The Challenge of Logos's Final Says — George Verwer

We really want to honor God. That's our great burden. We'll all be sharing a little about the ship and some of the things that have happened. Above all else, we just want to honor God. A lot of people have been phoning me and extending their sympathy, their encouragement.

Seeing Beyond Our Own Suffering

But when we think, especially because they feel, of course, we've gone through a great trial, and we have, but you know, when we think of some of the other suffering in the world tonight, it just makes us look very, very small.

And I've always had this commitment, though I'm somewhat of an emotional character, that my final vote has to be with my mind. And my mind tells me that God wants to use this to just alert us to all the crises that are going on in the world and just enable us to see beyond our own struggles, our own family situations, and face up to what's happening among those Afghan refugees, four million of them, face up what's happening in Iran, in Iraq.

If that war was taking place here in Europe, can you imagine? It would be equal to the Second World War, almost. But because it's out there, we sort of leave it out there, though there have been 300 ,000 slaughtered.

And even at this moment, Iran is building up for what may be one of the greatest military invasions in history, with a quarter of a million forces. A quarter of a million, many of them teenagers, who are hallucinated with the thought of martyrdom.

And we know all over the world there are just awesome things taking place. We got through our crisis without hardly a finger scratched. Unlike the exaggerated articles in some of the newspapers, no one was plucked from the ship.

They all very calmly got into the lifeboats and went off and were picked up by the Chilean Navy, who was already standing by. And all of them are safe. Some are in Chile, some are in Argentina. Some of our leaders, especially Dale Roton, who coordinates the ship ministry, are down there.

And we are just rejoicing that God gave us 17 and a half years of ministry with this ship, 17 sailing years. It's just about this time, 17 years ago, she sailed from Rotterdam to London. And those of you who get the international ship letter from OM here in the UK will be reminded of that.

As I was traveling from Rotterdam to London, I typed up one of the early prayer letters. And so I typed up a prayer letter this last week, which will go out to our praying people and friends around the world, including a number of you.

So let's just pray together before we launch into some other thoughts and burdens. Our God, we believe that your ways are past finding out. We pray often for people, we see one healed, we see another one die.

We pray often for ministries, we see one go ahead with great success, we see another one disappear. We have prayed for this ship launched out of Europe way back in 1970, 71. And we have seen that ship ministry in over 400 ports, over 100 nations, touching 50, 70 million people.

We've lost track, bringing tens of thousands to some kind of commitment. And we just give you thanks for all that you have done. And we would like this service together even be a time of thanksgiving and a time of praise for what you have done for that ship, which was once just right here down the coast in Shoreham, and which now is there two-thirds submerged in the seas of that channel, Beagle Channel in the southernmost tip of South America.

Father, we give you the praise and the glory, we honor you, we worship you, and we trust you, Lord, to use this event to speak to people. We know a majority of people who have gone up the gangway of the ship, especially in Britain.

That was it. They never wrote, they never took an interest, it was just an event. We pray that somehow as the news has come over television and radio and newspapers, and as we consider perhaps replacing this ship, that many more would get involved in praying and giving and going.

We look to you, Lord, to bless us tonight as we minister together, as we worship together. In Jesus' name, Amen. We've been on the phone with a very, very godly woman named Marjorie Foyle, asking her for some wisdom and counseling ideas as our pastors and counselors are there in South America to counsel people who have been through quite a traumatic experience.

And some of them are now feeling the aftermath of that experience. They're not sleeping, they're getting reruns of the collision of the ship. This is the woman that God has been using to help many of the Lord's wounded soldiers.

And there are many wounded soldiers. We're not going to go forward to battle and not have any wounded soldiers. And so here's a book you may want to give to someone you know who's been wounded in the battle of spiritual life or of missionary work.

It's called Honorably Wounded, Stress Among Christian Workers. It's a very real factor. If I hadn't learned years ago how to deal with stress, and I'm still learning, I wouldn't be here. I definitely would not be here.

And among Christian leaders, the stress factor has taken more men and more women than any other factor I can think of, including impurity, including car collisions or whatever else. So I'm excited about this book.

It's a serious book, but it's one that you may want to take a look at. There are also just a few leaflets about Lagos. This is the new program for 1988. As you look at this and what Lagos was planning to do, you will realize it's not something we would print now, but it was already printed.

