Polish (1) — George Verwer

We've been talking for a long time about this very special occasion together. And we're very glad to be here. We've traveled here in a very old bus, about 20 years old. From London we've come. And we had no difficulty.

And many, many, many people are praying for this conference. I've just been on a tour right around the entire world. And often I tell people to pray for Poland. Even in places like Australia and New Zealand, the other side of the world.

People are praying for Poland and people are praying specifically for this week that we have here together. And we know God answers prayer. I've just come from our own training conference in Belgium. Where we had about 600 young men and women.

And most of them are now out on evangelistic teams going from door to door in Paris and many other cities. Many of them have never done this kind of work in their life. They are scared stiff. So you can pray for them.

Some of them are just young Christians who have just come to know Christ as their Savior and as their Lord. Just previous to being in Belgium, I was in Chicago at the great Christian rock festival. This is a great controversy in some countries.

Is rock music from God or from the devil? So I will not speak on that at this time. But we had about 4 ,000 gathered at that great conference. And hundreds surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. And they are also praying for Poland.

So it's a joy to be here. Since I spend a lot of my life speaking in conferences, I thought I would just share with you some thoughts that I wrote in the back of my Bible many years ago. Just as an introduction.

Receiving God's Word as Doers

How to get the most out of a week together as we have here. In some ways, you will get as much from the Lord as you are willing to give. James chapter 1, for those of you who are writing verses down. We are told not to just be hearers of the word, but doers.

Let's just look at what verse that is. James chapter 1, verse 22. Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Can a Christian be deceived? I believe he can. And certainly in England, where I live, it seems that many Christians are deceived.

Because they are hearing the word of God, but they are not doing the word of God. How can we get the most out of this time together? Let me just give you five principles. I've spent about 20 of my entire life for 30 years in conferences like this.

People keep telling me I should slow down. So I've been trying to slow down. I used to take 900 meetings a year, now I only take 400. So I've learned these principles in the midst of these different conferences throughout the world.

Making God the Goal of the Conference

Number one. Make God your goal. So basic, so simple. That as we come into a conference like this, we can be thinking about one another. We can be thinking about the speaker. Nothing wrong with that. But our goal should be God himself.

Try to get time each day alone with God. That's what I've done for about two hours this morning, in order to prepare my heart and my mind for being here at this moment. Matthew 6 .33 says, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

Expecting God to Act

Number two. Ask God for a spirit of expectation. William Carey, that great missionary, said expect great things from God. God wants to do great things. He wants to bless us. He wants to bring healing to damaged emotions.

He wants to bring the gift of salvation to many people. He wants to give us a greater biblical foundation for our Christian life. According to your faith, be it unto you, said Jesus Christ. A spirit of faith, a spirit of expectation, is absolutely basic to get what God wants to give in these days together.

Maintaining a Personal Prayer Life

The third principle is not to neglect your own prayer time in the midst of all the fellowship and the activities. It's good to be able to be out here in the countryside. I live in the city of London. What a blessing just seeing the beautiful fields and the corn.

I love corn. I don't know if you're allowed to eat this corn or is that only for the cows. But be sure to get that time alone with God. That has been the practice of my life since my conversion to Jesus Christ 31 years ago, when I was just 16 years old.

Almost every day, all of these years, I've had that quiet time in the Word and prayer, and without that I wouldn't be here. The fourth principle is to beware of presumption. Presumption, just assuming everything is going to go fine.

Distinguishing Faith from Presumption

I've been reading a book that shows the difference between faith and presumption. Some of our churches in other countries have got into great difficulty because they could not discern between faith and presumption.

One church went very extreme in regard to faith for physical healing. So they said, we don't need doctors anymore. We just pray, that's it, healed.

Sixty people died in that church.

You see, that was presumption, not faith. The book about this subject is called From the Pinnacle of the Temple. Remember, Jesus was tempted to jump off the pinnacle. But Jesus wouldn't do it. A .W. Tozer, one of my favorite writers, he's now with Jesus.

He said, the greatest gift needed in the church today was the gift of wisdom and discernment to be able to tell what is from God and what is not from God. That's why I was so excited when I discovered you had a book table with tremendous books in Polish.

