Congress France - Mission 2000 (1) — George Verwer

Well, it's a very special experience to be back in France again. In the 60s and the 70s, I used to come so often. But somehow in the 80s, with all the other countries that Operation Mobilization is involved in, including all of Latin America and Asia, I've not been to France so much.

I must apologize. We also continue to be chasing our two ships all over the world. But we have never ceased to regularly pray for the work here in France. And all over the world, I tell people about France and tell people to pray and tell some of them to go.

And I tell people to pray and tell others to come. And if you meet teams for missions in France, you will see a variety of people coming from all kinds of countries.

France was the first country I came to way back when I came to Europe in 1960. I sailed into Cherbourg on the Queen Elizabeth. Now you're going to know how old I am. And I came to Paris. I was on my way to Spain.

I was not interested in France. I thought they have freedom in France. They have Christians. They can evangelize their own country. My burden was closed countries like Spain under Franco. The Muslim world.

And closed countries like the Soviet Union where I went the very next summer and was arrested. But just those few days in Paris began to change my life. And coming from Madrid to the Soviet Union the next summer, I also spent some days in Paris.

And I began to realize how many millions in France had never heard the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I met a man in Grenoble named Mr. Sleep, Mr. Dormois. And he challenged me about France.

And I met Larry Gannon. And some other people. And in that very first year we launched a little bookmobile carrying Christian literature around France. And it was when I was arrested in the Soviet Union and came back into Austria.

I realized God wanted to do something in Western Europe first. And that Western Europeans were the most effective group to carry the gospel into Eastern Europe and even into the Muslim lands like Turkey.

And for the last thirty years we have seen that become a reality.

And when we think of what God has done especially in Eastern Europe and what was once the Soviet Union, it is just beyond our imagination. So it's quite an emotional and blessed experience for me to be back in your wonderful country once again.

I especially praise God for each church, some new and some not so new, that's represented in this gathering this afternoon.

And we know that God wants to bless us during this weekend together.

And when I came to France in 1960, I came right more or less from Mexico. And it's a coincidence that as I've just arrived here last night, I also have more or less just come from ministering in Mexico.

It's a little easier in Mexico because I can preach in Spanish.

And once I learned Spanish, I lost all desire to learn any more languages. And that's not exactly true because I did try to learn Russian. But when I got arrested by the Soviets and thrown out of Russia, I lost my motivation.

You can probably thank the Lord that I never learned French. Because if I had learned French, then the international headquarters of OM would be in Paris. And you would have me on your doorstep and I would probably be a pain in the neck.

Do you have that expression in French? Someone who's a pain in the neck? It's a problem, they bother you.

Someone who's going to cut your head off. Someone who's a pain in the neck, that's it, someone who's a pain in the neck. And in English, in my desire to always be more positive when speaking to people around me.

In English, I say that if someone's a pain in the neck, I thank the Lord because I'm not a giraffe. But in French, that doesn't work, you need someone who's a pain in the neck. So, wherever I go, I bring books.

And so I brought books with me on the plane. But our friends at the CLC also have a very good range of books.

Including what I believe is at least the number one book I've ever read in English. Spiritual depression is cause and cure by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. Of 1 ,000 books I've read and gone through, that's my number one.

Now, they even have some George Verver books. And since these hardly ever sell, it's good if you can encourage them by purchasing them. I want you to turn with me now in your Bibles to the book of Amos.

The Church’s Response to a Suffering World

As we consider this great subject of the response of the Church to a suffering world, this is a very important book. You have probably noticed that I have become far more better dressed, far more stylish since I first came to France.

And we know that Paris is the center of all style. So I wanted to model my new world jacket. There's something very important about this jacket. It has Los Angeles under my armpit. But it has France on my heart.

Now let us turn to the book of Amos. The Word of God is the authority for all that we're doing and all that we're saying here in France and around the world. And we would not be here if it was not for the Word of God.

Which tells us of Christ and tells us of salvation. Tells us about the Church. Tells us what we're supposed to do day by day and week by week. We're dealing with a very important subject this afternoon.

A subject that I myself have changed on significantly in the last ten years. I've always believed, of course, that a Christian must be concerned, especially for the poor and the suffering. But I always felt that evangelism was such a priority that I must be careful not to get involved.

In these physical needs of people too much.

I have been greatly influenced by the Word of God and passages like the one we're going to read.

