(Om Orientation) Action - Part 1 — George Verwer

Of the crusade draws near. We're aware of how when it comes to living the life of love and faith. But we know that God in unity there is strength. And we pray that during this hour you would unite us for battle.

That you would unite us for the offensive against the enemy. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Properly motivated by love. Once we are compelled by love. Once we are moved with compassion. Something is going to happen.

Love-Motivated Action in Spiritual Warfare

It's called Jesus to go into the villages. And as each of us realize that we're in a warfare. That we have weapons and we learn to use these weapons. And then finally we're motivated by the love of Christ.

It's going to take place. It always will. In his home and his wife comes out and says there's a fire in the kitchen. He's not going to remain sitting there if he really believes that there's a fire in the kitchen.

He's going to move. He's going to mobilize. There's to believe the word of God. When you and I begin to believe the teachings of Christ. When you and I really begin to believe that our situation is a warfare.

And that our weapons are the word and prayer. And that we're motivated by love. It's stupid and ridiculous to have action before that. National governments of the world decide that it's going to go to war.

It doesn't just say well the situation's a war. Let's go. They start running off to fight. No they have strategy. We see that Jesus had a strategy. Jesus had a plan. Jesus had a purpose. A foreordained, God-ordained purpose in everything he did.

He wasn't a scatterbrain. He was never in a hurry. There was no disorder or confusion about the life of the Lord. So the father which was his meat to John. And so as we consider this task we realize that it's a warfare.

A prayer and a word of our weapons. Motivated by love which is also at the same time a weapon. This is going to bring action. But this action must be strategic. There must be strategy. There must be a plan too.

It can't just be a scatterfire. But it must be a planned action. We'll be discussing the kind of action we need. This week the first and the groundwork of the kind of action, the kind of offensive we need is unity.

Unity as the First Strategic Offensive

It must be a united offensive. It must be a united action. Our own town will speak to us on the subject of reproduction. That our action and our offenses must be reproductive. They'll bring us a message on this subject of reproducing for Jesus Christ.

Then the week after that we'll be hearing a message on discipline. Our action must be disciplined. Our defensive, our offensive must be a discipline. Go to the subject of unity. There's no better place in the scriptures to start the subject of unity than in the 17th chapter of John where Jesus is praying a great prayer in which he prays for unity.

In which he prays that we would be united with him and that we would be one. John chapter 17. You can read the whole chapter but we never seem to have enough time to bring forth all that is on our hearts.

The 20th verse. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one as thou father art in me and I in thee. That they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one. As thou and me in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me. The world today is looking with utter confusion upon the outcome.

And even when they look into the evangelical church, even when they look into the fundamental church, the Bible believing church, they find at times so many divisions and so much confusion and so much disunity that they hardly know where to go.

The church has been torn and stripped by disunity. It's hard to find the church has not had a major contention or a major disunity problem within the past five or ten years. Disunity is probably one of the greatest problems of an unloving life.

It's love that brings it. If we came to grips with the message we received in our last session, there'd hardly be any reason to go forward in this message on unity. Help us again to look into the Word of God, to go from book after book in the New Testament and see what God says about unity.

Just how important is it that you and I as the other team members be united as we go forward to battle. Just how important is it that we have unity there on our school campus or in our home church. Just how important is this unity.

Well, it was important enough for Jesus Christ to pour out his heart over us. And when we realize the essence of unity, we realize that it's in the atonement. Unity was wrought for us in the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unity Through the Atonement and Love of the Brethren

Free from God through the cross through the Word of God. And when we are reconciled to God, we're reconciled to God's people. One goes virgin-ship with God. And then there's that great cross beam that represents us.

And the Bible very clearly says, if you love not those whom you have seen, how can you love him who you have not seen. When I think of the words of Jesus who said, if whatsoever you do unto the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.

What would happen to us day by day if we do unto the least of these? Into the weak convert? Unto the man who seems a bit proud? To the teacher whom we don't appreciate? To this person who doesn't agree with our theology?

To that person who doesn't agree with our evangelistic efforts? Whatsoever we do unto these, we do unto the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ gets even more specific. He says, even a glass or a cup of cold water given in my name will not go unrewarded.

Here again we are to some teachings that are so revolutionary, so dynamic, so new, so different, so out of the American way, out of the British way, that it's hard for us even to grasp them. So we pass them by.

Like we do with most of the basic teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, we manage to theorize them, we manage to rationalize them, and away we go, eating away at little secondary matters, arguing over little bits of prophecy, and missing the main brunt of the gospel.

G. Wells, the famous agnostic who wrote one of the most famous histories of all of civilization, said in his book that shortly after Jesus Christ left the earth, his followers twisted his revolutionary teachings.

He used the world to say that shortly after a few centuries went by, the church began to substitute secondary matters, doctrinal arguments, rituals, and all these other things for the basic revolutionary teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, which were too hard for them to accept.

That's what an agnostic said. Now we in the modern church are straining at a gnat and swallowing a cobble. We have eyes, but hear not, as the Delilah of the old times said in the third chapter of Revelation.

We've got names. You're the president of the social club, and you do this, and you do that, and you're the chaplain, and you've given devotions, or led devotional messages, and your church thinks you're quite keen.

They're helping pay your way through Bible school. Reputation. We're evangelical. We're fundamental. We're Bible believing. We're the Christians. We're the lawyers of the Word of God. We've got names, follow Jesus Christ, that you live, but you're dead.

Could that be true about some of us who are listening to this tape? It was true in my life. I read that passage afresh, I realize it's even true today. We've got a name. George Verwer, director of OM, director of Semblife.

He's the live wire. He preaches all these messages on discipleship. He preaches these messages on total dedication, and on living all out for Christ. He's got a name that he lives. But many a time God has had to come to me in prayer, says, yes George, you've got a name that you live, but you're dead.

You're dead because there's no compassion. You're dead because there's no yearning for life, and for love, and for reality. Could it be that some who are listening to my voice right now have a name that they live?

Maybe you're an evangelist. Maybe you're a pastor. Maybe you're a teacher. Maybe you're a Bible speaker. You've got all the theology right down the line. You know the doctrines. You've got a name that you live.

Maybe you're a deacon or an elder in the church. You're a leader of young people. You've got a name that you live, but when you go to prayer, when you try to take an hour out to prayer, when you set aside some time to go to prayer, you realize, yes, you've got a name that you live, but you're dead.

God says in the same chapter, be a hot or cold or I'll spear you out of my mouth. Those words caused me to tremble. Oh might we realize what it is to be in the hands. Make God a little midget. Instead of allowing God to conform us to his image, we're trying to conform God to our image.

And in America, we want to make God an American. We want to put God in a new car, in a new home. We want to put him in an air-conditioned pew, in an air-conditioned church, and we want to put a cigarette in his mouth, and we want to conform God, and we want to make him like man, and this is the greatest sin.

Oh might we realize that God wants us to be conformed to him. Think of this subject of unity, and we see the Lord Jesus Christ praying this prayer. We have to admit that we utterly fail so often in this thing of being united to God and united to our fellow men.

Two things that always come together. And so Jesus prayed the prayer. If all may be one, may they all still be one in us. That the world may believe that thou hast sent me. In last week's message, we showed how the world is going to know that we're Christians because we love one another, and here it clearly teaches and repeats it over again.

That the world is going to know that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. They're going to know that in this is reality when they see unity, which is nothing more than an expression of love. When two people love one another, they become united, and when you and I begin to love one another, we become united.

Not really in any way because of our love, because we've learned how to, no, but because the Holy Spirit bears witness in both of our lives that we are sons of God, that we are blood brothers through the atonement on the cross of Jesus Christ.

This isn't something that you are going to do. You are going to become united to a brother. You have been united, and what we need to do is simply by faith appropriate that which God has already done on the cross.

At the cross of Christ, the barriers were broken down. At the cross of Christ, the wall was broken down. The veil has been read. Now we can live together in love and unity. We see that in the book of Acts.

We haven't got time to even begin to look at it, but as we look through the book of Acts over and over again, we see that they were of one mind. We see that they were of one accord. We see that they had all things.

We see a group of people who moved to the power of the Holy Spirit as one body. God desires to answer that prayer in a new way. We see around us false unity coming to pass. False unity is a so-called ecumenical movement.

There's not many things that I outwardly think this is one of them. This ugly false monster, this ugly fake unity. There's unity outside of the realm of love and outside of the realm of truth. I think there's unity by all signing on the same dotted line is beyond my understanding.

It can be unity all by going through. It is beyond my understanding, but the devil is doing it. People, even some good evangelical people, are clinging to the false unity of our day as expressed in the ecumenical movement, which is a stench in the sight of God.

There's no unity in the realm of organizationalism. There's no unity in the realm of committees. All through history, men have tried it. Mussolini tried it. One after another has utterly failed. There is no unity among sinful men.

There is no unity outside of having a new nature. The message of John 3, be born again before there's going to be any unity, before there's going to be any standing together united. In this great cause of Christianity, there must be the new birth.

There must be regeneration. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. He's a natural man, and the Bible says the natural man understandeth not the things of the spirit of God, neither can he know them.

If you die a new man, absolutely not. What Christ talks about here is something that has already been wrought, something that has already been paid for, something that has already taken place. It's the unity that was brought to pass when Jesus Christ reconciled to God and reconciled to one another through the blood of the Lamb.

Behold the Lamb of God of the world. Yes, Jesus prayed for unity, and we see this in a very practical way. And we see how Jesus laid down in his teachings certain principles that would enable us to maintain this unity.

Biblical Principles for Confronting Disunity

And if we go back in the book of Matthew, the 18th chapter, we see one of Jesus' most basic teachings concerning the maintaining of the unity. As we work together as a team, as we go forward to Mexico and see things as they are, there's few people in all the world, 20 different countries, I've looked for groups of people that were really moving together in unity and in love over a period of time, and seeking for vainglory, jealousy, strife, envy, pride, all these things have managed to make us a very disunited world.

This can be one of those never-live-it-nows. If you think you're going to go out into Christian work and have all Christians agreeing with you or uniting with you or even loving you, you're really disillusioned.

You will find, as we have found and as all Christian organizations have found, that the biggest enemies can be those of their own household. And it isn't just operation mobilization that's receiving criticism in these days.

Every organization and every group I've ever heard about, I've heard strong criticism against. Just happens to be that in some places, O .N. is the thing they're talking about today, and so O .N. is the thing they're taking whacks at through criticism, gossip, and all forms of backbiting.

I've seen so many good organizations, and I've been impressed with them, and then later I've talked to someone about this group, and they gave me a whole line of gossip on their work. I saw some people working diligently for the Lord.

I've been united to them, and then somebody comes along a little later and gives me a little backbiting and a little gossip. How true the Proverbs are when they say, He that repeated the matter separates the very best of friends.

I've almost lost some of my best friends because people have repeated the matter, learning what it is to allow love to cover a multitude of sins. But we can't just go on covering things. God doesn't want us just to push things into the dark, just to hide things.

He wants things to come out into the light. As the book tells us, we need to walk in the light. As God teaches us, we need to walk in the light. The 18th chapter of Matthew, it shows what we're to do when there comes up a little stub of disunity.

There comes up a sin in our brother that causes us not to be able to have fellowship with him. We're not to go to all of our friends and to begin to talk about it. We're not to write granddaddy. We're not to write Sam over on the other couch and tell how Joe is getting away from the Lord.

But we're to do as it tells us in Matthew, the 18th chapter, starting 15th verse. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

Is brought forth from the servant of the mouth. The same spiritual principle is brought out in the book of Galatians and in other parts of the New Testament. If your brother sins against you, if he's done something that you know is wrong, whether it be on your team or in your college or wherever you are, you are to go to him and him alone.

And if we don't practice that in this crusade, we might as well quit before we begin. If you think your leader is going to be perfect, you're really out for disillusionment. If you think the directors of this work are a bunch of sharp men, a bunch of keen Christians, or sort of spiritual supermen, you're really out for disillusionment.

The basis of unity is not perfection. The basis of unity is the cross of Jesus Christ. Forgiveness, mercy, and love. To have unity with any brother, it can't be based on the fact that you think he's keen.

It can't be based on the fact that you think he agrees with you on everything. It can't be based on the fact that you think he's dedicated or you think he's spiritual. It has to be on the basis of you both being broken at the cross of Christ.

Unity doesn't last because we base it on outward appearance. We base it on even anything from the way a man looks to the way a man talks to the way he prays. Instead of basing it on the fact that we have been united in the beloved, we have been accepted together in the beloved, says John.

So when things do arise, when problems do come up, when there is sin, God's provision is life absolutely. Don't just hide it, but go to your brother. Now we want to put this into practice. We're not just talking about a nice theory.

We're not asking you to do this so you can pass an exam on the subject of unity or be able to tell someone else how to do it. But we want this to be practiced on O .M. and on these crusades. And if you're not to do something, his way of doing it means that you're in Mexico and you see some brother.

Maybe he loses his temper with some team member. You don't go to another team member saying, you know, Sam, there's something wrong with him. He keeps losing his temper and he must be walking in the flesh or he doesn't seem to be abiding in the Lord.

And I guess he's missing his morning devotion. No, God's name, no. You go to that fellow and you sit down with him alone and you say, well, I want to tell you it's hard for me to say this and I realize that there's so much I need to learn and I realize this is one of my faults too and I'm weak in this point, but I thought you might want me to mention the fact that the other day or this morning you really seem to lose your temper at one of the other fellows and I really think it was it was wrong against the Lord.

Maybe we can have a word of prayer about it. And if you do it in meekness and gentleness and love, you'll find that 99 times out of 100, the brother will say, you know, you're right. I'm sorry. I've already actually asked the Lord to forgive me, but let's ask forgiveness again.

I appreciate it. You bow there, the two of you, and your hearts are hit together in love. This is where we're going to slaughter Satan week after week as we're united together in growth over again. He was working in one of our offices and in terms of administration, he had some very different ideas than I had.

And I was very strong about certain things that had to be done this way and he was very strong about certain things being done that way. Apparently one day I said something that offended him and he mulled it over in his mind for a few hours and it bothered him and he had no fellowship with God and he came to me and he let me have what was on his heart.

He told me three or four things he felt that that I was doing wrong and that were just wrong in my life and right there and then. He called to defend myself. Every inch of flesh in me called to stand up for my rights and I just...

There were a few points that he was confused on, but on at least one or two points he certainly was right. Don't argue over the points you think the person is mistaken about, but surrender on the points you know he's right about.

So by God's grace and because of the Word of God and because I'm convinced this book knows what it's talking about, I confessed to him that it was my fault and I said I'm sorry, I apologize and we went to prayer and I prayed that God would forgive me and as I prayed the prayer that God would forgive me, God broke through in that fellow's life and he began to reap and pretty soon he was confessing sins that he had in his heart.

I was confessing sin in my heart and the two of us who had been way apart from each other, two of us who had been going on separate roads even though we were in the same office in the same administrative setup, were united together in brokenness before Calvary's cross, in love with each other because Jesus Christ loved us.

If you have anything against a brother, if your brother has trespassed against you, go to him alone and in meekness and humility, brokenness, present that which is on your heart. Now don't go running every time you see somebody do something wrong.

You'll be busy all day just correcting people. Somebody does something wrong, somebody sins, you need to go to the Lord first in prayer, secondly I suggest sleeping on it and then in the morning if it's still on your heart that this brother has sinned and you think he probably hasn't repented of it, you think he hasn't gotten it right with God, then you need to go to him.

That's God's principle but God goes further because sometimes the dear brother won't repent and so God goes further and he says this, but if you will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established and if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the church but if you neglect to hear the church let it be unto thee as a heathen man or a publican.

You go first alone. If you know that this person is sinning against God, he refuses to repent, then you take two or three witnesses and you present the facts again and if he still refuses to repent then it's taken to the whole group or to the church.