Challenge to Students - Part 4

My globe shrunk. Really, I don't like this little one, but my co-workers were unable to repair the leaks in the other globe. Well, here we are, our final evening here in the amphitheater. We hope many of you will sign up for our follow-up night tomorrow night, because I believe that's going to be important, even though it's in a different location. This has been an exciting week. And I just want to commend those who plan and organize. And way back when, whoever birthed this, I believe that this kind of event is desperately needed. Many of our churches no longer have any real serious missions conference. Some do. Praise God for that. This is not in any way in competition to that. Both my Sundays here, I'm ministering at four different local churches, which is made possible, really, because of your invite in the first place. But we urgently need time so we can hear testimonies like we just heard, and all kinds of other things that we've received during these days together. We've come to that evening when we're going to call people to make a decision. If you don't feel you're ready to make a decision, we're not interested in manipulating you. We're not interested in putting extra pressure on you but the committee that pray about these things have put this little form on your chair. You might want to just pick that up. I know when the lights are not on at the auditorium, it's hard to see. And maybe at the end, we'll ask them to put the lights on. But I hope you'll seriously consider this. My invitation is going to be a little more generic, a little more general. It's going to be two different levels. Number one, linked with my first night, Isaiah 6, here am I, send me. Quite a few have already prayed that prayer. And at the end of my message this evening, I'm going to ask you to just stand up. If you'll pray that prayer, here am I, send me, knowing that it may not be to some other country. It may be across the street. It may be also at that moment, the Holy Spirit will just confirm that He's already sent you. So it's a prayer of commitment. It's a prayer of reality. It's a prayer of availability. It's like last night when many of you said you'd pray for Tibet. Not necessarily going to go to Tibet, but you're at least willing to pray for Tibet, and maybe you have prayed for Tibet today. So be thinking about that, be praying for that. I personally feel that every true believer who loves Jesus should be able to respond to that basic invitation. Here am I, send me. My second level invitation, and those people I'm gonna ask to come forward and stand around my globe are people that during these days, you've sensed that God is leading you out into one of these other countries. Doesn't have to be in that top 10. Might be just up to Mozambique. Might be just over to Angola. Might be Sudan. But you sense that God is definitely pushing you, leading you, use what vocabulary you want. For at least short term. You know, a lot of people today are getting their long term career guidance during a time of short term. And so my plea, my invitation on this second level is for people who are willing to say yes, I'm gonna start pushing doors. I'm gonna start taking steps of faith to go. Maybe one of the ones listed on that paper, and you can tick that off. Or it may be with some other group. Like hopefully maybe a few of you on our OM ships. Or one of our other many fields. We have many, many South Africans. It's more or less our seventh or eighth largest field in the world. And I've been with a lot of our coworkers today. But there are other agencies represented and there's all kinds of opportunities. So I'm giving you that warning in advance. I'm really not firstly appealing to your emotions tonight. We are emotional beings. But I'm appealing more to your mind. And I'm longing that at the end of my sharing, and we're gonna have a further time of worship, there will be steps of faith. It'll be an act of the will. Some of you may feel very much geared to taking a step of faith. Others may not feel that much, but your mind is telling you this is a moment. This is an hour to take a step of faith in regard to the nations of the world. I'd like to give away a couple of more free books this evening at the book table. One is the very first book I ever wrote. They finally revised it. I think this is the revised edition. If it doesn't mention CDs and things like that, then somehow it's the old edition. But in any case, it's free. There is dynamite in literature. It's actually the Indian edition. And this book, I actually wrote out a lot of it by longhand or typed it myself. Some of my other books were done with more help. Whole ministries have been born through this book. And I believe some of you are catching a vision during these days of the power of the printed page, and that may help you. The other book that we're giving away free is AIDS and You. A lot went out a couple nights ago. We had to get more of them. Patrick Dixon, this great doctor, who's written one of the very best books, basic book about AIDS. And I understand from my research today that some churches in South Africa, they don't even mention this. They don't even wanna mention HIV and AIDS. I can't believe that. This is the biggest epidemic that has ever hit Africa and the world. Now, maybe bird flu is gonna catch up. It's not happened yet. They predict when that really begins to roll, it'll take millions, and much, much quicker than HIV and AIDS. You see, if you have HIV and AIDS and you're wealthy, you can get this special medication and you can live 10, 15 years. But if you're poor, like a majority of people who have HIV, then you're gonna die. That is changing a little. I heard in Nigeria through donations, and maybe that's true in South Africa, poorer people are getting these fantastic medications that can keep people going at least for a few years. Another new book that we put on the table tonight is by a friend of mine. I was just with him, Tony Anthony. I really pray someday he'll come to South Africa. He's one of the most out-of-the-box evangelists I've ever met. He was the Kung Fu World Champion many years ago. He then got working for a mafia-style organization. I don't even wanna mention some of the things he did. He ended up in prison in Cyprus where he was saved by the power of God. And through years of growth and grace, God launched him into a ministry of evangelism. Just before I came here, I met with one of his board members, a financial guy, and I'm on the board of reference. This book is being given for 10 rand, about 1 1⁄4 of the normal price. The idea is for you to pass it on, especially anyone into karate, kung fu, all that kind of thing. This is a book that will grip them. It's a powerful evangelistic book. And then lastly, this evening, I especially would like to at least give another opportunity to get my book that has three of my books together, Hunger for Reality, No Turning Back, Revolution of Love. Terrific way I can follow up on what I've tried to share with you. So that's being offered this evening at half price. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these nights together here in this amphitheater. We thank you for all we've learned, all we've heard, the tremendous times of worship. Help us, Lord, tonight to not be hearers of the word, but to be doers, to make decisions that will impact people, impact nations. And we're asking you for the faith, we can't do it in ourselves, to take these steps of faith. We do cry out to you again for so many nations, Lord, so many nations where there's just such phenomenal need. We think of some of the countries we haven't talked about so much, Mauritania and Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad. We think, dear God, of some of those other countries in Central Asia like Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan. We think of China, many unreached people's groups in China. We think of, Lord, places like Bhutan and the Maldives, and we think of Pakistan where hardly any breakthrough among the Muslim people. Lord, we reach out by faith to the nations of the world. We thank you that we can go out to an airport, get on a discount flight, and eight hours, 10 hours later, we can be in these nations. Father, this is part, this is part of your global plan so that the whole world can be reached with the gospel, and people from every tribe and kindred and tongue can gather unto you. We bless you, God, for what you're already doing. In Jesus' name, amen. When I was preparing, I wanted to make sure I mentioned just a few of the phenomenal breakthroughs. We've talked about the 10 most impossible, difficult nations in the world. We've heard a lot of challenges. Even in speaking about Sudan, I think we forgot to mention that southern Sudan is probably one of the greatest spiritual breakthroughs in the entire history of the global church. From 7% to 70%. Our brother and sister are probably working in the north where we have been working also for some 30 years. That's a whole different world. But in southern Sudan, there has been this breakthrough. This has not happened among the Dafurs in western Sudan where all this war is going on, where 200,000 have died. So of course, when we look at a country like Sudan, and it's true of most nations, there's sort of many nations within that nation. And you in South Africa ought to know something of what that's about, right? So we praise God for these breakthroughs. Another phenomenal breakthrough some years ago was Albania. I remember praying for Albania for 30 years without seeing a breakthrough. We were almost the biggest smugglers of literature in Eastern Europe for 20 years. We never could break into Albania. We tried tracks and bottles down the rivers. They put up nets to catch them. Hardly any literature was going out or getting into Albania. They were so fanatic. There were hardly any believers, hardly any churches. We just kept praying. We tried some crazy things. When our ship was sailing along the coast of Albania, we launched these helium balloons with gospel tracks, but we didn't understand the winds, and I think they blew over to Italy. All of a sudden, in answer to prayer and fasting, the communist wall came down. People rushed into Albania, and churches were planted overnight. Albania is one of the greatest breakthroughs seen in my lifetime. I thank God that he answers prayer. We've seen a similar thing in Algeria. After years of mighty men left among the Berbers and the Arabs, a breakthrough 10 or 15 years ago finally came among the Berbers. Today, there are thousands of Berbers that have left Islam and are worshiping Jesus. Thousands in little churches. They have little Bible schools. They're having conferences. They're having pastor training, all in Arabic. I guess some of them have their own Berber language as well. These are mainly among the Kabili, the Kabili people. There's a book about it. I'd be happy to send it to you. I've had some great emails from some of you. They get printed up and handed to me, and I read them and pray through them, and I don't answer them all immediately, but no one could possibly ever work it out to send me too many emails. I just feed on emails, so I love films. When I get on these long flights and have my emails with me, I get so excited