I brought a few English books, but great to see all these Polish books. There's a brilliant book dealing with this subject, When Bad Things Happen to God's People. Everybody needs to read this book three times.

And God wants us to, even here during these days, not presume that everything is going to go well. Many people have worked hard to bring this event to happen. People sometimes in these conferences get under pressure, because a lot is happening behind the scenes, at least in our OM conferences.

Satan tries to attack and bring division within the work. Or maybe within your own group that you have gathered with. So we want to exercise faith as we're gathered here. Praying for everything that's happening.

Praying for safety, those people who have traveled here, as we have. Even last night as we were traveling down the highway, very narrow road, a huge truck just suddenly pulled out right in front of our car.

I guess he was operating by faith. And expected us just to go off the road. Which we did, because he was bigger than we were. And we want to be resisting Satan's effort to bring confusion, as we're here together for a whole week.

Praying for Leaders and Resisting Division

You know, often as Christians, we expect too much from one another. Maybe you don't have this problem in Poland. Maybe this is an English problem. You know, we expect so much from our pastors. We expect our pastors to be sort of miracle men who just have everything completely together in their lives.

Many of our pastors have problems. Because they are just ordinary people that God has put his hand on. And for us in our culture, the pastor's wife, that is even more difficult. The pastor's wife. Operation Zoot.

Everybody's looking at the pastor's wife. Oh, she has a new hat on for Easter. Or she's changed her hairstyle. I wonder how much money she's spent on the beautician. Probably 50 of our churches in Great Britain have gone through division and tension in the past 3 or 4 years, because Satan is a specialist in bringing confusion.

So let's be praying for one another. Let's be praying for our Christian leaders. Let's realize the battle does not begin when we leave here. The battle has already begun the moment you have come to Jesus Christ.

Faithfulness in Small Responsibilities

And then the last principle.

I call it faithfulness.

Some of us have different jobs to do during these days. Maybe it's just picking up papers. Maybe it's washing dishes. Praise the Lord! What a privilege! Washing dishes for Jesus! Hallelujah! When we first got the ship Logos as a family, my wife and I, my wife is with me, we sailed on that ship.

And we sailed around Africa. And I had the privilege of operation dishes. Every week I had this opportunity. It usually took over one hour. I never wanted to see a dish again. I became a great believer in paper plates.

When we got to India, and I sat down with these Indians to have food, I thought, this is the country where I want to live. We had the food on an old leaf. Just reached up to the tree and you had a leaf.

And we ate the food with our hands. Just like this method. And at the end you just threw it away. Well, the Bible says, and I was reading this word this morning in the book of Colossians, Whatever you do, do it with all your heart as unto Jesus Christ.

And you know, if you are faithful in small things, God will increase your responsibilities in the work of the kingdom. I did not start out as the director of a Christian organization with a two-ocean going ship.

That's not how I started. I started serving Jesus when I was 17. I gave out a few tracts. I recorded the messages in my church on a tape recorder. I did a few other very small things. And then, very slowly, God just added the responsibilities one year after the other.

The Mission of the Conference and the Call to Pray

Well, there are some principles that I have tried to practice when I come to conferences like this. And I know that God wants to meet with us during these days together. Let us turn now to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 9.

I've been asked this morning just to make this a sort of introductory time. And since most of us have never met before, I thought I would just share a little of my own testimony on how Jesus Christ found me when I was your age.

Of course, I see people here from many ages. But it looks like most of you may be between 15 and 25. God found me when I was 16. I'd like us to read Matthew 9, the last four verses, 35 through verse 38.

What a great passage of Scripture. Matthew 9, verse 38. What a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus. Let us just pray for a moment. God, help us to understand your Word. Thank you for bringing us here together at this time.

Thank you that we are from different nations. We are one body in your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, fill our hearts with faith in these days together. Open our eyes that we may see your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us.

We thank you for this great gift of salvation. We worship you together. In the name of Jesus. Amen. I was a somewhat religious person. But I didn't know Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. In fact, I was a materialist.

My grandfather and my father both came from the Netherlands. On the way here, we stopped in Amsterdam to deliver a large quantity of literature. And I want you to pray for a great conference going on in Amsterdam right now with Dr. Billy Graham.

