Gv at Basalt Bible Church — George Verwer

Transcript Introduction and Operation Mobilization Testimonies

That you all came out tonight and I hope before you go tonight that you'll personally go up and introduce yourself to to George and I think that maybe you're going to want to find a card and get on their mailing list for prayer letters.

I know that this is on the heart of George is to increase the number of people that pray for him daily. I've known George now for maybe 11 years and I can only share one amusing thing it might be the lightest thing about this evening but George came in from from overseas to Los Angeles some years back and and one of his men called me and asked if we could use George at a luncheon.

We had an old hotel we had everything from the whole spectrum of humanity in this hotel and we had a number of housewives that were interested in putting on a luncheon and we had lawyers and we had bankers we we had young men that were still on drugs we had a cross-section of absolutely everything and George took a look around and said I've never spoken to a mixed group like this and then proceeded to hold forth all afternoon.

I remember one point he took his shoes off and got up on top of the piano and showed us slides of the Logos but when I'd never met George I didn't know who I was looking for and I was standing in the lobby and I saw this man come through the door with two satchels weighted down and he was dressed just about the way he is tonight casual and I I said that can only be a salesman and I I turned to the young guy at the desk and I said I don't know what you're going to do to get rid of him but be sure and get rid of him because George Verwer is coming and I want to meet him I want to tie it up with a salesman.

George went up to death and I'm George Verwer. Where's Harry Clow. And if if I was I must have been as red as some of these coats and sweaters I see and I've never told George that story but it's those those two bags weren't brochures on the latest plumbing fixtures those were tracks.

And since I've known George since then it's it's really been a pleasure every time he we can corner him to come here and this since we've moved to the valley this has been my prayer that one day we would have this privilege and and also that he found us he said up until a year ago he didn't even know where this valley was until he looked on a map and said I'll never get there.

Well the Lord had different plans so I'm going to turn the program over to him and George. Thank you. It's wonderful to see the hand of the Lord working. One of the reasons I came west. I was actually brought to the States by a large church in in Iowa.

I hardly ever get to Iowa either. Then it did seem that I should stay on a little longer and two very close friends were getting married in New Mexico and in God's providence they're here right now. They were married Saturday.

I had a chance even to my surprise say a word at the wedding and then I found out later they're honeymooning within a few miles of here. If that isn't God's providence I don't know what is. And then a dear friend and his wife Luke Wilson is also here tonight.

Arranged one or two meetings in Denver for us and all kinds of things have come together and this privilege to be back with Harry and his family for a while. Their one daughter was on OM. We just I'm just amazed the providence of the Lord to bring us here.

I was in Aspen years ago of course Greg Livingston one of my very close friends was the pastor there but I flew in. I wasn't even sure where I was. I just flew in and flew out. I knew it was a famous ski resort but we're just thrilled to be here tonight.

We really believe God wants to work. You know I never want to take a meeting where the Lord doesn't work. I don't have to take this meeting tonight. A lot of my friends are begging me to take more time off and less meetings.

A lot of my work now involves letters and phone calls as there's 1 ,600 people now in Operation Mobilization that I sense a responsibility toward. But I just can't stop taking meetings because the Holy Spirit works in these meetings.

And we've come as a team and introduce some of the team members. John Wright's been driving us around in his motor home which we don't have here right now full of books. John maybe you could stand. He's from Iowa leaves his work to take us around.

And he does all these cassette tapes. You see a lot of cassette tapes and he duplicates those. It's on to the Lord. You can get them almost at the price of the blank tape. So it's a great opportunity.

And then we have Ray Cooper who's going to come up and share in a minute from New Jersey headed back to India. Stand up. Ray that wasn't very much of a stand. My wife and my secretary with me but secretary's working and my wife's resting.

She's got been to more Burwar meetings than anybody should ever have to go to. So forgive them for not coming tonight and we've got two people to take their place because the honeymooners just boy it's a big thing come out of their little hideaway Noche Morris and Dallas Meyer.

And I wonder if Dallas you'd come up and share. I didn't have enough courage to ask you to share on your honeymoon. The pastor's more courageous than I am. He grabbed him as he came in the door. Noche is from New Mexico a very unique town Taos 300 years of heritage.

