(Om Orientation) Spiritual Reproduction - Part 2 — George Verwer

Faith That Prays Rather Than Presumes

Oh, how often we just presume on the Lord. Oh, how often we just say, well, God is going to do what he wants. And we don't like to get involved in this warfare. We'll believe, we'll have the kind of faith that sits back on a comfortable divine, and just says, well, if God wants to do it, he will do it, I have faith in him.

We have that sort of faith, which isn't faith at all, it's presumption. But we just seem to lack that faith that gets on its knees and just say, oh, God, whatever the cost, you're going to bring this to pass.

If you have any doubts in your mind as you think over these things, if you have any doubts whether God's going to give you a man or not, he probably won't. But if you'll just lay hold of this by faith and just say, oh, God, I don't understand it.

I don't understand how prayer works. I don't understand how prevailing works. But I'm going to believe. And oh, God, if you don't give a man within three or four months or whenever you want to set a time, however God leads you, sometimes he leads us differently about these things, about times.

But then you just say, oh, God, I'm going to go into prayer all night, whatever it takes. But I'm going to see it come to pass. Of course, we cannot substitute this thing of praying all night or fasting for obedience.

Obedience and Practical Gospel Contacts

You know, sometimes we like to do that. This is the key thing. Obedience. We're going to make some of these contacts. Oh, we've prayed. We've claimed it. We say we know this is God's will. And we go through the Bible and we start trying to obey everything that we find in the Word of God because we realize that this is necessary.

But oh, we must do something practical. It's time to get off the knees. Jesus Christ spent the night in prayer, but then he got busy the next morning. And so how are we going to get busy? Well, we must be alert for contacts.

Be alert for contacts. All the time. Even after you find your faithful man, you should still be alert. After we find our faithful man, that's no time to rest and say, oh, praise the Lord. We got the blessing.

That's the time to buckle in and look for more hearts and see more souls come to him. So we look for contacts everywhere we go. At school, we look for contacts. At work, we look for contacts. In house-to-house distribution, we look for contacts because so often this is an ideal place to find your contacts.

Here you are selling a book, Peace with God. Here's a man who wants peace with God. An ideal opportunity to present to him the Lord Jesus Christ. On a train or on a bus, what's best in making these contacts is to pray for wisdom and how to recognize someone who's receptive.

You know, so often we can get decoyed. You know how the hunters put out decoys? We can get decoyed. We can see someone that looks receptive and spend a lot of time on him and then find out that he wasn't interested at all.

In all, we must be alert. We must seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit in this. And then another thing we ought to do is talk with other people who are interested in winning souls to Jesus Christ. Learn from them.

Maybe they haven't even done as well as you in this, and yet everyone can teach everyone else something. Everyone has an experience with what no one else has. And so you ought to be asking your friends, your classmates, how have you gone about this?

What have you done? What are some ways that you've found effective in winning souls to Jesus Christ? Inquire from each other. Don't be so proud that you cannot humble yourself even from the least of the brethren and ask them some hints in practical ways.

Learning Through Evangelistic Partnership

Another thing is go with someone who's doing so well. Go with them. Just say, you know, I want to go with you the next time you go out in the street and talk to people about Christ. I want to go with you the next time you go over to the university and talk to people about Christ.

And just learn. Just see the way he does it. You might be able to give him some ideas on how to sharpen his own testimony. And if nothing else, you'll certainly learn. Another thing that we should keep in mind is let's look at the disciples that Christ chose.

What are some things that all of them had in common? One thing, they were all young. They were all young men. Oh, maybe they were 20, maybe they were 30. But you don't find any of them that were, let's say, 40 or 50 or 60 years old.

They were young. I suppose that's the very most. Maybe some of them might have been around 40. I don't know the age, but I know that it seems as though most of them outlived the Lord Jesus Christ many, many years.

And so it seems as though they must have been about the same age of Christ. Somewhere probably in their 30s or early 40s or maybe even younger than that. Young people have a whole life to give. And as we go out looking for people, let's not try to find the old women 80 years old to make them our faithful hearts.

Now, these people need the gospel, and we should not neglect the old people. There's a wonderful ministry. And yet, if you feel led to do something like that, why not go and find some young person, lead him to Christ, and take him along with you to reach the older ones as well?

Because in the work of Jesus Christ, we do not find sentimental feelings that often we find in Christian circles today, but rather we see a wisdom of God that really, in the final manifestation of itself, reached everyone.