But I've also been greatly influenced by great men of God, like Tony Campalo, John Stott, and other men who spoke out about this important subject. The most influential people of all were the younger people, younger generation coming up in Operation Mobilization.

And especially Joseph D'Souza, the director of OM in India. Where we have 350 workers.

Because he felt strongly there must be a marriage between social action and evangelism.

Let us look at some of these verses. Starting in the Book of Amos, Chapter 5.

Or let's look at Chapter 4, Verse 1.

Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan, that are in the mountains of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their masters, bring and let us drink.

Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan, that are in the mountains of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their masters, bring and let us drink. And the Lord then announces his judgment on these people, who do not care for the poor and who think only of themselves.

Look at Chapter 5 now. In Verse 21. I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not take delight in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meal offerings, I will not accept them, neither will I regard the peace offerings or your fat beasts.

Take away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thine harps. But let justice run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Have you offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel?

But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiyan, your images, the star of your gods, which he made to yourselves. And then going to Chapter 6. Verse 1. Woe to them who are at ease in Zion, in trust in the mountain of Samaria, who are named chief of the nations to whom the house of Israel came.

Verse 4. That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall. And God shows his hatred and predicts judgment upon these people who were not concerned over justice and the poor.

And I would recommend you make a study of the book of Amos. And other related passages in the Old and in the New Testament. You will begin to get God's heart for the poor. God's heart concerning the need for justice in the nation.

God's heart that our worship and our practical life be one.

God's heart that our worship and our practical life be one.

And that we are not only gathered to sing beautiful songs.

And that we are not only gathered to sing beautiful songs. In the markets, in our factories, in our offices.

Jesus’ Compassion for the Poor and Outcast

There are many things we could look at in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Where we can see his concern for the poor and the outcast. Even his concern for children was very revolutionary in that day.

And it still is revolutionary in some places. I think many of you know the name of Dr. Homer Paine. Even well into his eighties he will not stop serving Jesus Christ. I was just with him in a half night of prayer.

One of the first missionaries I ever met when I came to France as a young man of 21. Little did I ever dream at that time that some years later he would join Operation Mobilization. And he always had this burden to see churches planted here in France.

But he also had a burden for those little babies. And especially those little babies that are not allowed to be born but are murdered in their mother's womb. And his wife, Mrs. Paine, wrote the first Christian book in French concerning the problem of abortion.

As Christians we have to be concerned about the problems in the society in which we live. We must respond in compassion as we see the lostness of people.

And we must respond with compassion to the difficulties of the people around us. We are told in Matthew chapter 9 verse 25.

Jesus went about to the cities and the villages teaching and preaching the gospel and healing the sicknesses of the people. Now we know that praying for the sick is part of the ministry God has given us.

But we also know from 10 ,000 testimonies of how God uses the medical skills of doctors and nurses and other people to care and to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ throughout the world. I have visited about 40, 50, 60 different countries.

And I am a great admirer of the work that missionaries are doing. Sometimes we hear missionary work criticized. Of course missionaries make mistakes. Missionaries are human beings just like all the rest of us.

I also can be a little bit critical at times, especially of my own fellowship, Operation Mobilization, and my own life. But I am a great, great admirer of missionary medical work that takes place around the world today.

I don't know where the world would be if it were not for the great gospel of Jesus Christ that has gone out across the nations and changed people's attitudes toward the poor and toward the suffering and toward the mentally ill.

I don't know where the world would be if it were not for the great gospel of Jesus Christ that has gone out across the nations and changed people's attitudes toward the poor and toward the mentally ill.

Even in many countries like India, where years ago they may have rejected the Lordship of Christ, they still accepted, often into Hinduism, many of the basic principles of the Christian gospel. That's something we don't have time to go into, but it's a very fascinating subject.

Christ’s Compassion, the Harvest, and the Priority of Prayer

We see the motive of the Lord Jesus Christ in verse 36.

It's a very powerful verse.

When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they were faint and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.

When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they were faint and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.

And he said to his disciples something we should always remember. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the workers are few. And we know that's true even this afternoon. If we talk about the spiritual needs of people, we need workers to go and reach those needs.

If we're going to talk about the physical needs, we need even more workers. If we want those workers, we must give prayer a greater priority in our lives. The problems that we are talking about this afternoon,.

