Heartbeat of a Christian Work — George Verwer

Scripture, Spiritual Revolution, and the Heartbeat of Operation Mobilization

There's a very interesting verse in the book of Acts in chapter 17. I want to use this and other related verses as our text for this evening. Verse 5, we come across the opposition at Thessalonica. But the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.

When they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying,. These that have turned the world upside down have come hither also, whom Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

And they troubled the people, the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. When they had taken security of Jason and the others, they let them go. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who coming thither unto the synagogue of the Jews, these were more noble.

Than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word of God with all readiness in mind. May that be our case tonight. And searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. It has been our burden over these years, as this work is just a little over 10 years old, if you go back to its early, very, very early roots, to search the scriptures.

The word of God has been our guide. And though today a great number of the young men who come into our work are young men from universities, from Cambridge, from Oxford, many of whom have been put through the mill, as we call it, in the area of theology and the Bible, we hold, despite all the various difficulties in working with university students, we hold to the full inspiration of the holy scriptures.

Very strongly, in a day when many are compromising, when many are going along with the line of Mr. Mythology, we hold to the truth of God that this is inspired writ. A young person has no more important decision that you can make in many ways than to come to the conclusion that the Bible is the word of God.

Billy Graham had a great crisis in his life. I'm sure he had many, but he tells of the crisis of when he got down on his knees and he affirmed in a fresh way that he believed the Bible. The Bible was the inspired word of God.

And it was from that moment that he experienced a greater power in his preaching and went into his Los Angeles crusade, which put that work, in a sense, on the map. And I believe that there's power available to those who will truly believe the Bible and accept it as God's word and God's pattern for their life.

Too many of us are getting our counsel and our advice from other sources. Too many of us are absorbed and caught up with the philosophy of every magazine, newspaper, and book that we can somehow read.

Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a brilliant intellectual evangelical, who is one of the few brilliant men who has such a very strong, straight faith in the full inspiration of the scripture, told me some time ago when I was with him that he believes the average young person today in college and even in other areas of education are being brainwashed.

It's true. We're being brainwashed. The telly, radio, newspapers, magazines, all kinds of unconverted teachers are slowly brainwashing us. And it's going to take a revolution to change many of us. And I just hope that there'll be some here like the Berens who will search the scriptures and see if these things be so.

Tonight, I want to speak to you on the heartbeat of Operation Mobilization. Not because Operation Mobilization is important, but because the heartbeat is. No movement will be any stronger than its heartbeat.

And I believe those of you who are praying for this work and linked with this work want to know what we really believe, what we're really trying to do. What do we really teach young people if they spend a month with us in our annual conference in London?

What do we present the young people in their study program or in any of the meetings they come to? Do we just tell them how to give out tracts? Do we just teach them how to sell books? Do we just point various countries on the map and try to challenge them to get going to Afghanistan or to Nepal or to India?

What is the real heartbeat, the true emphasis of Operation Mobilization? And I always feel great liberty about speaking about this because I believe basically it should be the emphasis of every Christian.

And I'm convinced that if you made these five or six emphases, the emphasis of your life, that you would find your life different. You would find something happening. You would find a revolution taking place in your own life, spiritual revolution.

And when we speak of revival, we speak of the renewal of life in the believer, the coming alive in the believer. When we speak of reformation, we speak of a renewal of right doctrine, of right thinking.

But when we speak of spiritual revolution, we speak of the divine combination of both revival and revolution taking place in the life of a Christian. And that is what's needed. It's true we need a lot of reformation.

We have a lot of crooked thinking. Some of us have some crooked doctrines, even in basic issues. It's true we need revival. We need a fresh renewal of life. But this combination is more desperately needed, and it will bring revolution.

It will lead us out as 20th century revolutionists determined to change the world, not change the world in terms of the masses, but change the world in terms of changing individuals who will therefore be the leaven in the world, as Christianity is.

Though our governments may go downhill, and though we may see the increase of immorality and the increase of the new morality, which is just the old morality with a new dress, God is still working in the 20th century.