Christ's main work was with young people, with those men that were in their 20s and 30s. This was his main work. And yet, those men went out and reached the others. But let us be careful that we don't lose this strategy.

Receptive and Reproducible Disciples

Another important thing to remember is that the ones that Christ discipled were intelligent men. Now, I realize that the Bible says that some of them were not educated, but everyone was intelligent. They all had an alert mind, things that could grasp, minds that could grasp things of importance, and especially spiritual things.

Another thing about these disciples was they were receptive for more, receptive for more. It's impossible to make an unsaved person your faithful man as we speak about having faithful men. Only saved people can fit into that category.

Turning from Unresponsive Relatives to Wider Gospel Work

So that God turned from the Jews to provoke the Gentiles to provoke the Jews to jealousy. I think so often many of us try to witness to our parents and to our loved ones, as we call it. And yet, perhaps one of the greatest witnesses to these people would be to turn from them, after we've presented the gospel of Jesus Christ in love to them, to turn from them to others and to feed others with the gospel and let them see how others are receiving the gospel of Christ as well.

So often we can just get bound, witnessing to our unsaved relatives and our unsaved loved ones and find that they don't really have any desire. And sometimes we can even deceive ourselves in saying that these people who don't even have an interest are going to become faithful men.

One point to keep in mind is that Christ gave every person as much of himself as they wanted. Christ never withheld himself, would never say, well, I'm too busy, or, well, you're too old, or, well, you're not intelligent enough.

He always gave as much as they wanted. And yet, you will find that most people just don't want very much. The thing that we find in the Muslim world is that many people are here to come and to spend much time with us, to learn English or to learn some other language or to learn about other things.

Some policeman comes with the idea of learning what this little group is all about. We must watch that we don't get in such traps and waste our time on things that are not really very important. After this one that we've been dealing with accepts the Lord and we begin to disciple him.

Beginning the Work of Discipleship

Here we have a man who's come to Christ and we're ready to begin the work of discipling. What are we going to do with him? How are we going to disciple him? What's going to be the method once he comes to this position?

...Christian strategy and born to reproduce. There are many things that I'm not mentioning on this tape because I take for granted that each one of you are reading those booklets. And so this is sort of a supplementary tape.

One thing, as in Acts 8, verse 31, together with your faithful man. He's not going to be able to go through the Word of God very much himself and understand much at first, probably. But you and he can go together and you can train him in how to get the Word of God out for himself.

Point number two is, as Acts teaches us, you can go witnessing together with him. Point number three, as the passion of Jesus shows us, that prayer before he was nailed to the cross, that evening of prayer before he was nailed to the cross, he took his disciples with him.

Prayer together. Prayer in reality. Chapters of Acts teach us, particularly the second chapter, and the 44th through 47th verses teach us, worship the Lord together with your individual. Take him to the church that you're going to and ingrain in him a desire to worship the living God.

If you can get your faithful man really lost in worshiping God, this is one of the greatest assurances you can have in your heart that that man is going to go on for the Lord Jesus Christ. Because when a man passes from this stage of unbelief to belief, that's a great change.

And when he passes from this stage of just feeding on the milk of the Word to the meat of the Word, this is a great change. And when he passes from this stage of having some superficial, zealous feelings on the surface to a man who has a heart worshiping the living God, this is a great change.

Becoming Like the People We Serve

What does it mean to do this together? I mentioned getting the Word together, witness together, pray together, worship together. What does this word together mean? You might like to write down the statement, particularly those of you who are going to be going to foreign fields.

And, of course, all of you will probably be going down to Mexico or over to Europe. And here is the statement. What does this mean? Well, let us just see what this means. How are you going to be like him?

How are you, the soul winner, going to be like your faithful man? In language. Those of us who are going to work in a different language area, learn the language of the people. In clothes, dress like the people.

Lead to the people. Don't live way above them. The people. One thing that is very interesting is, especially for you Americans, is in many countries, especially in the Middle East, the men, when they meet each other, they don't just shake hands, but they put their arms around each other and love each other.

And the women will do that to each other as well. Now, for some of us who are from the North, in America, this may be very difficult. It may mean breaking to our pride. It may mean breaking to our form, breaking with our culture, and jumping into his culture, to be like him in every way that we can.

Of course, there are some things that we must remember about this statement. This is just a general statement. It doesn't apply to some specifics. For example, your personality will be different than his.

God doesn't want you to make his personality like yours. And then the leading of God's will in certain areas, just because you're a plumber on the South Side of Chicago doesn't mean he should be a plumber on the South Side of Chicago.