The problems that we are talking about this afternoon, as we look out across the world, are so overwhelming. The problem of poverty, the problem of refugees, 20 million in the world today, the problem of people starving,.

Millions headed in Africa especially for starvation, the problem of AIDS, the problem of AIDS, the problem of injustice and the manipulation of the poor, much less the problem of housing. And hundreds of millions have no homes in the world today.

The problem of children, as 100 million children are suffering at least in the world today, in poverty and in child labor. And on and on we could go. I personally find it almost totally overwhelming. I feel so small and so weak.

I feel that OM, even with 2 ,000 full-time people, is just so small and so weak in comparison to the task. So I'm driven to my knees at the foot of the cross to believe that prayer is the greatest answer to the challenge that we are facing in the world today.

And it was the Lord himself who, after describing the need, said, Pray! Pray! And it was the Lord himself who, after describing the need, said, Pray! Pray! Pray! Pray! I don't know how your churches are doing in the area of prayer.

But in many of our churches in England, I now live in London, England. I'm not there very much, but that's where my nest is. And as we go to the churches, we find so many of them have hardly any kind of prayer ministry.

Some Christians today don't even seem to understand what you're talking about when you talk about spiritual warfare and prayer and intercession and all that kind of thing. And as a church, if we are going to respond to the physical needs of those around us, we must remember those words in Corinthians that say the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty unto God to the pulling down of strongholds.

And we must remember these words that we have just read from Matthew 9, 36 and 37. The harvest, verse 37, is plenteous, but the workers are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest. He will send out laborers into the harvest.

I'm sure there are many of you I've never had the privilege of meeting before. Many of you have come to Christ only in recent years. And tonight I'm going to share my testimony of how a woman who believed this vision, this passage, was used of God to pray me into the kingdom of the Lord.

The Four Pillars of the Church in Acts 2:42

But I want us to go on now to the book of Acts. To get a glimpse of the church attempting to put into action these basic teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a tremendous picture of the church in the book of Acts, chapter 2.

As we see the church in action. And verses 41 through 47 should be studied by every believer. And the book of Acts makes it very clear that the priority for every believer is to live the Christian life and to proclaim the gospel.

And we see that again and again and again. And as they were preaching the gospel, in verse 41, 3 ,000 people coming to Jesus. And then we see the basics of church life being set down. Bhat Singh of India, a man who now is very, very ill and dying.

He came to Paris, I believe, many years ago. The greatest church planter in modern India. Over 500 churches. I fellowshiped and preached in many of those churches all over India when I lived there. And he said, verse 42 represents the four pillars of the church.

Look at those four pillars. We're steadfast in the apostles' doctrine. And brothers and sisters, doctrine is important. I'm very concerned about the lack of emphasis on truth in the day and age in which we live.

We hear a lot of preaching about love.

And I love to preach about love. I believe love is the greatest aim of every Christian. Some of you have read my books where I'm often talking about that. But where do we find out about the revolutionary message of love?

How do we know that this is a priority? How do we know this is on the heart of Jesus Christ? We know from looking into the Bible. So we can never separate love and truth.

The great truth of the Bible is about love.

But the Bible has many other truths.

About the judgment of God. About holiness.

And this is why we want to always in our churches declare as much as we can the whole counsel of God. So here are the four pillars of Acts 2 .42. The apostles' doctrine. Number two, fellowship. And we hope we're going to have wonderful fellowship during these days together.

Number three is the breaking of bread, which also speaks of worship. And number four is prayer. Every believer and every work of God must build on those four foundational pillars. Verse 43 tells us of many wonderful things happening.

It does say these things were done by the apostles. I don't believe every young, new Christian is sort of out doing this kind of miracle. And it's interesting, those who often would like to see greater miracles, they're not willing for the rest of the passage.

Those that would like to see 3 ,000 souls saved, like verse 41, get a bit confused when they get to verse 45. Look at verse 45, if you want a very unpleasant verse for the modern era. They sold their possessions and goods and part of them to all men as every man had need.

When I was a young Christian, especially in the States, and began to preach this verse, I got in a lot of trouble. I discovered American Christians do not believe this verse. They don't accept this verse.

They told me, this is communism. They tried this communism in the New Testament. And it didn't work. So that verse is no longer applicable to us in the modern era, especially in the United States, where we like to buy everything we can possibly buy, even when we don't need it.