God is still moving. And where sin abounds, grace does more abound. And I believe we're living in exciting days. I believe we're living in days in which we're seeing a rapid evangelization in many parts of the world through many different movements that have been raised up by God.

What is the emphasis of OM? What is the thing that we preach about, pray about, talk about, and try to instill within the hearts of the young people who come with us? Very few people realize that over these years, over 6 ,500 young people have been trained on OM, some of them for a very brief time, all too brief, and I'm afraid many of them are never reached.

But what is it that we're trying to say? Firstly, we want to say to these young people and to you and to ourselves, our goal must be God himself. Our goal must be God himself, not projects, crusades, campaigns, world evangelism, fact distributions, soul winning Bible reading, but God himself.

There's a great need in the 20th century to go back to God. Very few people have a real solid theology of God, an understanding of what God is like. Who is God? After all, is there anything more important than God?

Of course not. All of us next to God, what are we? What is man? We can be mindful of him. This is why we challenge young people to read the books that call people back to God, books like the books of Deverme Fromke, of A .W. Tozer, and of course of many older saints.

And if you haven't read some of these books, you need to read them. God has been moving in my own heart through the writings of this man Tozer, a contemporary prophet, really. I've been listening to his tapes lately, and I'll never forget something that he said in one of his books, and I wrote it down in my Bible, and I believe it's so true, and I think your heart will throb as you listen to this quote.

He says, in this hour of all but universal darkness, one cheering gleam appears. Within the fold of conservative Christianity, that is evangelical Christianity, there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God himself.

They are eager for spiritual realities. They will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct interpretations of truth. They are a thirst for God and will not be satisfied until they have drunk deep at the fountain of living water.

This is the only real harbinger of revival that I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon, and I have found this to be true. In our universities, I've been about 10 or 12 times at Cambridge University.

The only thing I detect there in the religious area that's real is that in the lives of individuals, there's hunger for God. There's a thirst. There's a tiredness with the status quo, with religious games, with religious jargon.

There's a hunger after living water, after God himself. And we see this across Britain today. And if the Church doesn't turn in this direction, with a greater thirst after reality, after revival, after revolution, they will lose the young people of Britain.

They'll lose them to the cults, the Mormons, the fastest growing religious cult in Great Britain, with now more than 100 ,000 converts in the British Isles. The Jehovah Witnesses, who now have the young pioneer groups, many thousands of young converts across Britain, are leaving good jobs to get part-time jobs, even washing windows, that they can spend 50 hours a week on the doors with their Watchtower magazines, which is what they have to do to be a young pioneer.

And we're going to lose them to all kinds of other movements. The Church must have a fresh vision of God, a fresh love for God. That's the first commandment, isn't it? To love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, and all of our strength.

This is the first commandment. It involves worship. People who have come on OM have been amazed that they found in some places more emphasis on worship than on some other things. Young people who spend hours worshiping, waiting on God, praising him.

You know, it's one thing to come to God the way a farmer goes to his cow. He likes the milk. He needs the milk. That's his life if he's a dairy farmer. And too many Christians go to God like a man to his cow.

We're out for the milk. We want the blessings. We want the Lord to help us and to take care of our financial needs and to give us a husband or a wife or supply a new home or bless our church and fill the pews or all kinds of things.

God is waiting and looking for us to come because he is whom he is. I am the great I am. He's seeking worshipers. The Bible says in John that he looks for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

In Psalm 69, it says that to worship him, to praise him, to give thanksgiving unto him is more important than an ox or a bullet. And this is the burden on our hearts, even this summer. This is why before the young people go out, they go through this preparation.

They read certain books. They go through a conference. They have times of worship every day, several hours in prayer, their quiet time in the morning and then a day of worship and a half night of prayer.

Then they go out to evangelize. And so one of the main emphases, and we feel the most important thing, is that we have our goal as God himself, not for what he can give us, a ship or a successful crusade or a thousand souls in 69, but because God is God and there is none beside him.

The Revolution of Love and the Necessity of Christian Love

And this is something that normally young people do not capture. And it's a miracle of God that from the beginning he began to infiltrate us with this vision, with this burden. Secondly, we emphasize and believe that a believer should emphasize what we call a revolution of love.

We must love one another at any cost. I set forth in my little book, Revolution of Love, that sound doctrine without love is actually not sound doctrine. I can't give you tonight all the reasons why I believe that.

You have to read it. But it's true. The book of James and many other scriptures show that the moment love is missing, there is no sound doctrine. You cannot separate doctrine from life. You cannot do it.

They are together. Now, when a man does not have love, as far as God is concerned, he doesn't have anything sound, much less doctrine. So he may be orthodox in a particular definition of orthodoxy, not in God's definition.

And I'm not interested in this man's definition of what's orthodox, that man's definition of what's sound. I want to know God's standard. God says, no matter what you have, 1 Corinthians 13, if you don't have love, you don't have anything at all.

Some of us in the church have not even learned basic addition and subtraction. God's mathematics is any quantity less love equals nothing. And a man may have reputation. He may have ability. He may be a great preacher.

He may be a leader. He may have a lot of this and that. But if he doesn't have love, God says he's nothing. Henry Drummond's little book sets this forth, and you can get a copy of that at the table. In fact, I think we should give it free with one of the other books if we have enough copies.

We printed a very inexpensive Indian edition. Now, love is not what the modernist is talking about. Man over here denies the Bible is the word of God. Because the moment he denies the Bible is the word of God, he has denied the source of teaching concerning true love.

I want to see then his standard. Where is he getting his concept from love? From Hollywood? Or from some other place? The only real way that we understand true love is from the Bible. It's true. You will find it written and very good explanations of love, even in some modernist literature.

Twisted, of course. But where did they get their ideas originally? Of course, from the Bible. And this is a great thing in our day. You can take Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

One of the best-selling books in the whole world. He has taken all scriptural principles, secularized them, and used them to teach others who in turn have what made millions and billions of dollars and pounds and everything else.

These are eternal principles. It's unfortunate when man takes them out of context, secularizes, popularizes them, and uses them for selfish means. In the long run, that will lead him to an even deeper pit.

But we, on the other hand, who believe the Bible, who know the Bible, must not move away from the revolution of love. Now, I challenge you to go into the New Testament. Underline, as I did, every time you see the word love.

Underline every time you see a synonym of love, and you will see the New Testament is a love story. It's a story of God loving man. An unbelievable thing, but it happened. God loving man. In this, we perceive the love of God.

1 John 3 .16, in that he laid down his life for us. It's a love story. And then it goes on in that verse to say that we, therefore, are to lay down our lives for the brethren. That's the second part of the love story.

We don't like that part because it involves responsibility. And we evangelicals today, many times we want maximum blessing at minimum responsibility and for minimum work. We've allowed an easy believism to creep in.

So that a man says, well, we're saved by faith, not by works. And I say, you're right. We're saved by faith, not by works. I'm 100%, 100 orthodox. But the man who has experienced that saving faith is going to work.

That's a lot of difference in that than a message of works. The man who has experienced this faith is going to work. He's going to love. He's going to give. He's going to be an outflowing fountain of living water.

And I myself, though I would never judge any man as far as my own life, if I didn't see this water flowing out, if I didn't see love flowing out, I would personally doubt whether I had ever experienced dynamic, saving, God-given faith.

We can go through life under the illusion that we are born again. But if we do not have love, if love for others is not a vital part of our life, as many failures as we may have in the process, then we have no reason to be assured that we have ever experienced saving faith.

And the people who I know who are truly converted are people who have, to one degree or another, this revolutionary love, this love that it talks about so much in the New Testament. It's an amazing thing when we read verses like in this, you'll know that they are my disciples, the words of Jesus, because they love one another.

In other words, in other places where it says, even if you give a cup of cold water in my name, it shall not go unrewarded, an act of love. And amazing verses like, whatsoever you do to the least of these, my brethren, you do it to me.

Have you ever imagined Jesus saying that to you? After you've said something unkind to someone, after you've lost your temper with someone, after you've been irritable with someone, you've told them off or you've been impatient, have you ever pictured Jesus saying, my son, my daughter, you didn't do that unto Joe Smith or to Mr. So-and-so.

What you just did, what you just said, you did unto me. And if we began to take these scriptures seriously, instead of playing evangelical checkers with them, we would begin to see something take place in our lives.

We would begin to go to the cross more often, as Volk says in his book. We would begin to realize our only hope is the cross because we don't have this life. And we become more humble, more broken, more loving, and far more real than ever before.

The man who believes in this revolution of love has to end up on the road of humility. And I believe with all my heart, this is God's way. It runs like a river through the New Testament. Someone always says to me, well, look, preach Christ.

You ever heard anybody tell you that? Of course. And I preach Christ. But let us, beloved, in our day redefine the Christ who we're preaching. Because if it merely is a word, a symbol, an insignia, a name that has been handed down from our grandfathers, then we have no Christ at all.

We are preaching a mere symbol. And this becomes even more deadly than modernism. We must define our Christ. He was the Christ of love. He was the Christ of Calvary. He was the Christ of the word. He was the Christ who took the woman found in adultery and said, go and sin no more.

He was the Christ who drank wine with sinners. He was the Christ who healed, who loved, who gave, who walked the streets of Galilee as a poor man with nothing in this world. And when we define our Christ and people know what we're talking about, then, of course, all we have to do is say Christ and everybody will know what we mean.

I realize that Jesus is the only one who can do this in me. The Lord Jesus Christ alone can live this life in me. But if all of this becomes mere terminology, mere jargon, and it has never changed us, then where are we?

We are indeed men most miserable. Having heard the truth, having drunk the truth, we remain the same. It's a revolution of love. And if I didn't believe that this could happen, if I hadn't seen this happen in lives over these past years, I would not be here this evening.

I don't get a salary in this work. I'm not paid by some businessman in California. I live like the newest recruit who walks in the Dean's Gate door. I preach this message and live this message because it's real.

And money and all these other things become completely irrelevant once we experience and begin to know this revolutionary, dynamic life in Jesus Christ. I used to think 10 years ago that I'll find it difficult 10 years from now to speak this way.

It will wear off. After all, when you preach this message, about 1 ,000 times, I've preached it far more than that, you begin to, you know, it's old news. But the amazing thing is that through the Holy Spirit, it never wears off.

It's just as real tonight, just as burning tonight as it was when it first came in. And I wonder if there are some tonight, you know, deep in your heart, you have lost your first love, like it says in the book of Revelation.

And those days of dynamic faith and of love and of firmancy for Christ have long since gone, and now you're like a crust. May God somehow stimulate your soul even at this meeting. I don't believe it's a coincidence you're here.

You may wonder how you got here tonight. You may wonder why, but I don't believe it's coincidence. If you haven't come here for a little missionary meeting to tell you about the work of O .M., we've told you something about that, but we believe God has brought us here for a divine encounter.

We believe that his Holy Spirit has come amongst us and that he's speaking to hearts, and he's calling you to be a revolutionist, just as those men in the book of Acts. Did you notice verse six in that chapter?

It said, these that have turned the world upside down have come here also. That was a description of these New Testament Christians. These that have turned the world upside down. The Berkeley translation of the Bible, a very evangelical and near to the Greek translation, says these world revolutionists have come here also.

You see, it's not something that I've made up in my mind. The early Christians, some of them, let's not paint a false picture, some of them were revolutionists, spiritual revolutionists, and the first thing that marked their life was love, after that knowledge of God, which we've already mentioned.

Reality, Openness, and Walking in the Light

Thirdly, we emphasize and believe that every believer should emphasize reality. The new book, Taste of New Wine, has shattered many people in our day. Other books such as this book, Reality, Calvary Road, We Would See Jesus, some of Watchman Nee books and other books have put a fresh emphasis on the need to be open.

Many people's lives are a closed book. No one has ever read it. Outwardly, they look like a fine, dedicated, upstanding citizen in the town, but it's only because their life is a closed book. And doctors today tell us that a high number of our sicknesses and disease come and are induced by emotional and psychological factors.

There's a book on the table called Health Shall Spring Forth, and a book, None of These Diseases, that shows very clearly how so many of our sicknesses are a result of psychological, emotional, and spiritual disorder.

Now, even unbelieving doctors are teaching this. Scientists are teaching this. This is no more mythology. And all kinds of tests have been done, and now a high percentage of all doctors put down on paper that between 50 and 80 percent of all sicknesses are psychosomatic.

That is, they are initially, initially become real physical sicknesses, but initially they are started by an emotional or psychological factor. I've studied this now for five years, mainly by Christian writers and I've experienced it in counseling with hundreds of people.

It's true. It's true. And doctor, one doctor, especially the author of that book, None of These Diseases, shows how this life of full surrender, of commitment, of walking in the light, of opening our hearts, is not only the best thing spiritually, it's the best thing physically you can ever do.

It shows how people who hold everything in, never share their life, never unburden their heart, they have a far higher potential of sicknesses. Introvert people who never share anything, they may be irritated at you and want to poke you in the nose, but you'd never know it.

You'd think they're just calm as a cucumber. The more outward person you can see is bubbling all over him, you can tell he's about to jump down your throat. You see, this person who holds it all in, women who hold things against their husbands for years, or resentments against their families, or against this friend or that friend, they end up very, very often sick people, and sometimes emotionally ill and mentally ill.

One out of every nine women in Britain spends part of her life in the mental institution. That's what the people tell us who take the statistics about mental illness in this island. This is serious. Does God have anything to say?

Does the Bible have anything to say? And I believe the emphasis in our work on reality and the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ has kept us in an unbelievable way from being plagued by this kind of difficulty.

And I'm convinced that we have an all-sufficient Savior. Now, His sufficiency comes in different ways. His grace comes in different ways to different people. To one man, there may be complete deliverance.

My own wife, before we were married, had three psychosomatic sicknesses, migraine headaches, backaches, heart trouble. According to the doctors, taking all kinds of medicines. And when she experienced the sufficiency of the Lord after a great time of trial and breaking and all kinds of things, she was delivered completely.

A miracle. And she's remained delivered for the nine, ten years of our marriage. But in other cases, the Lord doesn't immediately deliver, especially as you get older. The harm is already done. You may have a very big ulcer as a result of years of worry and fret and a lot of other things, and you may be delivered from the worry now, but the ulcer's there.

You may be there until you meet Jesus and get a new body. But in that case, God will give grace to go through. Grace to drink a lot of milk and grace to do a lot of other things, you see? And I've seen God in His sufficiency through the Lord Jesus take people through some of the most difficult things.

And I'm convinced that this is reality and that Christians need to be in the light. They need to be honest about their problems. We need to call black, black and white, white and stop pretending. And I believe every Christian should have at least one or two people who know everything about Him.

Certainly their wife or husband and others. And we've seen young people in OM twisted up with problems, resentments, fears, burdens, inferiority complexes, extreme shyness, uncontrolled self-pity and every kind of thing you can think of.

Come free as they've been willing to open their hearts and willing to seek counsel. Sick man who won't admit he's sick will only get sicker. I personally would rather go to even a psychiatrist and be told what's wrong with me than continue in a cloud of unreality pretending to be something that I'm not.

And by one of the great burdens and visions that God has given us is to be in reality, honesty. Why pretend the Bible is the greatest book in all the world, excites you every time you open its pages when in fact you find it rather dry and prefer to read some other book?

Why pretend that prayer is the greatest thing in all the world when you know very well you have to push yourself and beat yourself through every prayer meeting you've ever been to? Except when you're there with false motivations, which of course is another side of the story.

And I believe so many of these problems come because old Prime Minister self is on the throne of our lives. Pride is the deepest sin, the last thing to go in the life. Many of us run our Christian lives the way we're trying to run the government here in Britain, the constitutional monarchy.

It may be all right for the British Isles but it won't work in your life. In the constitutional monarchy, the queen or the king is first. And we're always talking about her. She's wonderful. She's the head of the nation.

She goes all around the world representing the nation but in reality she has no power. And many of you know that this is the situation in your own life. You've got Jesus. He's king, especially on Sunday.

You praise him and you worship him and you talk about him. Yes, he's first in my life. The Lord Jesus. But you know in fact it's a constitutional monarchy and Prime Minister self has all the power and his ministers, the Ministry of Pride, the Ministry of Fear, the Ministry of Complexes, the Ministry of Worry, the Ministry of Anxiety, the Ministry of Envy, very large department, many governments and in your life perhaps.

And they are in control. But you know in any government situation there will soon come the opposition parties. And the Ministry of Pride and Worry and Fear and Anxiety and all these other things will soon be pushed out of power.

And in their place will come all kinds of things, depressions, psychosomatic illnesses, hurt feelings and other problems that stay in power. Sometimes all of our life, running, ruling, controlling. And what is the answer?

The answer is the dethroning of Prime Minister self and all the cabinet members and the opposition party and the replacing of Jesus Christ as Lord and King in the life. Have you ever done that? Young person, adult.

Can you say tonight, Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life, not a constitutional monarchy with clouds of unreality in a totally unrealistic government, but an absolute monarchy where Jesus Christ is Lord and King of your heart and of your life.

You know what it takes to get a government out of power? In a lot of places, a revolution and an election. And you can do that even tonight. Reality must be the emphasis. Walking in the light, being honest.

It doesn't mean blasting in the light. It doesn't mean every time you see something wrong in someone else, boom, tell them what's wrong with them. No, it's mainly yourself. When God speaks to you, you share with others.

The Victorious Christian Life and the Sufficiency of Christ

When you walk in the light, may God teach us something of this. And fourthly, as our time is passing, we must emphasize and try to emphasize the life of victory. There is such a thing as a victorious Christian life.

Definitely, you may have life and have it in abundance, John 10, 10 says. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith, the writer John says in his first epistle. And many other verses that speak about victory, about overcoming, about winning.

And there is such a life. We emphasize this. We have many books. Some of them are on the table that teach this. And God has been giving this victory in many of the lives of those I know. Don't confuse the life of victory with a life of perfection.

Perfection is our goal and it's mainly going to be reached when we get to heaven. But victory is for the Christian here, honor, the victorious life, knowing the way of the cross. When you sin, you confess your sin and you are cleansed as you go to the foot of the cross and take the sinner's place.

And oh, the thrill, the greatest thrill in many ways in this work for me has been to see hundreds of young people come into victory. People that have written to me from all over the world and made a decision in the meeting like I'm going to call some of you to make tonight and have written after several years and said my life was never the same.

I came into a new level of victory. Oftentimes we preach about the experience of crossing over Jordan. We say that crossing over the Red Sea speaks of salvation, but it's not God's plan for the believer to remain in the wilderness up and down all his life.

And the man should cross over Jordan and know the reality of the rest of faith, Hebrews 4, and know the experience of Caleb and Joshua and the priest who, when they put the foot in the water, saw the water go back and went across Jordan, which was just as real, just as victorious as crossing the Red Sea.

Have you ever done that? It will simultaneously happen when a man makes Christ Lord. That's what it is. When a man is filled with the Spirit. There are many terminologies to explain the different ways that God works in different people, but the ultimate goal is the same, victory, power, reality in Jesus Christ so that the word and prayer and witnessing is real and is not just something off in the blue.

Evangelism Flowing from Reality with God

And fifthly, we believe that we should emphasize evangelism. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. I believe the Holy Ghost brings the Holy Go. I believe we're going to either evangelize or fossilize.

And when you look at some of our churches, you know right well exactly which one it is. God is calling us to go and we have many commands in the word of God about this. There's a whole theology of evangelism.

I've studied it. It's not one or two verses yanked out of context. The whole stream of Bible truth is that which teaches us that we should move out and tell the world about this great, wonderful news.

This little map here shows where some of our teams are. We are only one group of many who have this conviction. I believe that as we have these first four emphases, we know the reality of God, of worship, the reality of this revolution of love, and of living in reality and in the light and in honesty and knowing the sufficiency of Christ and this victorious life that the world evangelism will spontaneously take place.

We don't have to push people out to be little evangelistic robots. They'll move under the unction and the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. When you know reality in Christ and you have crossed the Jordan in your life, you are going to become a witness, whether you like it or not, because God will witness and move through you.