I was told when I was there recently. That's probably more than you have around here. But Dallas would you come up. Dallas has been on the ship a couple of years. Noche has been with us ten years who knows how long in India one of our main women's leaders.

But it's good to start off the marriage letting the man speak. So Dallas just share anything's on your heart about the ship ministry perhaps or your testimony whatever. It is a real privilege to be here particularly because we're on our honeymoon but also just to be at the meeting tonight because as George shared we also believe that the Holy Spirit is working and for us it's a real privilege to be in any meeting where we know that God is working.

And I've been on the ship for about the last three and a half years. Noche has been longer with the ship ministry and it's been I can say honestly one of the greatest experiences in my life. Not because we visit many countries because that gets old.

Not because we're working with an international team because that's not always easy but because God has worked in my own life through the team in the countries that we visited. But God has done wonderful things in my own life and I witnessed that and I've seen God do many miraculous things in other people's lives as well and I think the greatest testimony for me about the whole ship ministry is to see lives change.

People that come and work on board the ship. You see them come one or two years later they go they return perhaps their own home church they return and work with another missionary organization or wherever they go but to see God work in their lives and we know for a fact that God is alive and working and I'm sure that each of you know that here but it's a real testimony for us to see that happen with person after person that comes.

And I think Noche and I are also just examples or just not examples I should say but just in our own lives we can be testimonies of that very fact that God is working in our lives. And he's doing wonderful things.

Perhaps in the last year last two years that I spent on the Lagos in Asia and the Far East two things come to my mind. The one thing is about a year and a half ago the ship was sailing from Hong Kong to Thailand Songkhla Thailand and after about four or five days at sea we came across a refugee boat the Vietnamese refugee boat.

Two days later we came across another boat. We took those refugees on board the ship we took them to Thailand and through negotiations they were able to go to various countries. One of the most miraculous things was to see many of those refugees come to know the Lord.

And we've kept in contact with various ones and today they're in different countries. They're members of local churches and God is doing a wonderful thing in their lives. Just to see that happen was an absolute miracle was an absolute miracle.

The second thing was just about a year ago just about a year ago that we saw the Lord answer prayer in a wonderful way to bring the Lagos into China. And probably some of you most of you perhaps are even aware of that but God answered prayers of Christians all over the world and it's so vitally important that each of you be involved in prayer not only for OM but for other Christians that you know missionaries or for various Christian works and organizations and for your own church.

Because God does answer prayer he really does. Thanks so much for the opportunity of being here. Amen. Well we feel very special that you took time to be with us and we hope that many of you will see this as the providence of the Lord and pray for them.

Most of these people that go overseas with OM do not have a lot of people praying for them. They do not go all over the country trying to get some kind of support. They go as God sends them and as their own local church is willing to pray so to always to get a few more people praying for them.

They'll be going to Spain very soon and who knows where back to the ship and other places. I talked to the ship last night it's in Puerto Rico so it's easy to talk to and they're in a very hard time having torrential rain in Puerto Rico's cut down the number of people coming.

The number one generators broken down again. They were not able to get some steel that they needed to get when they were in Florida. And they do need our prayers. There's 300 converted born-again staff and crew working on this 6 ,000 ton ship.

The two losses. It really is an impossible venture and not just getting it started. Getting it started was no more impossible than keeping it going. Just getting fuel. We're talking about a that uses 13 14 15 tons of fuel a day a day when she's sailing.

So it's a miracle each year it keeps on going. It's a ship built in 1914. It's the oldest passenger ship in the world. It's a testimony to the mercy of God because the ship to buy it today be thirty million dollars and just be out of the question.

We got the ship floating with all certificates for less than a million dollars and that's a home for 300 people. Many of these young people have sold their homes to go and work on the ship. The surveyors you know if you have a ship a surveyor has to come and he's a tough-minded marine men and everything that's wrong on the ship has to be put right.

You lose your license. And this man came from Italy Floriburg Italy inspect the ship when it was in Argentina. And as he went through the ship he just couldn't believe it and he said this ship's been born again.

This ship's been born again 1914 still sailing carries two three hundred tons of literature sometimes has 20 ,000 people in one day. Almost all of them receive the Word of God. It's just it's gone beyond really our expectation.