But I don't think this was some kind of communism. Though not every single thing taught by communism was wrong. But I believe we see these people responding in compassion to practical problems among God's people.

And they were responding to the situation that they were in.

And so they sold some of their possessions. And they did some distribution.

And it's a very, very joyful experience. When I began to discover this in the Word of God, I had a tendency to be a little extreme. I not only sold all my possessions, I started to sell other people's possessions.

And I had to be careful. And to try to find the balance. I especially got excited when I found Luke 14 .33. My tendency when I found a verse that just seemed so powerful was to just jump on that verse without looking at any other verses.

So you can imagine what happened in my life when I bumped across Luke 14 .33. So likewise, whosoever he is of you that forsaketh not all that he has, he cannot be my disciple. And if some of you remember O .M. in the very early days, you know we were known as a movement that was forsaking all.

We discovered, of course, there was a lot more to true spirituality than just forsaking possessions. We discovered it was harder to forsake the self-life. Much harder than to forsake some camera that you never knew how to operate anyway.

And at times in O .M. we proved that the self-life could exist in any environment, even sleeping on the floor. The self-life could be very much alive. And we realized more and more that the Christian life is not firstly outward things.

There are outward things. It's not firstly outward exterior things like neckties. It's the interior thing. And as we look out of the suffering people in the world, many of us don't have much money. Many of us are already extreme in the way we give and in the way we live, and it's offending other people at times.

But at least we can let our hearts be broken.

Even as we saw these slides before this message, just to see those pictures,.

And the many pictures we often see on television, it should break our hearts. I want to ask you, my friends, has your heart been broken for the poor and the suffering people of this world? What about the poor people right here in Paris?

They are being persecuted right here in this great city that stood so much at one time for democracy.

And even here in our capital, Paris, there are immigrants, Arabs, who are being treated as second-class citizens in a city that has become the high place of human rights. Let's just look at the first few verses of the first chapter of John, chapter 3.

Verse 16. Many Christians know John 3 .16. But I hardly know anybody that knows 1 John 3 .16.

Where we have this beautiful picture of our Christian faith. By this, perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is one of the strongest verses in the whole Bible.

That's the whole Christian message.

The first part is what Christ has done for us. He gave His life for us. We praise Him. We break bread to remember that. But the second part cannot be left out. The Bible isn't like going to your favorite little cafeteria, where you choose what you like.

We had such a good meal at the OM headquarters before coming here. They put a tomato on my plate, filled with all kinds of nice things. And then some bread. And I thought that is enough. And I was eating this and ready to go.

And then Brother Danny, who was sitting next to me, started to give French orientation lessons. He said, Brother George, meat is coming. And then the meat came. Then vegetables came. Then potatoes came.

And then the cheese came. Then ice cream came. It's a miracle I was even able to get here after eating that food.

But that is very small compared to some restaurants.

And now so many people like to go to these big restaurants where you can pick and choose. Now I must confess I did something I would never do in the early days of OM. I chose to eat what was inside the tomato.

But I didn't eat the tomato. I didn't have any more room for this big tomato, bigger than my head. But Brother, the Bible is not some kind of a cafeteria where we go and pick the verses or even parts of the verses that we like.

So we must take that second part of 1 John chapter 3. And we must be ready to lay down our lives for the brethren. That's the kind of biblical commitment we need as we rush toward the 21st century. This is reinforced by verse 17 and verse 18.

This is reinforced by verses 14 and 18. Verse 17.

And look at verse 18. My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

This is a very clear teaching of Scripture.

That we are to be concerned about the suffering people in the world in which we live. Now when we begin to think this way, we begin to pray this way, we begin to take action.

There will be problems. And Satan will counterattack us.

One of the things Satan especially tries to do, he will say, as you perhaps give some money to help famine relief in Africa,.

Or perhaps if you decide, for example, to make a donation to a charitable work that fights against the famine in Africa, Satan will tell you, but what a small amount of money! That means nothing at all!

And often we have this thought that what we are doing is so small, so weak.

That what they are going to do is so small, they might as well not do anything. The very fiber of our society would collapse and we would find ourselves in a living hell.

The fiber, the essence of our society would be completely lost and our world would be a living hell.

Giving, Sacrifice, and Sanctified Imagination

Last summer we had three or four thousand young people at the Love Europe Congress over in Germany.

They didn't have very much money. They had to pay to get there. Many of them were students.

But God broke our hearts over those who were suffering without food in Africa. And so we took an offering among those young people. And we must have seen over 200 ,000 francs, equivalent French francs, collected from those young people.

And some of it went to Somalia. Some went to Eritrea, some went to Sudan. And I believe there are people alive today who would be dead by now because those young people said, yes, this little bit we have, we give it unto Jesus.

The Word of God says so clearly it is more blessed to give than receive.

We read that in the Word of God. We sing about it in our songs. We preach about it.

How many of us are experiencing that? Greater joy giving away money than receiving money. I personally must confess when people give me money, I experience great joy. And in most cases, I am just channeling that on to India or to the Muslim world.

But in order to give it, I have to receive it.

And so it's a joy to receive funds. But it is a greater joy to give it.

How sad it is under the pressure of the world.

And how sad it is to see that under the materialistic pressure of our world, how many Christians cannot know this wonderful experience of being able to give, of being able to deliver their material goods.

There's also the temptation to think, oh, well, we can't do very much in our church. We're already over-committed. We're already giving too much. I want to challenge you about something. It's called sanctified imagination.

Let's see how that comes out in French. I have to tell you what I've told people all over the world. I don't speak French.

But it's my favorite language. You don't have to understand it.

It just sounds so good. So nice sounding. Compared to these languages where you always feel someone is about to spit at you. I wish I could start over again and learn French. Brothers and sisters, we must become more serious about the Word of God.

Let our sanctified imagination think of new ways and new ideas that we can raise money, that we can find money, that we can release money for the poor and the suffering and the un-evangelized in the world today.

When I was saved, I didn't have very much. My father from the Netherlands. He was a poor man. He went to America. He worked very hard. But he couldn't give me too much. So I went into business when I was about 14.

I must confess I had a passion to make money. When I was saved in that Billy Graham meeting that I'll talk about tonight, very, very shortly after that, I realized the most important thing in the world was to take the Gospel to everybody on planet Earth as quickly as possible.

And I soon sold those little businesses. And I bought a few Christian books. Just a few Christian books. And I went door to door selling those Christian books. And putting the profit into world missions.

Just like the loaves and the fishes.

I gave God that little bit of money. I got a hold of those few books like seeds, planting seeds in people's lives. And Operation Mobilization was born. Which has given the Word of God to 500 million people face to face in this world.

We may only have a little bit like the loaves and the fishes. But when we give it to Jesus,.

He multiplies. Your church may be only a small congregation. Maybe you're having trouble paying the electric bill. But as you have commitment and zeal and love and sanctified imagination, He will lead you into new and greater ways to help the poor and to spread the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Barnabas and the Salvation That Transforms Selfishness

We later find in the Book of Acts a character named Barnabas. And we find this situation where they were actually selling a piece of land.

I think of how much land many of God's people are sitting on. As if they're going to take it to heaven. And soon they're gone. They're standing before Jesus Christ.

And usually the government and the taxes and all that takes most of the land.

But let's just look at that passage in chapter 4.

Verse 34,. Neither was there any among them that lacked for as many as were possessors of lands and houses, sold them and brought the price of those things that were sold.

And laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according to as he had need. And there was a man named Joseph,.

Surnamed Barnabas, who was to be one of the great men of God.

What happened to him? Verse 37. Having land,.

He sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet. This Christianity that we have come to believe is perhaps a little more revolutionary than we first thought. Maybe you thought it was just sort of personal salvation so at the end of your life you didn't have to go to hell.

And forgive us, even when we preach, that that is sort of the whole message, because it isn't. For the Christian life is not just salvation from hell, it is salvation from yourself. From our tendency to be selfish, to our tendency to take care of ourselves and not worry about other people who are poor and suffering and in horrible, terrible situations in the world today.

Sometimes the way we live, as far as our money and our houses, we really aren't any different than the unconverted person.

Oh, on Sunday we're different. Sunday we're in church. We put our neckties on. And we sing to Jesus.

And we praise the Lord. And we dedicate our lives. And we love Him. I'll do anything for you, Lord Jesus. But already by Sunday afternoon, it's a little difficult to tell the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian.

It's not enough just to believe on Him.

We must live even as He lived.

And that will mean our hearts will be broken for the poor and for the suffering. And though we may not be able to do much, and we have to learn God's theology of limitations,.

Or we can get into tremendous foolishness,.