And it's the one major piece of literature. And it will be, I think, of interest, even though anything in here in connection with Lagos will have to be changed. We're hoping some of these things will be done by our Lagos Latin American shore teams.

One of the main goals for 88 was the entire rebuilding of Lagos. We were going to put 125 ,000 pounds sterling into this ship. We only paid 70 ,000 for it. To make it more useful, because from the day we got it, it was always too small.

We could never fit the people in. That's one of the reasons we got in Toulouse. Well, the Lord has saved us. All that work, all that effort. And there are many people feel, one man called me today from Canada about it, that really what God wants, it may not be immediately, but what God may want is a larger ship.

So that's something you will find interesting. I don't have enough for everyone. And if they run out, you can write and we'll send you one. Let me just take a little more time now to share what happened to the MV Lagos.

How the MV Lagos Was Lost

This is my first public meeting since this catastrophe. We're talking about a 3 ,000 ton ocean-going ship. And I'm sure some of you don't know much about it, and that's perfectly understandable. You probably saw something about Argentinian pilots.

Almost every major newspaper in the country has covered this story. All the major news media has covered this story. They're still covering it even this morning. When they found out one little factor about the pilot, which was significant, somehow they grabbed on to that.

The pilot, or pilots, we're still trying to find out whether there's one or two. I thought there was only one. Never heard of two pilots, but there may have been two. Requested permission to leave the ship early, supposedly because it was getting windy and they were concerned about getting home.

And our captain did give them, on request, official permission to leave early. They charted out a route, which supposedly was one of the more difficult routes. They did not route us, you know, into a rock, but supposedly they gave a route that was a little more difficult.

We took this route, and I guess with the high winds, this, of course, is being investigated by both the Chilean and Argentinian government because we are on a rock in disputed water. They don't even know who the rock belongs to.

The rock is being claimed by both countries. Now they will both probably claim it is not their rock. But it was just before midnight on the 5th, I hope I got that date right, that the ship seemingly just slid onto a rock.

It wasn't a huge collision all of a sudden. It just got on this rock. There was a scraping. There wasn't a large, you know, a large, tremendous shaking of the ship, but a tremendous scraping. Captain ordered people into preparatory stage, danger stage, whatever you would call it, not to abandon ship, but to be ready, with life jackets in the dining room.

And they spent several hours praying, singing, as crew members worked on trying to free the ship from the rock. But with the way the water was, things actually got worse. And soon the water was coming into the ship, and in the early hours of the morning, the shipper, of course, went into a list.

In the early hours of the morning, it was a 15 or 20 degree list when they abandoned ship. This is down in the very, very southernmost part of South America, south of Tierra del Fuego, what's called Fireland.

It is one of the most dangerous shipping areas in the world, but much more so in the winter. It is summer there right now. And it was in this channel. Can someone remember the name of the channel? I've had it on my mind.

Beagle Channel. They were getting toward the end of the channel that this event took place. I heard the news. This actually happened when I was in an airplane between New York and London. I heard the news when I arrived.

And there was, of course, with it the immediate news that no one was injured. So though I broke down and started weeping, I think I was weeping for joy more than for sorrow. I'm the kind of character that weeps more easily in very joyous events.

If I watch a film and everything's going wrong, and then suddenly a totally unpredictable happy ending, like Billy Graham's film Time to Run, that's what causes my tears to really flow. You see, because I'm one of the characters that expected far worse than this over these 17 years.

Someone wrote me and said, Oh, I guess you never thought of this. Poor soul. He must have a very poor imagination. I've lived on this ship, and I know something about dangers at sea. And of course, many, many times I've dreamed of terrible things happening.

People say, Well, where's your faith in God? Well, my faith in God is built on this book. Maybe your faith in God is built on some fantasy that somebody's throwing you from some other kind of book. Because there's no place in this book that tells us, as God's people, we are not going to suffer.

There's no place that tells us it's all going to be well. In fact, the Word of God teaches quite the opposite. And if you just read the Scriptures, in both the Old and the New Testament, you will see that God allows His people to be tried to the very bone.

Why do we have such a large book in the Old Testament called Job? What a waste of paper. How downright depressing. The average evangelical fish has never even read it. We're very caught up with the Psalms.

Hallelujah, I'm caught up in the Psalms. But where do we get the basis that the Psalms are the only inspired part of the Old Testament? Maybe you want to write a chorus on Job and bring the church back into a little bit of biblical balance.