8 ,000 evangelists are there from all over the world right now in Amsterdam, just as we're here. In fact, I was sent an invitation to go and to speak there in a small group. And I had the joy of writing back and I said, I'm sorry, I'm already booked.

I'm going to Poland. But we sent three of our other people there with a special table of free literature. And that literature will go all over the world from there in Amsterdam. My father was born not so far from there.

And his father was an atheist. So my own father did not know Christ. When I was very small, he didn't even go to church. But he sent me to church, to Sunday school for the children. But this was a church that didn't have very much of a proclamation message.

It was more of a social institution for teaching, dancing and other activities. Dancing and women was the big thing in my life. I fit quite well into the church and the pastor made me a priest. And I even became the president of the young people's group.

And so Saturday night I was in the nightclubs in New York because my father immigrated to New York City. And Sunday morning I was there with my little gospel Christian smile. I was living a form of spiritual schizophrenia.

I think my book about this subject has been distributed all over Poland. Maybe some of you have read that. One foot in the world, one foot in the church. Very hard to walk that way. And yet this was the story of my life.

Conversion Through the Gospel of John and Billy Graham

But into my life came a dear praying woman who believed Matthew 9. When I went to secondary school, high school, she heard about my bad reputation. I just had a little bit of difficulty with the police and with the principal and a few other people.

And so she started to pray for me. She had been praying for that school for 15 years. She knew that a high school was one of the greatest mission fields in the world. And she not only prayed that people would be saved, but she prayed that people would be saved and sent.

That was the vision God gave her. And so she put my name on her hit list, her prayer list. Let me just tell you something. If you've got any elderly ladies praying for you, you could be in serious trouble.

The sooner you get your life sorted out with God, the happier you will be. Then she sent me through the mail, the post, a Gospel of John. I'd encourage you to read this week. Read the Gospel of John. Especially if you're not sure of your salvation.

So I got this Gospel of John through the post this summer. And I decided to start to read it. And faith slowly came into my heart from that Gospel of John. Now life in New York City is very fast. And I'm sorry to say that at 16 I was already hooked on pornographic magazines.

And a lot of other bad habits had come into my life. Yet as I read God's Word, something was happening. And she kept praying. And she was not only praying that I would be saved, but she was praying that I would be saved and sent as a missionary across the world.

Now you may pray that for a Bible school student.

But this was an ungodly high school where a third of the students were drunk most weekends. But God had put this burden upon her heart. Then Billy Graham came to New York City for one night. I didn't even know what an evangelist was.

The people that I went with, this kind of thing was considered religious extremism. Then perhaps he was a hypnotist. So I was very skeptical. But I went to that meeting. And I took my binoculars to watch him.

To see if he was a hypnotist. And I took this girl with me because I thought she could use some religion. I was alright. I was the president of the young people's club. I even knew how to pray. And when Billy Graham preached the gospel, as you are going to hear here evening after evening, something happened in my mind and in my heart.

I realized religion was not enough. I realized that there was such a thing as repentance, having your life turned around and putting personal faith in Jesus Christ. And he gave an invitation for people to specifically respond and give their lives to Christ.

I had never seen anything like this. He was going to ask people even to get out of their seats.

No, in my church nobody got out of their seats. Unless they had to go to the toilet. And he called people to come forward and repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he said, please pray for your non-Christian friends.

I thought, what a strange prayer request. But I decided to pray for this girl sitting next to me. So I bowed my head and started praying for her. And as I prayed, it was almost as if God hit me on the head.

And I was up out of my seat and I went forward and I yielded and gave my life to Jesus Christ. And I was born from above. The burden of sin lifted and a peace of God came into my heart that has been there every day ever since.

Now I want to say something very important. God doesn't always work this way. People are converted to Christ in many different situations. Some are not even sure of the date. They were reared in a Christian home.

They may have made a commitment to Christ when they were very young. They hardly remember it. They have to ask their mother to be reminded of exactly how it happened. But Christ saved them. And He changed their lives.

I have a friend of mine in England. He had been thinking about Jesus Christ. But he had not made a decision. He was going down the road on his bicycle and suddenly the faith just filled his heart. He stopped his bicycle and he gave his life to Jesus Christ right there on the bicycle.