There is great liberty in this matter. How should he become like you? You become like him in language, clothes, house, food, and other customs. How should he be like you? In the word, he should become like you.

In witness, he should be like you. In prayer, he should be like you. In worship, he should be like you. Remember, Paul said, follow me. He didn't say follow Christ. He did say follow Christ sometimes.

Paul’s Example and the Shape of a Disciple

But sometimes he said, follow me. That means that our lives are as pliable as the apostle Paul's life. So you know what this means? It just means that we have to listen to all these orientation tapes, all these books that we've been reading, and especially the word of God itself, and let our lives become good.

Case Studies in Spiritual Reproduction

I'd like to run through with you fairly quickly some personal examples that we've had in the land of Turkey of how God has taken someone who wasn't a contact, made him a contact, got him saved, and then began training him in Jesus Christ.

I think of one contact who came to a girl by the name of Christa. She'd only been saved about two years, or maybe even less than that. A girl who fled from East Germany, read The Peace With God in Madrid, and was saved.

How did she make her contact? She was in Ankara. She was at a school learning Turkish. She invited two girls to come over to our place to have lunch. Her professor came along to do some translation work.

He came. He showed a real interest in the Bible, because after we eat, we always read from the Bible. He showed a real interest, so he began coming twice a week to do translation work, and then he accepted the Lord.

And then he began coming with us to worship the Lord and to praise the Lord together. I think of another man when he was in America, this second man. He was contacted through some Christians there. They got to know him.

So they told me about him, and I went over to visit him in Ankara. We had him over for supper. We read the Bible, as we always do. He showed an interest. We asked him to translate something for us. He translated it.

A little booklet, My Heart Christ's Home, put out by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. And as he was translating it, he asked Jesus Christ to come into his heart. Then we began working together, doing translation work together, worshiping the Lord together.

And he is growing in Jesus Christ. I think of another fellow that I met in school. We had one class in the school. After class, we just happened to bump into each other and begin talking. Sometimes I would write some little article about the cross of Christ or something.

I'd give it to him to check it over. And through this, he has shown a tremendous interest in Jesus Christ. And even though he hasn't yet accepted it, as far as I know, at least outwardly, he does have a great desire to learn these things.

I think of another friend who was introduced to me by a friend of mine. He was an electrician. So I invited him to come over to our house to fix our electric light that wasn't working. He came over. He had a meal with us.

We spoke with him out of the Word of God. He accepted the Lord. And then, the very next day, he was out selling house to house with one of our workers. This is the pattern. We spend time in prayer. We rebel against these thoughts.

Overcoming Resistance to Specific Prayer

And then we confess it to God. We say, Oh God, I don't understand how all this works. I feel rebellion in my heart. So often, when we hear something new, we rebel against it. But you pray about it. You go through the Word of God.

Read Born to Reproduce. Read Christian Strategy. Let God convince you about this. And then once you get convinced, just say, Lord, I will not be satisfied until I see this happen. You know, so often we just fear to pray specifically.

You know why? Because the devil whispers in our ear, what if it doesn't happen? If you pray specifically, what if it doesn't happen? And this is the thing. We must realize that it's not going to not happen, but rather, it's going to happen.

And so, we must learn to not rebel against this thing of praying specifically. Okay, you pray specifically. You believe that God is going to give you a faithful man. Then what do you do? You get on the alert.

Training Converts Through Scripture, Witness, Prayer, and Worship

You try to make your contacts. You find people. You tactfully, as you learn from others, and as you learn from the Word of God, as you learn from the Holy Spirit, you present the message to him. And then, once he does accept the Lord, you begin training him, giving him the milk of the Word, then the meat of the Word.

At the same time, you take him with you, talking to others. And you pray with him, and let him see reality in specific answers to prayer. This thing of seeing specific prayers answered has been one of the most revolutionizing forces in hundreds of young people's lives.

And then take him worshiping the Lord. Get him deep in the love of Jesus Christ. Oh, so often we find people who are deep in evangelistic work. They're deep in literature work, but they're not deep in the love of Jesus.

Closing Prayer for God’s Will

But you get a man worshiping and praising and adoring and admiring the living God, and he's going to be a deep... Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that each one of us who hears this tape may recognize the will of God for us by prayer and by faith and by belief that your will is going to...

Pray, oh Father, for everyone who hears this tape that they might come to grips with this thing of claiming for the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, with the motive of love, and with the motive of love alone, and train him and present him to you.

Seek such to worship yourself. In the name of Jesus Christ, our most triumphant Lord.