to build His kingdom, planting a seed, watching it flourish, so the enemy works.

The difference is, in the kingdom of the enemy there is no life. So he works by a different process. He works by a building process. God's work is like a tree. It starts with a little seed and grows. The enemy's work is like a building.

He starts with a building block and he builds and he builds. He builds in the nations. I believe there are nations today which are far worse than they were a hundred years ago or a generation ago. There is an increase.

The enemy is built with every hurt and every sin and every wrong and every pain and every suffering and every injustice and every political problem and every family problem and every moral problem and every drink.

There's an old poem written by one of the most famous of English poets talking about salvation and the salvation of a man who is a total loss, a fighter, a poacher, a drunkard. And he speaks in one place or has a Quaker lady come and confront this man.

And as she confronts him as he's drinking, she says, Think, I forget exactly how the poem goes, but something to the effect that every dirty word you say is one more flint upon his way. That every drop of drink accursed makes Christ within you die of thirst.

And she goes to imply that everything you do reflects on Him. Pascal, the great thinker of centuries ago, said that every pain on earth has a corresponding but far greater measure of pain in Heaven. God feels it first.

The Creator feels it before the creature. Heaven is hurt before earth is hurt. And I think if there's one thing that's lacking in our 20th century generation, our 20th century society, and especially in our 20th century Christianity, it's passion.

It's intensity. It's awareness. Being aware of beyond the visible is the invisible. Beyond the seen is the unseen. Beyond earthly things is God. The things of God. Once again, the enemy's building. I remember years ago I cried why this came to me so clearly as we'd come over from Argentina and a totally different situation.

The same songs, the same prayer, the same people. We moved over the frontier into a different country and all of a sudden there's an awful awareness of a tremendous fortress built up once again with every sickness, sin, pain, song of families and generations through the years.

The enemy's saying, this land, we sing about America, this land is my land, this land is your land. The enemy was saying, this land is my land. He's still singing around the world, believe me. There are countries where the gospel has broken through.

There are countries where God has planted a seed which is now growing. There are other countries where the seed of God has never really taken hold in any great dimension. Those are the needy places, or as they used to say a generation or two ago, the dark places of the earth.

The How of God Moving Through His People

And so, once again I want to talk about the how of God moving. Jesus here is speaking of something which we usually don't think about. It starts with a declaration of reality, I am my father of one. The Jews, that religious nation representing all religiosity of all mankind, even in the 20th century, even in our midst, even in my heart, your heart, when he made that kind of a declaration, the religious world reacted immediately and said they took up stones to stone him.

And Jesus starts to talk about how this operates and what he meant. The Jews said we're not stoning you for good work, we're stoning you for bad work, we're stoning you for blasphemy because you being a man made yourself God for the religious man.

Let me say it in general, for the church, there is no connection between God and mankind. The Jews have lost the connection, the Jews have lost the essence, the church has lost it. There is no connection.

God is there, we, the Italians have a saying, if you throw enough spaghetti at the wall some of it's going to stick. And I think we minister on that same principle. We pray on that same principle. Lord in your name, non-stop, Jesus we come again today, two or three strands of prayer or spaghetti are going to stick to the wall.

Ah, isn't that wonderful? No, no, that's not the way it's supposed to work. That's not the way it's supposed to work. We, and believe me, I don't believe until we get heaven we're going to understand the power of an atmosphere and the power of a society in which we live.

We live in a world in which the enemy has ingrained this thinking. It's deeper than thinking, it's an inner attitude, it's a soul thing. That really it won't happen, that this book is fine, but the intervention of God on the level that the apostles saw where we could hope for it, but we certainly can't believe for it.

I said before prayer, for us another way to explain it apart from the spaghetti, we pray for things which are outside of our experience, outside of our understanding of God, outside of our grasp. And so we're praying for a healing and it's sitting over there in that cleanness box.

And we say, Lord, I want that healing for this brother. Lord, please, but we're too far away. I'm talking about a participation of God. Jesus answered, he said, is it not written in your law, I said, ye are God.

This is what I want to talk about. Ye are God. Don't stumble over the words, you know, some people have abused it. I'm not talking about that. But unless we are God, we are nothing. Unless the Spirit, we might as well forget it right now.

And to come into this experience is, cannot be done by theory. It cannot be done in any easy way. It's a life process. Once again, we so easily become authorities. I look around, I hear people talking about other people.

I was surprised the other day, a man I thought would know more, and he said, yes, he recommended this brother. And I thought, Lord, either he doesn't, he's false or he really believes it. I mean, there are only two possibilities.

And either way, it's bad. How can I follow somebody who does not show that which they represent? The guy that's going to teach me singing had better be able to sing. The guy that's going to teach me how to swim had better be able to swim.

Otherwise, I'm going to dive off that boat in the middle of the sea and I'm going to swim straight down, not straight out. And that the people, I don't know about all of them, after 30 years, I discovered that the things I really needed to know about ministry and the connection between this God, who has all power.

You remember, I was just thinking as we were singing a song in Spanish. We'd written about the word of the Lord to Moses. How many of you speak Spanish? I say it in Spanish. The song says, Dices tu al hombre derrotado, yo soy.

Dices tu al pueblo esclavizado, yo soy. Dices tu al gran desierto, yo soy. Lord, you say to the defeated man, I am. Lord, you say to the people in bondage, I am. Lord, you say to the great desert, I am, I am, I am.

On the basis of that revelation, set forth on the basis of that revelation, the people were Because he saw and he heard God saying, I am. Jesus said, he called them gods unto whom the word of God came.

Knowing God, Becoming Like Him, and Doing His Works

Is that we might know him, that we might be like him, and that we might do his works. Three things, that we might know him, that we might be like him, and that we might do his works. This is the how of his working.

And the three things are interconnected. They cannot operate independently. Because if we're lacking one, the other two will not hold together. He called them gods unto whom the word of God came. The emphasis is on the word of God coming.

Sent out the dove, thank you. When Noah sent out the dove from the ark, it went around, it came back. It didn't find any place where it could stay. When he sent it out again, it went out and it stayed.

It found an abiding place. Many times the word of God comes in a meeting, comes in our reading the Bible, comes in the sense of a promise being put into our hearts. And instead of finding a place where it can abide, it has to return to God.

He said to them to whom the word of God came, ye are gods. Now let me just illustrate a little bit in the life of Peter. Remember there, Matthew 16, Jesus is talking to the disciples. He says, who do people say that I am?

And some say, well, some have the opinion you're Jeremiah, you're Isaiah, you're one of the prophets. And then he looks and he says, but who do you say that I am? Once again, God is practical. He comes down to reality.

He doesn't really care what the others say. He knows what they say, but he wants to know, who do you say that I am? I think it's a question if our ears were open, we'd hear the Holy Spirit repeating to us.

Who do you say that I am? Who am I to you? Peter takes the initiative. He said, you are the Christ. Take that in its simplest translation. You are the minister, the one who ministers, the Christ who bears the anointing, the Christ who transmits the power.

You are the minister of the living God. A phrase which isn't used too many times in the Bible, the living God. And Jesus says in effect, in his reply to Peter, he says, Peter, you see me as the authority sent by the living God.

You see me as the son of the living God. As the son of the living God, I have the keys. As the son of the living God, I have authority. As the son of the living God, I have power in heaven and power on earth.

Peter, what you see in me is yours. I give you power. I give you authority to permit or to disallow on earth and in heaven. Peter, I will build upon this perception. You know, the Catholic Church has taken that and they've twisted it around, right?

Places like Mexico, other places. He builds upon Peter. But you know, even the early Catholics, Augustine, St. Thomas, they didn't believe that. They said it was upon the revelation that Jesus said he built.