And he is one of the outstanding workers in our work today. I want you to write something down, very simply. I hope you remember it the rest of your life. God works in different people in different ways.

God works in different people in different ways. In England we have a lot of problem with judgmentalism. Always judging other Christians. Each church feeling they are better than the other church. And different Christians criticizing and judging other Christians.

And it is so sad. And it is not God's way. You can write something else down. We need to know how to compassionately disagree with one another. As Christians we are not going to agree on everything. The Bible is a very big book.

There are different interpretations. We have different churches, different emphases. A friend of mine was just speaking here in Poland. I was just reading about it. If you ever think that I am a little bit extreme you should listen to him.

His name is David Wilkerson.

He and I have a similar ministry.

But we are very different. Our backgrounds are completely different. And we have learned how to just compassionately disagree on some areas. And I am always afraid when all of a sudden in a country more foreign speakers are coming in from overseas.

I always get a little nervous about that. And I was very hesitant to come here for that very reason. Because we come from different churches. We come from very different social and cultural situations.

We often do not know what you are facing in your situation. And it is my sincere prayer as I speak here this week that you will take what I give and contextualize it into your unique, beautiful Polish situation.

And you will not be afraid to disagree with me. My hope is that we can disagree compassionately. Actually, I am not going to be dealing with controversial subjects. That is not the burden that is on my heart.

So I do not think you will have too many problems with what I have to say. So God is working in different people in different ways. And we need to know how to compassionately disagree if there is something we do not agree with.

Prayer, Evangelism, and Operation Mobilization

Well, I went back to that high school after my experience with Christ. We started some prayer meetings. And God poured out His Holy Spirit upon that ungodly drunken school. In one meeting alone where I just shared my testimony 125 students came to profess faith in Jesus Christ.

I was only 18 years age. After that another 75 gave their lives to Christ. And that school in God's providence, God's sovereignty became the first birthplace of what today is a worldwide spiritual movement known as Operation Mobilization.

I love to tell this story. Because it is absolutely true. And because it encourages people to pray. And that will be one of my main emphasis throughout this week that we may become men and women of faith and of prayer to be used extensively by the Holy Spirit.

That woman has been a great example in my life. She is still praying for me. She is praying for me today. She prays for me every day. She has now for 31 plus 3 years, 34 years. Her husband has died. She is now in a special home for elderly people.

And systematically she is trying to win every single person in that building to Jesus Christ. She is way beyond 80 years of age. She was the human instrument that brought this movement that I am part of into being.

And in turn over the years we have been able to take the gospel to over 350, 350 million people. Tens of thousands have come to Jesus Christ. In the beginning it was just one old vehicle. Inspired by this woman and her faith and her reality.

I was only 19. This was a 3 ,000 mile journey. I had to learn a Spanish language. But we saw on that first trip to Mexico we went back the next summer that God can use young people.

God Uses Young People

I wonder if you'd write that down. I'd love to see you all writing something.

God uses young people. God is no respecter of persons. And so often today young people are afraid to take any steps of faith. They feel they are not old enough. But I'd like you to look in the book of Timothy to one of the most important verses in the Bible for young people.

1 Timothy 4, 13 Let no man despise your youth or make fun of it but be an example of the believer in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4, 12. What a verse. I want to ask you something.

Very important. How many of you already memorize regularly the Word of God? Even one verse a week. How many do that? Raise your hand. Raise your hand. I take this survey all over the world. In meetings just like this.

I want to just tell you some bad news. That's the lowest score of any nation in the world. No problem. We just compassionately disagree. But you know, many, many young people make decisions for Christ.

We have our special meetings. We bring in the evangelist. Preach the Word of God. Get them to make a decision for Christ. But then one year later many of those people who make that decision I don't know about Poland but in England one year later, they're not going anywhere.

They're not going anywhere. Because they've never learned how to grow in Jesus Christ. And everything we talk about in the morning this week is going to be linked with how to grow strong in Jesus Christ.

Memorizing and Meditating on Scripture

And one of the most important things is learning to meditate on the Word of God. The psalmist said, I have hid my word in my heart, O God, that I may not sin against you. That is memorizing the Word of God.

When Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan he quoted the Word of God that he had memorized as a young boy. Now when I was converted to Jesus Christ I had lots of problems. And it wasn't long after my conversion when I had fallen flat on my face spiritually speaking.

And I thought God will never use me. I thought I got too much lust. I had too much anger. I had been fighting with my fists since age four. I think I also started kissing the girls around age four. I thought now that I'm born again no more problems.

But I was wrong. Because some of the same problems came back. Especially as I began to meet some of God's chosen people. And I personally found some of the Christians that I met when I was a baby Christian a real pain in the neck.

Do you have an expression like that in Polish? And I had many, many struggles as a young Christian. I also began to study different philosophies including atheism. And I almost completely overthrew the Christian faith when I was at university.

But I had learned something as a baby Christian. To memorize the Word of God. One verse a day I put into my mind and in my heart. I remember sitting in my university class studying physics and chemistry.

I hated the subject. And whenever the teacher started talking about different things his grandmother and this story that story was a terrible teacher. I would sit and write my Bible verses over the chemistry formulas throughout my entire textbook.

I want to challenge you to memorize the Word of God. It will do great things in your life. No, it's not the total answer. It's part of the answer. You can start even with a small verse. Jesus wept. Let's all say that together.

Just see how easy it is to learn a verse of Scripture. Get them to say that together. It's so easy to memorize Scripture. The Bible says the Word of God is able to cleanse our hearts. You know, in some of our churches we have what I call spiritual midgets.

Usually you have those in a circus, spiritual midgets. And they're Christians. Maybe they become Christians twenty years ago. Ten years ago. But they've never grown. And they still need milk. It's like a little baby.

The pastor, he has to give him a little milk. And like little babies, when anything goes wrong in the church, they're crying. If people don't show them enough love, if the pastor doesn't show them enough appreciation, then they get very unhappy.

They are maybe twenty years old, but they're spiritual babies. And many times counseling young people who have made a decision for Christ, but don't have assurance of their salvation. It has been my experience that many times they are born again.

They do know Jesus Christ. But they have never grown in their faith. Now, when they hear a strong message, they may feel that they've never been saved. So they come forward again, and they pray a prayer of salvation again.

And sometimes that is the situation. But other times, that's not the situation. They know Jesus. But they've never grown in their faith. So the devil knocks them over very easily. So they feel discouraged in their faith.

So naturally they are filled with doubt as to whether they're even a Christian at all. I believe God has some great things for us today. Every day this week. But it's here in the Word of God. Would you make that decision this morning?

To start becoming serious about the Word of God? And you'll discover the Word of God can renew your mind. In my battle against lust, it was the Word of God that cleansed my mind more and more and gave more and more victory and power in my Christian life.

And whereas before evil thoughts so quickly came to my mind, now when there was a problem, a jolt, the Word of God came to my mind. And let me just say this in closing. If we're not serious about the spiritual growth that has to take place when we leave at the end of the week, because Jesus said, if any man come after me, let him deny himself every day, take up the cross and follow me, that's what Jesus said, Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Daily Discipleship and Continuing Growth

So if we're not willing for that 365 day a year discipleship program, then any crisis we have here will be a very short life. That's why I would also encourage you to get some of these books. A powerful book by Walter Trubisch.

One of the greatest books I know by Andrew Murray on the subject of humility. And another fantastic book for young people on this whole area of love and sex. A book is just a sermon in print. So when you leave this conference, you can take another conference with you right into your own home.

And you can share it with your friends. And we are sure that Christian literature has been one of the most powerful things God has been using here in Poland to bring revival and to bring people to Jesus Christ.

Prayer for Spiritual Renewal

Let us pray. Father, we thank you that you brought us here together. Lord, I thank you for saving me that 31 years ago. I thank you for the saving power of your blood. I thank you for the cleansing power of your Holy Word.

Lord, we're believing you for a spiritual revolution during these days. We're believing that many great steps of faith are going to be taken. We're believing that many are going to come to know you as Lord and Savior.

We're believing that others are going to take great steps of faith to do your will, whatever it costs. Lord, God, deliver us from spiritual fog that we may see the state of our own hearts. That we may seek your face at the foot of the cross in brokenness and spiritual reality.

Our lives may be transformed by the power of your Holy Spirit. Pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen.