No 8 Eng to Germ — George Verwer

Valium, that's used for depression, is the most widely used drug in the entire world.

Und eine kleine Droge, nämlich Valium, ist eine der Drogen, die am weit verbreitet sind in der ganzen Welt.

It's a multi-billion dollar business.

Und es ist ein Geschäft, das Milliarden von Dollars einbringt.

And I'm sure there are times when it is used properly.

Und ich denke, es gibt Zeiten, wo es richtig verwendet wird.

But if Christians learned a little more of the basics of the Christian message, they would not need so many tranquilizers.

Aber ich glaube, dass wenn Christen mehr die Grundlagen des christlichen Glaubens kennen würden, dann würden sie nicht so viele Beruhigungsmittel brauchen.

Learning the Basic Principles of the Christian Life

The younger you start to learn these basic principles, the better your chances are some of you already look too old.

Und je jünger du anfängst, diese Prinzipien zu lernen, desto größer sind deine Chancen. Und einige von euch schauen schon zu alt aus.

Every year past 17 years of age that you fail to learn these principles will make it a little more difficult to learn them.

Und jedes Jahr, nachdem du 17 bist, indem du es versäumst, diese Prinzipien zu lernen, machen es immer schwerer, das zu lernen.

In fact, some of us, because our parents were always worried about this or that, we also are always worried.

Und bei manchen ist es so, dass weil die Eltern sich über dieses und jenes Sorgen machten, dass man sich auch Sorgen macht.

And as Christians, one of the things we worry about the most.

Und als Christen ist eines der Dinge, über die wir uns am meisten Sorgen machen. And the devil really uses it. Und der Teufel gebraucht es wirklich. It's this.

Es ist folgendes. What do other people think about me?

Was denken andere Leute über mich?

Or what does she think about me? Oder was denkt sie über mich? What do people say about me? Was sagen die Leute von mir? And we start to live for the praise of men.

Und wir beginnen zu leben zum Lob der Menschen.

Psychologically we crave the praise of men.

Und psychologisch, we crave.

We crave, we desire the praise of men.

Wir mögen das Lob der Menschen. Jesus said to the Pharisees.

Jesus sagte zu den Pharisäern. How can you believe who seek honor, one of another, instead of the honor that comes from God alone?

Wie könnt ihr glauben, die ihr Ehre voneinander sucht, anstatt dass sie Ehre von Gott sucht?

And this is so important in the ministry. Und das ist so wichtig im Dienst. Firstly we please God.

Zuerst sollen wir Gott gefallen.

We don't want to purposely just offend people.

Wir wollen natürlich nicht die Leute beleidigen und ein Anstoß sein. That's extreme.

Das ist ein extrem. But at the same time our first burden is to please God.

Aber zur selben Zeit unsere erste Last ist, dass wir Gott gefallen.

Making God the Goal in Ministry

Then the third principle is making God your goal.

Ist, dass Gott dein Ziel ist.

We have already spoken about this. Wir haben davon schon gesprochen. There is nothing more important than that.

Es gibt nichts Wichtigeres als das.

What if you have a great tragedy in your ministry?

Was ist, wenn du eine große Tragödie in deinem Dienst hast?

The whole church votes that you must leave. They don't want you anymore.

Finished. Die ganze Gemeinde stimmt dafür, dass du gehst. Sie will dich nicht mehr. Es ist zu Ende.

Or something more difficult. Oder etwas noch schwierigeres. Does God die at that moment?

Stirbt Gott in diesem Augenblick?

Often it's only when we have nothing left but God. We learn that God is enough.

Und manchmal ist es erst dann, wenn wir sehen, dass wir nichts außer Gott haben, dass wir lernen, Gott genügt. And then the fourth principle is very, very important. Das ist außerordentlich wichtig.

Learning to Endure Hurt and Offense

We have to learn how to be hurt. Wir müssen lernen, how to be offended, how to be hurt.

Wie wir verletzt werden, wie wir uns dafür halten, wenn wir beleidigt werden.

You're going to be hurt if you're in the ministry.

Ihr werdet verletzt werden, wenn ihr im Dienst steht. There's no way to escape it. Es gibt keine Methode, wie man da entfliehen könnte.

You're going to be hurt if you get married.

Du wirst beleidigt werden, erzürnt werden, wenn du verheiratest.

You're going to be hurt if you become a father.

Du wirst verletzt werden, wenn du ein Vater wirst.

In fact, you're going to be hurt if you do anything.

Und in der Tat ist es so, du wirst verletzt werden, was immer du auch tust.

Let us this week grow up.

Wollen wir in dieser Woche zunehmen.

Let us do away with some of our naive, superficial viewpoints about life on planet Earth.

Wollen wir einige dieser naiven und oberflächlichen Gedanken, wie das Leben auf diesem Planeten Erde aussieht, wegtun. Nothing is perfect, dear. Nichts ist vollkommen hier.

Error and sin and mistakes seem to move in from every side.

Und Sünde und Fehler und Irrtum kommen von allen Seiten herein.

So many difficulties come in marriage because of this.

Es kommen so viele Schwierigkeiten in der Ehe wegen diesem.

The wife marries the man she thinks is the ideal husband.

Die Frau heiratet den Mann, von dem sie denkt, das ist der ideale Ehemann. Vielleicht hat sie ihn predigen hören. Oh, was für ein wunderbarer Prediger ist er doch. Ich kann euch sagen, dass ein guter Prediger zu sein hat wenig zu tun mit der Ehe.

Deine Frau sitzt im Schlafzimmer in der Nacht.

She is waiting for a few words of affection. She is wanting you to hold her hand and to comfort her and to tell her how much you love her.

And you step into the bedroom.

And give your discourse on the great meaning of Romans 8 chapter. Whatever. You don't understand why she is not more excited about these great theological truths that you are throwing out to the family.

Und du bist dann erstaunt, wenn du merkst, wie wenig sie darüber aufgeregt ist, also Anteil nimmt an den großen theologischen Wahrheiten,.

Die du in der Familie sagst. She has been praying for four months that you would fix the lights and that you would fix the lights so the lights would turn on. And perhaps you should have a course on practical household discipleship.

Because if you are not careful you will find that you and your wife are in two totally different worlds. And of course this means you will end up hurting her.

In many ways.

In my life it was a lack of sensitivity. I don't know if you have a word for that in German but it's a very important word. She looks terrible. Yes. Einfühlungsvermögen, Feingefühl. Being sensitive to the other person's feelings and emotions.

Many years ago I would never buy my wife any flowers. We are in the spiritual warfare. What place have flowers in the spiritual warfare? And of course I told my wife all the reasons seven reasons why I will not buy flowers.

And of course she wanted to be the good disciple.

So she said, oh, it's okay, it's okay I know you love me. Then I began to come into maturity. Mom, I still did not want to spend any money. I still didn't want to spend any money to buy the flowers.

So I went to the fields picking flowers. And of course some of the flowers I brought like these ones that grow on the lawn we call them dandelions were not very appropriate. I don't know about the German culture and the Swiss culture but in America and England you don't give those flowers to people.

Somehow a few years ago God gave me the great faith.

To give some flowers.

And yesterday I arranged through the telephone for my children to buy some nice flowers and give them to my wife from me for her anniversary. If only I had learned some of these basic principles.

Twenty-five years ago. At Moody Bible Institute they filled my head with Bible verses.

And theology. But they didn't give me any clues about living on planet earth as a person a human being. And there is a danger when we study theology that we will be way up here in a cloud.

Of theological clichés and jargon and we will not even know how to properly pull up our zipper.

Now I'm being very practical because if you stand before the congregation.

With a great sermon but this is not arranged properly.

Your message may not make the impact that you want. Do not use that illustration in your German churches.

That is only special because we have become friends.