Mexican Churches Sending Missionaries

The recent visit to Mexico I was preaching at a pastor's conference because the ship is many things not men are just giving out literature. It's 15 ministries some of them very much in-depth ministries going on at the same time.

And the greatest need in the world today is to see pastors on fire for Christ. You know in Sri Lanka many of the pastors when we went there communist a whole Methodist movement. Sri Lanka's taken over by communism pretty well and a Methodist communist was born again in the meeting I was preaching I think Frank Dietz prayed with him.

Now we went back again because we keep going back. This man is now leading a major thrust across the island touching hundreds for Christ. But I was preaching about 200 pastors in Mexico. My Spanish is terrible.

It's 19 years ago since I spoke much Spanish but somehow the Holy Spirit took it out of the realm of the grammar. And I thought I was really offending these people because I know the challenge of the message was Mexican church grow up.

And I brought this illustration how Mexicans pray on the basis of Matthew 9 Lord of the harvest to send forth more gringos into the harvest more Americans into the harvest. I said a few other interesting things.

And a hundred and four of those pastors took out money to buy a copy of the cassette and they stood up and said we've got to take this message by cassette to everybody in Mexico because it's time we as a Mexican church grow up and start sending out our own missionaries and pray the Lord of the harvest will send out Mexicans into the harvest field.

And that's beginning to happen slowly and same in Argentina and other places. Well we could talk a long time about that. It's great privilege to be able to focus in on that a little bit. Let's jump from Dulas out to India.

Prayer as a Means of Reaching the World

You know to me it's exciting that you can be tucked away here in the mountains of Colorado touch the world for Christ through prayer. If I lived down here I'd feel isolated. I live in London and nine million neighbors Bombay with four million.

I live in Mexico City with nine million. I lived in Brussels. I've lived in Paris. I've lived in Madrid. I've lived in Kathmandu. That was pretty small up there tucked in the Himalayas with a half a million.

But here then I would really feel isolated. Especially nine months a year trudging through white stuff. But you know by faith you don't have to be isolated. You can touch the world. You can get one of these maps of the world.

We're gonna make the greatest book book bargain package in I think in history of my tours of the United States I'm just really gonna offer something special I've never done before. But with it you can get one of these maps of the world.

Put this up in your room put it over the front of your television wherever you want and begin to realize that God wants you to be a world Christian. It's not a matter of all jumping in your on your skis and skiing out to Nepal.

But through prayer first through prayer we can touch the ends of the earth. And I hope you'll do that. So right now with our with our eye of faith we're gonna go out to India. Don't know where India is.

It's only 700 million people in that little country. It's not really it's about the double the size of Texas. 700 million more people there than all of South America and Africa put together. You can throw in Colorado just in that one country.

And you know we often think God is looking for special super spiritual over dedicated double filled with the spirit people to go out to be missionaries. You know if you wait for those kind of emissions so you're gonna die of loneliness.

God sends out ordinary people. And the Lord was looking around New Jersey and there was a young man riding around his dirt bike and fixing his his old van to travel up to Alaska. Do his own thing. He wasn't a great preacher.

He wasn't super spiritual. That's for sure. I know because it's my nephew and you know it's always hard to believe God can do anything in your family. You always believe God do something in the other person's family.

I only have one sister so I don't have a great abundance of nephews. We went out rock climbing once and we'd like to do some of that tomorrow. And somehow he came to Europe to the Lord was working in his heart.

He ended up doing a little mechanic work on the ship. Stayed for a year stayed for another year. To everybody's surprise he went on to India for two years now he's back. Of course we came back. Some girl was chasing him.

We knew he could get a good job. We figure that's the end. But he said goodbye to this girl said goodbye to the job. The guy was a crook anyway and he's going back to India. So it's a joy to introduce Ray Cooper who really would like to go to India tomorrow.

We keep dragging around on this trip carry our books to just come up and share anything. That's a terrible introduction right. I really feel bad about that but just share anything that's on your heart Ray.

An Ordinary Christian’s Call to Missions

And I hope some of you're.

Gonna pray for Ray Cooper to go back to India. It's really true that a lot of us I think that go out or grew up in a church situation and never thought about missionaries. I can remember as a kid when missionary speakers would come there was kind of a you know among the young people group you know who's gonna ever do that and and I really if I look back six years I could see that there was no way that I was ever gonna be involved in missions.

I came to know the Lord as a child when I was about nine years old through the Bible Club movement and I'm praise the Lord that I did come to know him at a young age and at through my high school years so I didn't want to I was kind of trying to ride a middle-of-the-road type of thing where I didn't want to really live for Christ and I didn't want to let my light shine for him but at the same time I didn't want to get involved in what was going on in my school and you know in the drug thing and drink and just everything else and so it was really looking back it was a miserable time because in the Christian life we can't walk the center of the road middle of the road and be happy and that's right where I was.

I went to technical high school and took up mechanics and when I finished school I had a job pretty good job as a mechanic and at the end of that year I asked my boss for a raise and he said you know I have to wait a few more months before you got a raise and so another guy had already offered me a job for another dollar more an hour and I was ready to change jobs.

And about that same time I got a letter from George and he challenged me to come for two months on their summer program and I just hadn't been involved in any type of evangelism or tracting. I mean I was real shy when it came to anything like that and I'd never confronted anybody maybe once you know with the gospel and so but this appealed to me to go over and help out as a mechanic because that was my trade and so I went to their conference down in Memphis Tennessee that year before going over to Europe and I saw a lot of young people my own age that really knew the reality of walking with Jesus Christ every day they they had that reality in their daily lives and it was something that I didn't have I didn't I hadn't seen it before and but I knew was something that I wanted and so at that conference it was a time of recommitment and just getting right with the Lord and time saying Lord I want to learn I want to grow I want to become what you want me to be.

And so I went that summer over to Belgium and I ended up staying for pretty much the last five years like George said in different places and the Lord has I can see how the Lord worked in my own life you know in a process and he's been able to work in me and change me and change the way my values what I think is important what what I really want to pour my life into and it's not something that happened overnight.

It wasn't my first two weeks on a whim but it's been a process in my own life where the Lord's been able to work in me and I just praise the Lord that he has made some changes the last two and a half years I've been out in India and my job pretty much out there was to keep these old trucks that we have going.

We buy them real cheap in Europe and drive them overland and get them out to India and fill them up with New Testaments and gospel packets and and then we go village to village and drop the tailgate down and one of the Indian brothers there will get up and well sing a song first and then we'll preach the gospel in the local dialect or language the people there and then distribute you know the literature shop to shop in person to person and confronting people with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so a large part of my job was to keep those trucks going and of course I was involved on the teams as well going out with literature and the other part of my job was to train up Indian brothers who could do what I do and who would when I leave they would be able to take more of the responsibility and going back to India this time.

That's a lot of what I want to be involved in involved in building up brothers there who can do what I do and who will be able to carry on and who will be able to build into the church in India. And that's what I want to be involved in wherever I go is to be building into the local fellowship the local church and contributing as a servant there in any way I can I think the one thing that the Lord's taught me out in India was that it wasn't so much of what I could give to them or how I was going to help them but it was what the Lord was going to teach me many times through the Indian brothers there and through the relationships with people on the teams and so going back.

I don't want to go as somebody who's going to be telling them what to do and how to do it and being the head honcho but I want to go as a brother and get alongside them and be able to encourage them and build into their lives and I want to go back and be a servant there for as long as I can.

I hope you'll pray for Ray. Now I just really appreciate your ministry of music here and I think it's good if we just sing another hymn that will challenge us. 356. You know the greatest book in the English language of the thousand or so books I've gone over I believe is dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones book.

Spiritual depression. I never cease to be amazed by this book. The title put some people off but it's really a handbook on spiritual reality the discipline life faith not being weary and well-doing chastening trials peace of God.

Just a great book that's available for any of you born for battle. Book about the ministry of intercessory prayer just recently republished probably the first time you've ever seen it. And these parts I don't think you're overwhelmed with Christian bookshops up in this area.

You know you may never see this material again. Some of you of course might want to take a get a vision to take quantity of this tonight. Set up a book table in your own home. That's how I started about 25 years ago.

A number of other books especially the writings of A .W. Tozer he's the strongest writer I think in contemporary English just of course went to be with the Lord few years ago. I I just can't believe some of the things this man just digs into and rips out of our superficial Christian way of thinking.

Now some of you may also be interested in this cassette album that John Wright has produced and we're giving this for either $12 or a $15 special. All these books with the cassette album for $15 and your check could be postdated up to one year.

This is the entire missions conference you know I'd love to stay here and minister every night. I don't like these one-night stands but I'm only one person. This is when I went up to the Prairie Bible Institute not far north here a few paces Calgary Canada or Prairie whatever that place is called three three hills.

You close your eyes for a minute you go right by it except for the Bible school. And I shared there night after night for about four days. And there's the ministry I shared putting a message to the high school young people at a high school there what the Bible says about sex and including a message to all the leaders who are there called leaders.

Pitfalls that I feel very strong about. I really believe a lot of our leaders here in North America are deceived. I'm not saying I'm better than them but I really believe there's a deceptive spirit that is crept into some even the greatest man.

It doesn't mean God's not using you. God is merciful but it's something that we should understand. For example the tendency for everything in America to be exaggerated. It's not a minor thing. It's a rotten part of our culture that missionary magazines come out giving statistics that anybody would have to brain nose are exaggerated but no one says anything about it.

A lot of other things along this line I seem to be just part and parcel of our culture. And I talked about this the first time I ever gave that message. So the leaders gathered up there in the church.

So this material really is part and parcel of our meeting with you tonight. John Wesley believed the ministry through print was as important as preaching and everybody was on Wesley's team that moved across Europe and brought hundreds of thousands into the kingdom.

Every one of them had to be involved in distributing books and I feel every one of you should be involved in distributing books. You know I'm not saying huge quantities at least a few know somebody comes up to you and ask you know how to be saved.

You have a piece of literature to give them on how to be saved or a book. And I just really believe God has brought us together to night that we may act on some of these things we hear. I'm not going to say a lot about operation mobilization.

We've already heard something. There's a booklet that you can pick up as you leave touching. Almost every single ministry were involved in about 20 different ministries and 35 different nations. May sound big but all started very small 25 years ago.

And we're not interested in emphasizing the biggest. We're more interested in emphasizing the reality that every individual in the body of Christ can have every individual whether you're working here or you're working in someplace out in the middle of India.

Jesus’ Compassion and the Call to Pray for Laborers

Now let's pray and ask the Lord to to help us as we share together from the Word of God. Lord we thank you for the privilege of being here. We believe it is in your plan and purpose and we believe that you've called us to act.

Tonight is the night of acting doing steps of faith and we believe you're going to show each one of us what it is you want us to do. We think Oh God of your son. The Lord Jesus said that if we loved you and if we loved him we would keep your his commandments.

We want to do that. We want a special an extra spirit of obedience to come upon our hearts. We know that to obey better than sacrifice. We want you to expose any areas of disobedience in our lives any areas where Lord we're wandering away from your perfect will and turn to be your men and to be your women to go where you want us to go and to do what you want us to do.

Whatever the cost grant that we pray Jesus name amen. Let's look at some scriptures starting at Matthew chapter 9. I want to just weave into this my own testimony which I hope might be a little encouragement to some of you.

Some of you that maybe sometimes find the Christian life a struggle. I certainly do. You're not looking at any super saint tonight. But there's grace for sinners. There's forgiveness for sinners. There's power for sinners.

This is what the Gospels what the whole New Testament is all about now in chapter 9 of Matthew we find the Lord Jesus verse 35 going about every city village teaching. He was a teacher. There's many other things in the synagogues preaching the gospel.

He was a preacher of the kingdom and healing every just sick sickness healed every disease among the people. When he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them. I want to emphasize that tonight motivation.

He was moved with compassion on them because they were faint and were scattered abroad. A sheep having no shepherd. Then said he unto his disciples the harvest truly is plenty but the workers are few.

Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Isn't that. Isn't that just loaded with with vision and with challenge. Just a little section of scripture. There's a little elderly woman lived near my home who knew how to pray.

You know how to pray. You know you don't know how to pray. And somehow you are still in God's kindergarten. I don't care. Whatever whatever else you can do. If you do not know how to pray you have not grown past kindergarten.

And even in kindergarten God's kindergarten people pray. The other thing is you could be totally backslidden and once knew how to pray. You don't pray anymore. There's no way we can be Christians. No way we can follow Christ without knowing prayer.

It's impossible. And remember we are now a religious a great religious nation. Religion here means money. Religion here means a job. We got 10 million unemployed. You want to get a job. You can get in the religious scene and get a job quicker than you can in the non-religious scene.

And we must somehow come to grips with the reality of where we are as a nation and somehow realize that there can be no New Testament faith without prayer. Without prayer in our personal life without prayer in our families without prayer in our churches.

You have to rip out every other chapter in the book of Acts. Peter was in prison but the church was gathered together praying. And then God performed a miracle. Paul was in prison at midnight when every sane man should be asleep but he was praying and worshiping God.

I was only converted a few hours and I knew that prayer was my vital breath. Not miss praying as far as I know any day since my conversion 27 years ago that's as normal as walking and it's a subtle trick of the enemy that somehow we don't sense prayer as a vital the vital breath of the church.

So we find even great evangelical churches great Bible-believing churches separatist churches you name it. We've got everything in America that's ever been named. And you get to these people and you find they don't know how to pray.

And then you wonder why the pastor is soon going to be divorced why the choir is going to be discovered all involved in some homosexual activity. And while this thing is happening in that thing and have but we don't talk about what happened to Hal Lindsey.

We don't talk about what happened to Phil Cothert's brother. We just go on and on and on and think we're just some great crowd of Bible-believing evangelical people. Nobody wants to blow a whistle. You think if Isaiah came back he'd blow a whistle.

My friends you think of Jeremiah rose from the dead and came back to our churches. He would say anything or would just sit down at the midweek snack. And we usually have socials midweek and tell us all how wonderful we're doing.

I'm scared. I don't want to be an alarmist and I've written a book against extremism. So hear me out to the end. But I'm scared. I believe we're deceived. A .W. Tozer said we've measured ourselves by ourselves for so long.

They're no longer higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit and there's so little discipline in the Church of Jesus Christ. You can be like two elders that were sitting on a train with a friend of mine on the way to Scotland.

They were discussing the high price of prostitutes in London. Only when my friend got off the train he discovered they were both leading elders in the local Bible-believing assembly. I believe we need to go back to the Word of God and ask the Lord to purge us of that which is not pleasing to him.

And I believe our prayerlessness is one of the greatest sins in the church today. Jesus spent whole nights in prayer. Jesus taught his disciples to pray Jesus when he pointed us to the great harvest field millions without the gospel lost in sin said pray pray.

That's the first command we have. A lot of young people want to join before they even learn how to pray. Of course we take them but the first thing we teach them is how to pray. That's not easy. Harvest is plenteous.

The laborers are few. Pray pray pray anyway. This dear little woman lived near my house knew how to pray. I didn't know how to pray. I was a sinner. I was lost already at 16. I'm on three little businesses.

I was a self-centered egocentric little money lover pleasure lover. My mother didn't have a clue what I was into every other week in the nightclubs of New York. And this lady found out about me my bad conduct.

I was even blacklisted in the high school for bad conduct. And she started to pray. She prayed for me for three years. You know the high school is one of the greatest mission fields in America. And we in our churches should be just agonizing crying out to God for our high schools.

Do you think the answer. Do you think the answer is Christian education. We are the seed my friends. If we think the answer is Christian education because we're graduating a whole generation of young people out of these Christian schools who aren't that much better really than those who came out of the pagan schools like me.

Because you see you can give a man a Christian education. You can fill his head. But only the Holy Spirit. Only a deep work of grace can fill his heart. And Christianity isn't firstly taught. It's caught.

I'm not against Christian education. I'm not against being taught. Of course not. But there's got to be something more. Anyway this lady knew there's something more prayer. She'd been praying for this high school for 15 years.

And this is an ordinary American woman. She wasn't trained in cross-cultural evangelism. She hadn't yet got to a marriage seminar. They didn't have marriage seminars back then. They just had good marriages.

Not all of them. She hadn't been to a lot of these other things. She wasn't in a cemetery graduate seminary graduate. We must not get that mixed up and praise God that there are some good seminaries and praise God that our seminaries graduate.

A few men who know how to pray don't misunderstand. But it's I tell you it's a remnant. It's a shrinking remnant. She prayed for 15 years for that high school. She prayed for people to be saved and sent.