And the suffering that I have seen just in my lifetime would make it folly for me to just somehow claim that everything we do in OM will never, you know, never run into any difficulty. In fact, we had an automobile accident years ago that took four people.

We had one in the very beginning of our work 20 years ago that took two of my closest friends. Both directors of the work in the UK were killed simultaneously in Poland. And we've had many, many other tragedies because we've been involved with over 40 ,000 people on OM for 30 years.

And the law of averages, a term I do not like, and I believe through prayer we can shift, hallelujah, the law of averages, we are going to face suffering. Of course we pray against these things. Of course we ask for extra-angelic assignment to watch over the ship.

And we believe that God understands our burdens in our prayers and in fact has given us far more years with this ministry than we ever expected. In fact, there was only one man on the ship who began in the ship ministry 17 years ago.

The ministry goes back six years before that because there were six years of prayer and planning and praying before the actual first ship came into being. We just celebrated the 10th anniversary of the doulos.

I could hardly believe it when they sent me this news because it just doesn't seem that long ago that God gave us our second ship, a ship of 6 ,000 tons with over 300 people, and I really would appreciate your prayers for doulos right now.

Can you imagine? This news hit them out there along the Indian coast, the captain, the officers, because sometimes it's helpful for the young people if they don't believe this can ever happen to them.

You know what I mean? When they're young in the Lord, maybe God lets them be a little bit naive, otherwise they wouldn't even join the project. But I can tell you when that news comes to the doulos that Lagos is sunk, and doulos is much older than Lagos.

The newer ship has gone down. Built in 1949, doulos was built in 1914. Of course, the age of the ship, as far as we can ascertain, had nothing to do with this particular accident. And in fact, with doulos, almost nothing is left of the original ship.

Almost nothing is left of the original ship. You know, it's like a bionic person. And, you know, as if we took Charles, and over the years we just put all kinds of new parts, and so Charles is here, but nothing left of the original Charles.

That doesn't happen with people. Spiritually, of course, something happens along that line. It was in the morning that they abandoned ship. It went very, very well. There was no panic. They had practiced this many times.

It was dangerous because a 20-degree lift, often you cannot launch the lifeboats. But lifeboats went down on both sides. People got in them and rowed away like that to these nearby Chilean vessels where they were taken on board and brought to shore.

When we first heard it, we thought the ship was just, within 24 hours, going to be sunk completely beneath the water. But she landed on a big rock shelf. And that's where she is right now, about two-thirds submerged.

In fact, two of our men spent the night on the ship two nights ago, including this man, Dave Thomas, the one who's the chief engineer who's been in this project and on this ship from the very beginning.

Pray for him especially and his wife and children. And the captain. Of course, the captain feels a great degree of responsibility. And it's probably the most awesome thing that can happen to a captain.

But, you know, he's a man who knows and loves the Lord Jesus. When I spoke to him on the phone, it did seem to me that he was appropriating the grace for surely one of the most difficult experiences in life.

And pray for others as we, our pastoral staff and our leaders, will be interviewing everybody to see whether they want to stay down there for a while and work on the program on shore or whether they want to be relocated on the other ship or in one of our home offices or go home for a while.

We've already begun to see some money come in to help in what we call the Lagos aid to try to work out the many, many, many details of this particular crisis. I want to thank you for praying. I want to thank you as a church for praying because some of you have been involved in this ministry from the very early days.

You know, if something like this had happened in that first or second year when we did not have the credibility, we did not have the kind of organizational structure and partnerships and everything that we have today, a movement now almost 30 years old, it would have been just almost overwhelming beyond perhaps what we could have handled.

And I thought about it many times as my wife and I lived on that ship during those early years when I was both director of the Lagos as well as director of OM. And God, in His mercy, took us around Africa and out to India, back again to, you may have read in the papers, over 400 ports in these 17 years to over 104 nations of the world.

It's just incredible. It's an incredible story. A book actually is being written about it right now by Elaine Roton, the wife of the ship ministry coordinator. As we move toward the future, one of our great burdens is for the Dulas ministry out in Asia.

Another one of our greatest burdens is that as a lot of attention now is being focused on Lagos, which is normal, that this will not detract from any other aspect of God's work. For example, we would never want someone to send to the Lagos aid fund money that was to go to their regular missionary support.

This would be unacceptable to us. We would not want our own work in the Muslim world, 250 people. The subcontinent, 450 people. With a ship, 700 people full time in the subcontinent right now. Somehow as Lagos gets the focus of attention, we would not want these other aspects of the work to be neglected.

It's one of a number of reasons that I'm not in Chile or Argentina right now. A number of our other directors are. I have to leave in 10 days for Hong Kong, for Dulas, for Australia and Pakistan. And since I've been away so much from my wife, who's not well, and my family, I felt, especially since no one had been killed or hurt, that I should let other people fly there and handle that situation.

And that's one of the reasons I can be with you as well. I'd like now to have an open time of prayer in which several of you, perhaps some of you who have been linked with this ministry, could just lead in a brief prayer.

Now someone may have a really long prayer, just sense the Holy Spirit's given you a really long prayer. I don't want to inhibit anybody, but if you could just step out in the parking lot and pray that prayer, you're great.

Or you could go in a vestry. But as we just have this little short time of open prayer, just pray briefly. So a number of people, men or women, can pray. For the ship, for the staff, and let us make this a little service of thanksgiving.

I've heard that in Northern Ireland, a number of our crew are from Northern Ireland, they've organized tonight in one church a service of thanksgiving. The news of this event has gone around the world more than, you know, anything in the entire history of OM.

In fact, any 20 things we could put together. You know, we didn't organize this. As you know, OM is not a great publicity-seeking movement. We're usually low-profile people, and the ships, perhaps, have always been somewhat different when they actually come into a port.

But let's pray that God will use this news to stir His people to prayer, and to greater vision, and whatever other way He wants to. I would appreciate prayer for the many meetings I have in Australia.

I haven't been there much, only five days, six days. It was quite a big response. We're getting quite a few key staff from Australia. We will be going there for almost four weeks of meetings. The news is already there, of course, in the press.

Pray that somehow the Lord uses that. Australia has a lot of potential for sending out missionaries, but there's only a small increase, number of missionaries coming out from that part of the world. And then I'll be on Dulas, in a nation that has gone through suffering that makes our little crisis look very small indeed.

The awesomeness of the Sri Lankan almost civil war, the Indian so-called peacekeeping force, which was like almost an invasion. So many people dead, maimed, blown apart in Sri Lanka. That's where Dulas is going.

And I just read on the way down here, one of the reasons I can take so many meetings each year is I can work in my car as good as I can work in my office. I even now have a phone in my car. And that's been a great answer to prayer.

But as I was coming here, I read about Sri Lanka. They're giving us the Queen Elizabeth birth, writing Colombo, all permissions, book distribution, program, the works. And I'm looking forward to being on Dulas.

I've been there many times on Lagos. But as this news goes around the world, you know, Satan can try to use it. Let's really pray and cover that with our prayer. So let's just have a time of prayer, one after another, leading in prayer, intelligent prayer.

God, guide us now as we pray together. In a time of intercession and thanksgiving, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanksgiving for Deliverance and Witness

I just want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts that when people see their TV screens, and normally with any disaster, there's loss of life or some injury associated with it, that this time it was different.

Father, we thank you for that BBC summary headline, shipwreck, all safe. And we just pray that that very fact might burn itself into the experience of those who don't even think about you. Lord, cause them to ask themselves, why should it be different?

And Lord, may you use that to stir them up to their responsibility as far as you're concerned, because we ask it in your name. Amen.

Yes. Lord, we rejoice that in your service, Lord, a disaster becomes a triumph. And we thank you, Lord, that it was truly a triumph, that all was saved. And we pray, Lord, that you will continue, that this work shall go on.

Go on to your praise and glory, Lord, that truly it shall resound throughout the world, that our God moves, and he moves in a triumphant way. We thank you, Lord, in your blessed name. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord.

Lord, we pray for the pilot of the plane, and we ask that you will continue to give him the grace to face up to the consequences. Lord, may you be with him, give him your peace, and your justice in his case.

Amen.

Father, we lift these matters to thee. It's good to have a sense of rejoicing, a sense, Lord, of your presence, your handling beyond our conception. And we just cry to thee, our God, that everything, all works out in glory for him.

We commend to thee the Jew, Lord. We commend to thee our brother and his wife, who has a great need at this time. And we would ask you will further the gospel, Lord, in your strange way. And we magnify thee again for the safe rescue of these men and women.

We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. Oh, God, yes. Hallelujah. Lord, we thank you, too, for the ministry that that ship has been throughout the world, and the many thousands of people who have come to know you because of it.

That's right. We thank you, too, for being such a marvelous work, distributing your literature amongst the people, Lord, that they may come into that knowledge. Lord, it is blessed that you have used it for your glory.

Yes, Lord.

Right. Father, we thank you that when the folk had to abandon Logos, it's been very evident that you had not abandoned them, that you were with them, you protected them. And, Father, we pray for those on the Dulos, that, Lord, they will really understand this truth, that you are not a God who abandons, that even when we go through times of trial and testing, you promise to be with us.

You promise to give us the strength to take us through. And as you have been and as you are now, being a source of strength and encouragement to those at this time who are still going through various traumas in the aftermath, that, Lord, indeed, that the folk on Dulos, Lord, that this, instead of shaking their faith, will indeed strengthen them and cause them to go on even more spreading your gospel.

In Jesus' name, amen.

We do thank you, Lord, that you answer prayer. We're trusting you to turn, as we've already seen you, this whole situation around. We do uphold Jonathan Stewart, the captain, Tom Dyer, the first officer, Dave Thomas, the chief engineer, Brother Alam from India, first engineer.

We just believe, Lord, all these crew, the ones that are still down by the ship and all that's involved in that. We're trusting you to work these out, these details out in Jesus' name, amen. I might just add just a few other comments about the ship, and then we're going to look into the Word of God, that we, 17 years ago, looked at the possibility of getting insurance on the hull of the ship.

Stewardship, Insurance, and the Future of the Ministry

Then we looked at insurance of the cargo. The cost of insurance was so huge per year that we just couldn't see ourselves to paying that kind of money out, because that still wouldn't insure the most important thing, that's the people.

And the complexity of insuring the people is also quite overwhelming and is left to each individual within OM to seek out what they feel best is in their situation. But we did, four years ago, finally decide to take out a third-party insurance.

We had, I think, something before that was not suitable. And so, if our ship ever runs into another ship or a dock or another person or anyone else, just like some of you may have only third-party car and vehicle insurance, we are covered.

The ship is almost surely being, they're asking us to move the ship to Chile. It's in Chilean waters, so there is this dispute. And our insurance will cover the moving of the ship, would cover the salvaging of the ship.

But the nearest place where we could take it is a thousand miles, where there's any kind of proper dock. We've had the word, the ship is salvageable but not repairable, technical. So, the possibility is that she has to be moved, taken out to deep water and buried in the deep.

Probably, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years from now, when they've got high-tech equipment and they can raise things up. There'll be a great story, if we're not all with the Lord by then, of the raising of the Lagos.

But do pray, as there's still a lot to be done. And we have another emergency meeting of the board of directors. The ship is owned by a British board. It's all part of Operation Mobilization, one of many companies within OM, because things have to be done legally.

And we'll be meeting in London again tomorrow to discuss and pray through all of these things. Even our insurance broker, who helped sell us that third party, said, in terms of stewardship of the money entrusted to us, that we have not done an unwise thing of not insuring the hull and the cargo these last 17 years.

I might just insert here that a movement like OM, the size we are, it is becoming increasingly complex, the function on this planet. Many countries have so many laws and rules. The kind of simple lifestyle we were committed to and still are to some degree, is now almost illegal in many countries by law.

So, we really need prayer, not just for our ship, that represents about 5 -7 of our personnel, the ship Lagos, but the whole ministry. Turn with me in your Bibles. As all of you know, I've been coming around here for quite a few years, and just like all of you, I'm getting older.

And I now have to use these to read my Bible, which is quite an embarrassment for me, because I always thought I had such good eyes. But my wife gets great kicks out of it all. 2 Corinthians 6. I'm going to get a big print Bible, then I won't need them.

The Whole Counsel of God in 2 Corinthians 6

2 Corinthians 6. I love this passage of Scripture. Let the Word of God, I'm not going to be able to expound all this, you won't go home till midnight. Let the Word of God just speak to your heart. He wants to feed us from His Word, He wants to build us up.

As God's fellow workers, reading from the New International Version, as God's fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For He says, At the time of My favor I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.

I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation. We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way.

In great endurance. Isn't that beautiful? That's what I need. In troubles, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in hard work. Sleepless nights, hunger, impurity, understanding, patience, kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love, in truthful speech, in the power of God with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left.

Through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report, genuine yet regarded as imposters, known yet regarded as unknown, dying and yet we live. We live on, beaten yet not killed, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, poor yet making many rich, having nothing and yet possessing everything.

We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As fair exchange, I speak as to my children, open wide your hearts also.

Open wide your hearts also. That's what God wants us to do, even in these remaining moments together here in this time of worship and thanksgiving. To open our hearts. What does God want to say to us through this incident?

That in a rather unusual way, has received so much publicity here in Britain, in fact easily in the next week, you can surely use this to open a door of witness. And all you have to do, even those of you who are the most low-profile witnesses that the Lord ever had, is say, have you heard about that ship in South America?

Probably they have. And then you can maybe tell them something about it. You can tell them that the man who had the idea in the first place was speaking at your church. I'll never forget it. It was in a converted pub in Bolton, Lancashire.

I had taken vehicles across the channel in the summer of 62 when Owen was being born. About 12, the next summer, it was 100 vehicles. I had known about, of course, the fact that one of the best ways to get to India was by sea.

Our teams had already traveled over land. And various things came together as a small group of us got onto this subject of ships. And it just rang in my mind that this could be something that God could use.

I shared it with a few people. This was 64 or 65, Bolton, Lancashire. This pub was converted into a Christian bookshop. And a few people laughed. Others thought, well, you know. Other people, of course, thought it was crazy.

So I didn't push it. I wrote a memo on how to use ocean-going ships in world evangelism and just quietly circulated that to a few hundreds. I then immediately went off to Sweden to look at some ships and discovered these ships, older ships, were selling at a very low price because the shipping industry was beginning to drop and because people didn't want old ships, old cruise ships.

Because people who go on cruises, you know, not usually East Enders, people who go on cruises, of course not now, but generally, you know, they want really posh accommodation. Posh, by the way, comes from the word port out, starboard home.

Did you know that? See how much you learn when you go to church? But I looked at some ships and I was just even more amazed just as the first vehicles we had in OM were vehicles that went thousands of miles and yet we bought them for three or four hundred pounds and we repaired them ourselves.

And I thought, why can't we get our own ship? And it was two years before we even had our first crew member. In fact, one of the first was Graham Scott. Talked to him on the phone today. Left a big first officer's position with a top shipping company.

You come when we didn't even have a ship. And he helped promote this vision, helped us find other members of the crew and then we came across this ship in Denmark and were able to purchase it 17 and a half years ago for 70 ,000 pounds.

And even with that ship now going down the bottom of the ocean and all that we've lost with that, economically, the whole project has been a huge success beyond anything we could ever dream, including everything we've just lost.

Just beyond anything we could have imagined because we have hardly been turned away from a port. Sometimes we would sell 100 ,000 pounds or 50 ,000, 100 ,000 would be due loss, 50 ,000 pounds in books in a week.

And this is why, unless people understand the ministry of OM, they can't understand how we are rejoicing in the midst of this crisis. It is a crisis because we measure what God has done these 17 years.

So let's open our hearts. What does He want to say to us? How does He want to prepare us better for 1988? It's hard to believe, isn't it? It's 1988. Beatings, imprisonments, riots. Have there been any really big riots lately?

Hard work, sleepless nights, hunger. I find that this emphasis is left out of a lot of so-called Christian teaching in our day. And it greatly concerns me because if we give the idea that as Christians we go around with some kind of magic wand and we can wave together with a few Bible verses, I will tell you we will produce another gospel.

We will produce another gospel. I felt the strongest speaker at Urbana, where I've just come from, this missions conference that's been going on since the 40s, was a character named Tony Compolo. And he accused us there in America of actually creating another Jesus.

Some of us have actually been saying that for many years. And I tell you, I can't try to repeat the way he explains it. But there is a danger that we do produce our own nice, middle-class, staid, reserved, traditional, don't-rock-the-boat Jesus, when that's not the Jesus that we find in the Word of God or demonstrated by the New Testament Church.

Hardships, beatings, difficulties, distresses. This passage is not saying this is all that we have as Christians. No! This is just bringing in the balance, as the Scriptures do in such a beautiful way.

Other passages that talk about blessing, talk about joy, talk about gifts, talk about heaven, talk about healing, talk about deliverance. Hallelujah! The Holy Spirit is doing all those things. We all love to have those experiences.