But you will remember the point. The little practical areas of life are important and there must be the union of theology and reality. If we are to be the men and women to make an impact on this generation and therefore we will not be so hurt when people hurt us we will know this is part of life.

Even if someday after 15 years of marriage your wife in a depressed moment says I don't really love you anymore. I don't know what's wrong I just must be honest I don't really love you. And if you of course love her that can be a terrible experience.

But if you have some wisdom you will know that that sometimes can happen in a person's emotions and you will accept that probably at that time she does love you but that her feelings have changed and the same thing can happen to you.

It's not the time to seek the divorce court.

But it's the time to seek revival in your home and get your priorities right. I've had times when I didn't feel that I loved the Lord Jesus Christ. Times quite often when there was no feeling toward God or toward Christ.

I was just numb but I decided at that moment to stand firm and say oh God I love you even though my feelings may be totally dead.

At this moment it's not easy to be a pastor. It's more difficult to be a pastor's wife.

And what do we say of the pastor's children. And we need desperately need to understand these principles of survival for the sake of our whole family.

Praise and Thanksgiving in Hardship

And then the fifth principle.

Is learning the reality of praise and thanksgiving. We have already emphasized this but how important it is even in the midst of the problems just to praise the Lord. You see the devil tries to get us mountain climbing over mole hills.

You know the little animal in the garden makes a little hill. The devil tries to get us mountain climbing over mole hills. In other words he tries to take little things and make them bigger and bigger and bigger.

You may have this experience in your church. You may have this experience at the seminary. Some little thing happens people start to talk it gets bigger and bigger pretty soon. You have even disunity.

You know living on a ship of 300 people is very interesting.

Especially because it's easy for Christians with their tongues. Recently we had to ask someone to leave the ship. It was a very serious thing. Five leaders agreed this person had to leave.

He was of one particular nationality so the gossip went around. He's having to leave because he's this nationality. They leaders don't like our nationality. Before they could listen to the total complicated story the tongues begin to talk.

This person of course is hurt so he presents his case.

To his friends so soon the ship leaders are here.

And this little party of talking people are over here in rebellion and they are ready for total warfare.

Because of this they had to stop everything and bring the whole ship together. Everybody and the leaders had to present the whole situation and then praise God even the person. This doesn't always happen.

Even the person admitted they were wrong and admitted it would be best to go.

You know one of the problems with the church today is the leaders of the church are afraid to tell anybody to ever leave the church because it is the most difficult task.

But there must be some discipline in the work of God and naturally the tendency.

When someone is disciplining you is to turn on them and find something wrong with their life because we all have something wrong but that is a great mistake because when we are disciplining a person that is not the time to start pointing fingers at everybody else.

We must deal with that issue first.

Because when we want to discipline a person that is not the time to start pointing fingers at other people but it is about this one person and that is why it is so important to have wisdom how to deal with people when you are disciplining.

And the more opportunities.

You have with different people to get to know them before you start disciplining the more opportunities you have as a pastor and remember when everything does go wrong.

You still need to just praise and thank the Lord because that will give you the spiritual strength you need in the midst of that hard situation. You need him. You need the spiritual strength at that time.

Oh if only God's people would learn to praise the Lord not just when it is going right not just when they are being appreciated but when things are going wrong. This has been so important in my own life.

We had many many problems in Operation Mobilization. I can assure you my mail is being sent express every day from London I'm picking it up in Zurich telegrams, telexes, letters every day. The problems are there and I've learned whatever is in the mail.

Praise the Lord. This is not my work this is God's work these are not my ships.

The enormous problems of operating these ships plus all the rest of the work. These are not my ships. These are God's ships. I do what I can.

And I put all into the hands of God because otherwise I'll be a sick man. Some books say that when you become 40 you enter the middle life crisis.

Some books say that when you become 40 you enter the middle life crisis and a man recently wrote a book called The Middle Life Crisis and I felt quite well when I started to read this book.

I was feeling well until I started to read this book. Then I started to think about all these possible crises.

I'm going to have.

I put the book aside. I've not touched it since. Casting every care upon him praising him. These are some of the principles.

Of survivalship.

And you'll get some more in the afternoon if you survive. Let us pray our God and Father. We thank you for the practical implications of your word.

We thank you Lord.

That you can help us take the theology we have in our hands and work it into our practical lives. Lord you can give us the wisdom and the discernment we need to be leaders in your church. Nothing is too hard and even though some of us may have disadvantages you can well overcome that and through your word we shall triumph in Jesus name.

Amen. Well I feel very refreshed. I was able to go refreshed as I was able to go swimming in your beautiful local swimming pool typically Swiss incredibly impeccably clean. And not too expensive. Of course for all you suffering poverty stricken students I realize it would be difficult to pay four francs but if you're feeling the strain I'll be glad to loan you four francs until you're a rich pastor and then you can pay me back.

The Rest of Faith in Hebrews 4

Let us continue from where we were this morning as we examine a few more of these basic principles of survival. I'm sure many of you are getting your heads full. What are you going to do with all of this teaching.

But I think it's important to realize that some of you may never have this same opportunity ever again in your life. I've spoken on some of these things to pastors men 50 and 60 years 70 years old and some of them have written to me or they have come to me and they said only I had heard some of these things.

When I was a student and I think it's important to realize that some things that I say are important for some other things are important for others and in the midst of the material.

You have to appropriate that which is especially relevant for your thinking and your situation and I do hope that somehow in the coming months you will be able to review and pray through some of this material.

Let us now go to the sixth point. It doesn't matter if you have one number more or one number less but here we want to look at Hebrews chapter 4 where we read about the rest of faith. This is a beautiful chapter in God's word.

Let us begin at verse 6 since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience. And then going down to verse 9 there remains therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God.

For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall through. Following the same example of disobedience we have the principle of sabbath rest but it also seems to indicate that for the believer there is a rest of faith which is a way of life and I have met many people who have had an experience with the Lord in which they shifted from striving in their own effort to resting in the Lord.

There are men like Ian Thomas who has strongly emphasized this teaching and Alan Redpath. Of course some take it to extremes and the writings of Dr. Lloyd Jones especially his new series on the Christian armor that certainly keeps some of this in the right perspective.

Needless to say I think there is a basic biblical place of resting in the Lord. After all God answers prayer. He can answer prayer regarding our own emotional and spiritual life. The first big OM effort in Europe was in 1962.

This is really the second birth of OM. What we were doing was completely new. We had about 200 people. I was living in London and we had about 90.

From Great Britain we had all these old trucks old vehicles and I was driving one of the biggest ones that made me nervous. The whole thought of what was ahead of us that summer as a totally new thing made me very tense even as I was driving down the highway.

And then the engine started to go wrong and it started to backfire making these big explosions even as we went across London Bridge. But as we drove to Dover something happened to me in that I just sensed well, it's in the Lord's hands it's in the Lord's hands and I came into a place of just relaxation and I'll always remember that experience and again and again I've had to, in a sense re-enter into that place of resting in the Lord.

God's Mercy, Grace, and Loving Acceptance

The seventh principle is one I've taken from A .W. Tozer. He got it from some of the.

Old mystics and it's good to read some of these old saints of God. Some of them even within the Catholic Church had a very deep walk with God and we can learn something from them. Tozer said, God is easy to live with.

I had to stop and read that again because it seems at times that discipleship and a strong presentation of God makes him very hard to live with. And many today have a very hard and legalistic view of God.

Maybe it's because their father was that way. Maybe your own father was stern with a big stick and when you did something wrong crotch. It's not easy to get the right view of God. It's the most difficult area to find balance and we are all learning including me the balance between the mercy of God and the judgment of God.

But we see that through Jesus Christ and the blood of Christ God has now made us righteous. It's not a matter of us earning our own righteousness and this should affect us spiritually and emotionally.

And I believe God is quick to mark even the smallest thing you do in his name and he's quick to overlook things that you may do wrong especially when he sees that your heart is right and broken before him.

The bible says a cup of cold water given in his name will not go without reward. Tozer said God knows all about us and he loves us still. Tozer said God knows all about us and he loves us still. Most people have things they do in secret and they are ashamed of.

But God knows what they are and the thrilling thing is he knows and he still loves us. And I believe it's not the law that brings spiritual growth. It's the grace and the message of grace that brings spiritual growth.

Accepting God's Pattern of Spiritual Growth

Then the eighth point.

Learning to accept God's growth pattern in your life.

Learning to accept God's growth pattern in your life.

Philippians 1 .6 is a very popular verse and I still love it.

And I am confident.

That he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus God has begun a work in you.

And in the youngest convert you are working with and we need to have that confidence that he will continue that work now. When I was a student I did a lot of evangelism. That was the thing that kept me going every weekend Saturday, Sunday out in evangelism taking what I learned in school and applying it working among drunkards drug addicts Spanish people.

And what? Spanish people who lived in Chicago and that's where I got reality therapy. Because if you are going to get involved with people in an in depth way you are going to get very big disappointments.

We make a great mistake if we think all a man has to do is be born again and then he will live happily ever after. And you can go back to your evangelical scorecard and mark up one more soul has come to Christ.

People go to their meetings and they think ho ho ho they are Pentecostal. People go to their meetings and they think ho ho ho they are Pentecostal. But in fact Bach Zing is the biggest.

Anti-Pentecostal. In all of India we can think that we know something.

But we we only turn our prejudices and I say that we have to avoid categorizing people especially if we don't know them. Different people grow different fast. Layne Adams.

Who worked with Billy Graham wrote an excellent book. The book is called.

Why is it taking so long. Have you ever asked that question. Why is it taking so long in my life. And the tendency is to become impatient with your own spiritual growth. If you go out to the woods could you watch a tree grow.

If you met a man in the woods and he said he was watching you would have some questions about him. Yet the tree is growing and you are growing. It may be slowly. But if you are walking with Jesus and if you are keeping your heart clean you are growing.

What is the thing that often grows in a very spectacular way. What is the thing that grows in a spectacular way. Often it's the weeds that grow very quickly and trees take a long time. So this is so important and it touches many areas of our life.

Especially when we meet Christian leaders. Without saying. Especially as young students we expect the Christian leaders to be more or less perfect. We don't say that but we expect that and we always think well.

The leaders should be setting the example for us and they should be ministering to us. But it says in Timothy let no man despise your youth. You be an example to the believers. And there is a danger that we get our eyes on man instead of upon the Lord and upon his word.

And if God has given you more light on a particular subject.

Be patient with others who may not have yet seen that light. Then the ninth principle I call it the freedom of a disciplined and ordered life. Discipline does not bring bondage discipline brings freedom.

Discipline, Submission, and Doing God's Will

This is a beautiful thing. You may feel that seminary is very hard and probably it is hard. It's probably a lot of studies a lot of work but what do you think that life is all about. It's time to face the reality that you're no longer a little child playing in the sandbox in back of your daddy's house.

I always admire the farmers wherever I go. Any of you come from a farm. One or two. All that I know about farms is very hard work and it's not seven hours a day.

In many of the countries that I have lived in.

People have to work 15 hours a day just to get food and as we walk with the Lord Jesus Christ we must avoid the mud puddle of self-pity. We must avoid falling into self-pity and we think oh we are studying so hard or we have such a hard life and think about some of the other people.

We will realize that we have a very easy time most of us in western Europe and in fact to be able to study about God for three or four years is a privilege that few people have in this world.

And I believe God allows this privilege that you in turn may go in a few years and just give yourself to these other people that they may also know God and His word. And I believe that God allows this privilege that you in turn may go in a few years and just give yourself to these other people that they may also know God and His word.

When I was studying at Moody the work of OM was already born.

So I had all of my work in correspondence fifty hundred letters a week fifty to a hundred letters a week plus meetings speaking at meetings plus a lot of private study and research.

Plus all of the school work and there were some nights when I didn't go to bed at all not even one hour. Of course the school didn't know that.

They didn't have room in the main building they put me down the road in the YMCA. They were hard days and especially when examinations came but I thank God for those days and I had to submit to the leaders of the school.

I didn't like some of the rules and more than having some pages of rules do this, don't do that go here, don't go here. And once I broke one of the rules and I thought, oh that's nothing but God convicted me.

I went to the dean of men the man in charge of the men and I apologized and told him I'd broken this rule.

And I apologized and told him I'd broken this rule and I was a little afraid of this man.

And I thought maybe I'd get an evangelical bark but he understood me. We talked together. We have now been friends and prayer partners for 22 years. He's retired from that school and most people forget him but we've never forgotten one another.

Recently he came to one of the OM conferences even though he can just now hardly walk. This was a very important thing in my life from the time after I left the school. I was destined to be the leader in my own work.

So those two years of submitting to other leaders even when I did not agree were very important in building and shaping my own character. And it's easy. And now I have to ask 1 ,200 OM people to submit to our leadership.

And at least I can sense that I had to go through a similar experience. One of the most important things in life is to learn to do things we don't like to do. You may think that I like to speak here three times a day.

I speak 600 times a year if I had my way.

I would speak 100 times. I would still be in the swimming pool.

Life does not consist of doing what you feel like doing. It consists of doing the will of God.

Life does not consist of doing what you feel like doing. It consists of doing the will of God. Last week I came back from a six-week tour of Asia for you that may sound.

Very exciting but I have been traveling 100 ,000 miles a year for 20 years. I want to sit down but you see I am bought with a price. I have to do the will of God and the wonderful thing is that as we do the will of God there is a degree of enjoyment and blessing.

Jesus said my meat is to do the will of God and this is such an important concept and principle.

And without that principle of course none of you are going to go to the mission field. We are not going to get any Swiss people.

To forsake this luxurious paradise of a land to go out and work in a place like Calcutta it is only when Christ becomes the total Lord of our lives.

That he will be able to move us out to the hard places and of course when we are doing God's will even in our own country.

There will still be plenty of hardships and struggles and battles you can be sure of that so be patient with your spiritual growth and the growth of your brothers and sisters and make disciplined living and dying to self a major factor in your life.

And make it a major concern of your life that you discipline yourself. I have a message called the 20 days of a disciplined life.

Because in English there are 20 different disciplines that all start with the letter D. Like the discipline of details. Like the discipline of little details like getting somebody's address and phone number correctly.

Many people I meet do not even know how to use the telephone in their own country. It's not so simple any longer. You're trying to call somewhere maybe in Switzerland. You make two mistakes. You're talking to some lady in Australia or California and of course people from Germany and Switzerland generally already are strong in some of these areas.

Sexual Purity and Accountability in Ministry

Generally I don't walk in the meeting and say well now just down the road. I was tempted by this pornography and had a bad time.

I generally don't do that but I have individuals.

That I can share with when I feel that I have had a hard experience. The amazing thing is this so often when I have shared with people I find out they have the same problem. But of course some of these things we don't talk about we neatly repress them into some special compartment into our brain.

We wonder why. Spiritually speaking we have some kind of headache with over 300 verses in the Bible on the subject of sex. If you bypass that you forget a very important part of God's word and it will come out later in your ministry.

And sometimes there are more problems in this area among the more evangelical strict people than there are among some of the liberal people.

And it's an ugly thing when it happens. I had a young man write to me. This is a true story he said. A man came to our college to speak about holiness. I went to the man for counseling.

And he seduced me he was a homosexual and he seduced me into sin. He wrote to me and he said what should I do. And I said you must go back and tell the leaders of your school what had happened through this visiting preacher on holiness.