It was upon the perception that Peter had of himself that he said he built. Peter, what you see in me, that's wonderful, but where does it leave us? You know, I look at myself, where does that leave me?

If I have what I see, then I don't have what I don't see. And what I do see that I have is what I've seen in him. So where am I? You follow me? Because that which I have works. Remember one time years ago when I was feeling real bad and I was in a meeting in Argentina and the people were really praising the Lord and I thought, Lord, someday, today I feel terrible, but someday in heaven I'm going to praise you.

And all of a sudden I just felt in my heart the Lord saying, praise me now. Praise me now. It won't be any different there. God won't have changed. Praise me now. I remember another time I was praying about something real, burdened, I've been praying, I don't know how long, praying and praying, all of a sudden it's just like the Lord spoke to me.

He didn't say your prayers are answered. He said, you're singing in heaven tonight. Oh. Oh. You know, we lose sight of who he is. Peter, what you see in me, I give to you. You believe Peter took it? Well, he did.

Because the next verse says, then Jesus started to talk about his death in Jerusalem. And Peter said, heaven forbid. That's one translation. I think this King James translation is different, but that's one translation.

Peter, I give you power to relief. I give you power to, Peter, what you see in me is yours. Now I'm going to die. No, Lord, I take the power you're not going to die. We've got a better idea here. No, heaven forbid.

Then Jesus started to have to teach him how this power works. Peter, you're looking at it as a man. It doesn't work in that ground, in that framework. Where does that leave me? Many times we pray, thy kingdom come.

We spell thy and y. Thy kingdom, you know, thy kingdom come. That's the way it comes out. Inside it's, and the louder voice which reaches heaven is, Lord, my kingdom come. Because there are things that I won't surrender.

There are things that I won't do. And there are things that I think they disallow. I close my eyes to them. Lord, thy kingdom come. But nothing beyond this. It's a total commitment. You know, we've probably heard about total commitment and depth of giving and consecration, but I think there are certain things we're going to be seeing all through life.

Now, when we get to heaven, we won't be surprised of the whole percentage of the certain truth that we didn't see on earth. When God says commitment, what does he understand? Down there on the mission field, when we talk about baptism, we talk about baptism in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit.

And I emphasize the fact that it's a separation. It's a separation to God in heaven and the laws of heaven, the principles of heaven, the eternal world. It's a separation to the Son and the life that the Son of God came to live upon this earth, walking through this earth without anything of this earth ever sticking to his hands, walking through this earth with an eternal light and an eternal purpose.

And it's a separation to the power and the cleansing of the Holy Spirit. I don't know. Ned Wilkerson told me a number of years ago, he said when he reached 50, he said all of a sudden the Bible just opened up, boom.

He said, I'd read it and it would just about knock him over. Something like that's happening to me. Of course, I'm only 30. Maybe I got there early, right? The Bible starts opening up and you think, Lord, where have I been in the last 30 years?

I've read it and read it and read it and all of a sudden I look at it and I say, my God, I never saw it, I never understood it. And a little bit, I'm starting to see what ministry is all about. That I cannot minister anything which I have not seen in him.

I cannot minister any word which has not come and taken full possession of myself. You remember John there at the end of the book of Revelation. He'd seen everything. He'd seen heaven, he'd seen judgment, he'd seen the nations, he'd seen demons, he'd seen beasts, he'd seen apostasy, he'd seen judgment, he'd seen everything.

When it's all finished, the angel comes, tells him to worship God, he starts to worship God. The Hispanic Bible says, I'm there. Then, entonces. Then I saw. Then I saw the heavens open. A three-fold revelation.

First, his name was Faithful and True. I skipped that one. I don't want to take time. But we need it. It's the first step. It always is. We think we know it. I don't know to what extent we really know it.

He is Faithful and True. His faithfulness and truth is everlasting around about us. That is the undergirding of everything. But then his name is the Word of God. When he gave us the revelation of himself as the Word of God, when he gave himself to us as the Word of God, he gives us the greatest thing he could ever give us.

He gives to us his own creative power. His name is the Word of God. He says, behind him came all the heavenly hosts. Behind him were all heaven's powers. The armies which were in heaven followed him. The armies which were in heaven followed him.

What a sight. What a majestic panorama that John saw. I saw heaven open. I saw his name. I saw him upon his horse. I saw him Faithful and True. I saw him as the Word of God. I saw the heavenly hosts. You know, if we've ever seen that, life can never be the same.

Church can never be the same. Prayer, praise, worship, Bible reading, service, our mission's commitment can never be the same. I saw him as the Word of the Living God. I saw the heavenly armies of glory marching behind that one.

But that was his revelation to John. He's saying to John, this is what I am. First, Faithful and True, this is what I am to you. The Word of the Living God, this is what I am through you. There is no limit.

You know, Jesus talks about a limitless gospel. If you believe, all things are possible. Well, then, if they're not, and if they're not happening, I'm not believing. I've got to come into this awareness of God.

This is what I'm trying to advocate tonight. Not a teaching, but a vision. A vision of God at the end. You know, someday when we see him at the end, when we see the heavens trembling in his presence, when we see the multitude, when we see the glory, when the impact of eternity breaks upon our soul, that there'll be an enlarging so, so, so instantaneous, so tremendous, it'll be like an explosion within us, and we say, God, the revelation is given.

Ministry as Participation in God

I remember years and years and years ago, I was translating for somebody in the north of Argentina, and this person started and the church was full, and about, oh, 350 to 400 people there. It was just a large church for Argentina at that time.

And this person couldn't quite find the way to get going, and finally did, and took off. And the meeting took off, and the whole thing took off, and finished, and the atmosphere was electric. And then the preacher turned to me and said, well, you've got the language, you finish it up.

And like, you know, somebody has somehow raised you up and made you sit on a comet. And then the other person said, I'm going to jump off, you drive this thing, you ride this thing. 400 people, 350, 400 people, an electric atmosphere, and he said, you take the meeting.

But after the meeting, is a new I'm living with luck in it. The Lord was saying, this is what I mean by ministry. Nothing else. There is a place for Bible teaching. There is a place for studies about different aspects.

There is a place for looking at the needs of the mission field, but beyond all else, to find my place, but as part of God. You don't take this in a mystical sense, I'm trying to make it a practical sense.

Jesus said, say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world. Thou blasphemest because I said I'm the Son of God. This is a process. Let's go back a little bit. There's a part that Jesus did.

More essential for us than it was for him. When he came into the world, he said, Father, I go to come to do your will. There was a presenting of himself. There must be a presenting of ourselves to God.

Then the following two steps are God. And God sends. And God sends. There is no minister, in the biblical sense of the word, without this. If there is no minister, there is no ministering without this.

Sanctification and the Missionary's Life

Crucial points of the whole thing. The Father hath sanctified. The word means made holy. Years ago in Paraguay, we had a lady who came to the church, an American, married with a high official in Paraguayan Land Management Bureau.

He was a wonderful fellow, except when he got drunk. There's no telling when he got drunk. When he got drunk, he'd start beating up on her, on the kids. Finally, the situation got impossible. He'd beaten up one of the little boy, I forget the age, six, seven maybe.

He'd beaten up really bad. The kid was there, his head all swollen. The lady left. She was living with some of the young people and some of the girls from our church. She had three children and right just before she came, she had a fourth.

The fourth child was mongoloid, had Down syndrome. She didn't understand anything about God. Yet somehow there was something within her that said, there's a place and there's a purpose for this child.

There was such an acceptance of that child, such a love, such a desire for that child. I remember talking to our young people, our girls and saying, listen, although she needs God, although she needs salvation, don't you try and minister to her if you have a bitterness and you have a problem which she's already passed.

I think many times as Christians, we've had an experience. We've had some kind of transaction with God, but we don't have a relationship. There's nothing harder than maintaining the freshness, than maintaining, as I said before, the passion, maintaining the impulse of life, the flow of freshness.

I remember God speaking about His people walking through the desert. He said, I led them and I fed them. I gave them to drink of waters from the great depths. Waters from the great depths. I thought of those waters different times.

Fresh, in the midst of the heat of the desert. They weren't stagnant. Pure, abundant, a richness, an intensity, a newness. God is like that. Everything that God does is like that. From His innermost being, they'll flow a river.

As it flows out of the ground, the same water is gathered up, even if we take them and we pick them up one second ago, it's the same, but it's totally different. I remember God speaking to His people there in Jeremiah.

He said, my people have committed two sins. They've left me, the fountain of living waters, and they've hewn out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which cannot hold waters. They've left me the fountain, that which is continually...

I don't know if I can transmit or if you can follow what I'm trying to say. God wants to be the being born God in our lives. God wants His life to be something which is continually burning. You follow me?

It's new. It didn't exist a moment ago. The inspiration, the authority, the quickening, the compassion, the love, the passion, the burden, it's constantly flowing forth. Everything which comes from God partakes of this nature, the nature of the fountain, the nature of the spring.

Listen to me when I read it. We are God's. Ye are God's. God's people. I'm saying, you are what I am. But there's a tremendous process, tremendous process, tremendous process in the being transformed to be like the pagans.

And he said only three places in the Scripture does he present the gospel to the pagans. Two are accounts of his sermons. One's in Athens when it's interrupted. The other sermon, I think it was in Ephesus, also interrupted.

But in Romans he develops the theme. And Paul says there, Romans 117, the just shall live by faith. And then he speaks of the position of those who don't know God. And he said, but the wrath of God is upon those who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

Hold the truth in unrighteousness. As I'm going to say, more easier to do that within the church than outside the church almost. To hold the truth in unrighteousness. To hold the truth without that truth having fetched me, without that truth having consumed me, without that truth having brought my life into harmony with itself.

I read the Word of God. And somehow my life is not fully in tune with it. And this tone which comes from God is in dissonance with the tone which is projected from my life. I'm holding the truth. I say I know it.

I say I believe it. I say I'm going to minister. I'm going to minister the truth. What? I heard the truth and I heard the message and I read the Bible and I studied it. I'm going to minister. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No. Hold that in unrighteousness. I'm under judgment. I'm under the wrath of God. I think when we get to heaven we're going to understand what purity is. We're going to understand what holiness is. We're going to understand what it is to be lost to this or be found in God.

Paul says that I might be found in Him. Not having my own righteousness and he could have added to that my own faith. Ever thought that maybe after years, you know, you're always seeking for faith or seeking for authority as though it were something that you could latch hold on something tangible and say, no, no, no, it's in God.

It's in God. It's when you stop seeing it that you get it. It's when it doesn't matter. Remember on the mission field talking to people about money. It's a problem sometimes, third world country. And I said, God will give you all the money you want, but when it doesn't matter.

Because as long as it matters, He's not going to give you something that's got power over you. Well, the same thing goes for us. Maybe money, maybe something else. He won't give us something which would destroy us.

God will destroy the work to save the minister. Because the minister is more important than the work. The reason He doesn't give us tremendous power and tremendous authority, because we've never seen God and that holiness has never consumed us so that we can go and minister.

That's why you have people like, all these people that make shipwreck. Somebody said that God will take a minister and He'll use him because of a need. But unless that minister finds in God the foundation to undergird that ministry, it will fall.

If he doesn't get it before he moves into the ministry and God, because of the need, gives him the grace, then he has to come back to God and find the grace to undergird that work which He's doing. That's the reason why so many names that you all know and people that you've all read about in church history, they've made shipwreck.

Because there was no, there was no weight, there was no ballast in the boat. The boat turned over. When the storms came, the first little breeze, the whole thing turned, turtled as they used to say in England.

Turned over, disappeared under the waves. Weapons of our warfare. Hmm? What are they? Mighty? To the pulling down of strongholds. Somebody continue. Continue the quote, please. Help me out. Bring every thought into the obedience of Christ.

Thank you. The next verse. Having a readiness to avenge all disobedience. Isn't that wonderful? The weapons of our war. Strongholds. Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and having a readiness to avenge all who are disobedient to God.

Obedience as the Condition for Missionary Power

All those sick people whose sickness is an affront to the grace and power and love of God. All those circumstances, all those situations, all those impossibilities, all those things which are the enemy's work and not God's work.

Having a readiness to avenge all which is not in harmony. Having a readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience is settled. Or when your obedience is fulfilled. So it comes back to me. He's literally saying, God will do anything if you're in the place where he can use you.

You go to a difficult situation, you go to Mexico City, you go to Reynosa, you go to Paraguay, you go, God will do it when you're obedient, when your life's brought into harmony. Yes, you say a little bit clearer.

God wants to convert the world. You know when he's going to convert it? When we're converted. When I'm converted. God wants to touch those people's hearts. God wants to bring those believers into maturity.

God wants to bring an awareness of his presence. When will he do it? When he's quickened my heart, when he's touched my heart, when he's circumcised my heart, when he's brought me into an awareness of his presence, then that same thing which is in me, I'll be able to transmit.

Ye are God. In the measure in which I've come into God, in that same measure, God will use. You know, I've heard people say, I remember somebody down there on a mission, Peter said, well God will either move wide or he'll move deep, but you can't have both things.

That's not what the Bible says. I never heard Paul saying that, I never heard Peter saying that. God wants to do a deep work. When God comes, he always comes absolutely as he is. He's never going to come and say, brother, I would like to give you a revelation, but I just gave the last revelation I had for the day to a China man over there who was desperate.

China, I could heal you, but I just got through healing a terrible case over there in England. No, he comes in the fullness. God is an inexhaustible fountain. The living God, the living God, Peter said.

You are the one who ministers all that the living God is. Jesus taught us to pray that way. Our Father, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God help us, as it is in heaven. You know, I've asked myself many times there in my church, how would this church be if instead of me, the apostle Paul was the pastor?

Maybe there'd be more people, maybe, probably not, but maybe, huh? Maybe there'd be more miracles, maybe there'd be more sense of God's presence. How would this church be if John Wesley came? How would this church be if, I don't know, somebody gave work or something?

And then I say, well, God's the same. What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? And God, well, he's always worked through us when he's done his work in us. And he's yearning, once again, every hurt, every sin finds first.

I think Pascal said it, you know, poetically, every owl first finds its target in God. Okay, God is seeing, all that I feel God is seeing. Now, I've got to get to him so that he can transmit it. The need of the mission field is not more missionary, but it is more, probably could do with less missionaries, if we only have more missionaries.

You know, John Wesley was one person, Martin Luther was one person, used to go out in a country in the north of Argentina, about a hundred miles out of the church we'd go to. And as I'd come back, there came a point where I'd turn the road and maybe, oh, I don't know, fifty miles down the road, I'd see the lights of a little bridge that was outside the city.

A light can shine an awful long way on a dark night. There was a book years ago whose title was Your God is Too Small. Your God. God is not too small, but my God. How big is my God? What can he do for me?

Who is he here? There is a surrender, an identification, and a participation of him. That's all there is to it. That's all there is to it. We can talk about methods, we can talk about strategy, we can talk about cross-cultural communications, all these things, you know, but I think almost, you know, maybe you have a course on cross-cultural communications or some of these things, that's all right.

But, by and large, in the twentieth century, we've educated ourselves into ignorance of reality. We've educated ourselves way out beyond anything that's practical, into realms of abstract metaphysics, or some such thing, where we don't even know where we're at.

And we're just trying to say, well, yeah, why? Well, I don't know, I feel this. Down in India, they're working on this level, and somebody's got this idea, and they're evangelizing with this framework over there in Asia.