about the emails, I forget to even watch the film, which is really unusual for me. I'm a total film nutcase. We've seen breakthroughs in India. Among the Dalits, the untouchables that we referred to last night, and I'm not speaking about OM now. I'm not speaking about my own organization. I'm speaking about the body of Christ. I'm speaking about what God is doing through all kinds of different methods and missionaries, but in India, we've just seen phenomenal breakthroughs in certain states. Other states, we've not yet seen it. India's a huge place. If you get a chance to go to India, you ought to grab it. India changed my life. I never planned on initially going there. I went there on a short-term exploratory trip and turned my life upside down. I think I've already mentioned that. This is harvest time for India. Our little OM teams crisscrossing the nation, about 1,000 on our staff there, have seen 1,000 churches born just in the past couple of years. We originally only worked with other church planters. We were evangelists. We were mass evangelists. We were working with the poor, among HIV-AIDS people. We have a huge literature work. So, in church planting, we stayed out of it. We just helped. So many people have been coming to Jesus. We had to allow a whole new movement, the Good Shepherd Church movement to be born under the leadership of Joseph de Sousa and other people. What about China, the breakthroughs in China? Maybe a million believers when the missionaries were pushed out, maybe less. Today, 60 or 70 million believers in China. I was just in Hong Kong at a conference of the Back to Jerusalem movement. Some of you've seen that book, The Heavenly Man. You heard that brother come and share when he was here. And of course, people immediately often get things wrong. They don't listen carefully. They're not saying that 100,000 people are coming out of China into global missions. That's their dream. So far, only a few hundred have come. And we met in Hong Kong to try to sort out some of the problems we're already having. But it's tied to a phenomenal work of God that has taken place in China. We said, thank God for that. It's still a small percentage of believers, a much, much tiny percentage of believers compared to what you have in South Africa. But we still need to praise God for it, just as we praise God for what he has done here in your own country in the midst of phenomenal harvest. I've heard of church after church in South Africa that within a few years grew from a dozen or 100 to 300, 500,000. God has worked in your country. You need to thank him. We need to praise him for that. I think of the breakthroughs in so many other African countries. As Africa, south of the Sahara, has been probably one of the greatest harvests in the world, literally tens of millions that have come and professed faith. Many are baby Christians. Many need teaching. They need good food. The needs in Africa are overwhelming. In some parts, they tell me there's a Bible famine. I have many people writing to me from different parts of Africa. They need Bibles. They need two Testaments. Often, these Bibles are quite expensive, equal to almost three days' salary. And then in some of these nations, we've got 25% unemployment. We've gotta become more proactive in ministering to the believers as well as engaging in evangelism. We've got to not be just gathering decisions but making disciples. What a privilege you have living in Africa. Get to some of these other countries, some of them you can walk to. Get to some of these other countries as soon as you possibly can. Get involved in short-term missions. During that short-term mission, God could confirm whether He's leading you into something longer-term. Some of you should consider even missions in Europe. There's no comparison between in going, I speak Spanish for 40 years. There's no comparison between the church there and what you have here. There's no comparison. They're not even 2% of the amount of witness you have here. That's not to in any way say you shouldn't work here. This is where you live. It is normal, it is natural, it is beautiful for many of you to just bloom here right where you are in the business world, in the world of arts, in agriculture, in education. To bloom here, there's nothing wrong with that. We've made that clear night after night. But we've had this week because we also wanna include these other parts of the world. And in a few moments, I wanna share five or maybe six reasons why you should at least short-term ministry in one of these other countries. There's many other breakthroughs, but we're always battling the clock. That's why I love the books. They can follow up when we have to finish. And I urge you to just spend some time at that book table. Also tonight, right by the prayer tent, if you'd just like to pray with someone about your commitment to missions or to Jesus, they'll be counselors, just ordinary people who love Jesus outside the prayer tent are willing to just pray with you, even during the worship. Some of you have done a lot of worship. Maybe you should just slip out and talk with one of those counselors and pray about the decision that you make this evening. Turn with me now, if you can, to the Gospel of Mark. Mark, the Gospel of Mark, chapter two. I don't know if we could get the lights on in the auditorium just for a few moments. If you can't, that's okay. Mark, sorry, chapter one, Gospel of Mark, chapter one. After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee. That was John the Baptist. Proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come, he said. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news. As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I'll make you fishers of men. At once, they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay, he called them. It's amazing, isn't it? He called them. They left their father, Zebedee. This poor guy, I feel sorry for him. They left their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired men, and they followed him. They followed Jesus. This is the word of God. And then we go over to chapter two. Very different kind of a guy. A guy named Levi, Matthew. He was a tax collector. He was a real wheeler dealer, a real shyster, if there ever was one. Verse 13. Once again, Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me, Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him. It's just, it's bizarre. It's just too much. This is not properly organized. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners, the really bad guys, guys we don't associate with, were eating with him and his disciples. There were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law, who were Pharisees, saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick I have come to call the righteous. Not to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. I don't know if any of you are here for the first time, but I just wanna say something that I said on one of the earlier evenings. If there may be someone here that doesn't yet know Jesus personally, not yet have that assurance of your salvation. He may be a nice person. He may not be out into bank robbing and grandmother beating and other things. But the Bible says, all have sinned. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You need Jesus. I'm here because on March 5th, way back in 1955 at 16, God saved me in a meeting, quite different from this, 20,000 people. The whole message was just about salvation and Jesus. And I took that step of faith, partly because the lady had been praying that I would not only get saved, but become a missionary. And within a short time, I knew that God was calling me to leave my nets. I had three businesses at that time and to leave my country that I love. I never dreamed that when I left 46 years ago, I would never return to my own country. My wife as well, except to preach or to take a ministry trip. I believe there may be someone here doesn't know Jesus. And I hope when I finish, you'll go over to that tent, meet one of those counselors and share with them. But can I share with you this message or this sort of outline that I've shared all over the world that the Holy Spirit has used. And that's my prayer tonight, that the Holy Spirit will somehow touch your own heart. I wanna give you six reasons. Six reasons why you should seriously consider at least short term missions. Again, I wanna remind you that I believe everybody can pray that prayer, where am I, send me. Because that's a prayer of availability. And that may mean going across the street, just acknowledging that the Lord's already sent you and saying you're available for the next step when you finish uni or whenever. But I want us to also consider the challenge of these nations we've been talking about throughout the week. And I wanna just give you these six reasons. Again and again, I've seen reasons based on fact, based on what the Holy Spirit is doing to somehow touch people and call them out to unreached people and to other nations of the world. To be a short term missionary or to be a longer term career missionary. In these days, in this unpredictable world, a lot of the people that thought they were going career, long term, guess what? They ended up short term. You think that's a big problem with God? You think God can't sort that out? And many of those people are back after 10 years or seven years of service, they're back in their own local churches. And many, many churches have been blessed by people who have gone to the field for some years and are now back pastoral ministry or mission mobilization in their local church. We're all in this together. The first reason is the need is so overwhelming. We talked about those seven people laying by the side of the road. That just alone should cause us to be more available. We talked about these 10 impossible nations and we know there's at least 30 or 40 other nations that are somewhat similar. We've talked about the spiritual need, we've talked about the physical need. We don't have time to say much more about it tonight. But whatever we've heard here, I can assure you, multiply it by 10. Whenever you think about HIV AIDS, multiply it by 10. Whenever you think about abused women, multiply it by 10. Whenever you think about the numbers of people that are lost and bound for eternity, separated from God, multiply it by 10 and then you might begin to feel something of the need, something of the reality of the global situation. I would love to see more of you launched into student ministries. We have universities in places like Rome, Paris, Zurich. Universities even in London where the Christian student movement is really, really struggling at present. Where we desperately, urgently need more student ambassadors to come as a student or to come as a graduate. Pick up your little PhD in the process as you win others to Jesus. Even to enroll in the University of Istanbul or Ankara or Kabul or Tehran or what about Jerusalem? I don't know if they have a university in Jerusalem. I was there recently. I should have checked that out. The need, of course, does not demand that you immediately go there. Our call, our guidance, our step of faith is not just based on need but it's a fact. Surely we can't throw it to one side. And so we, that is one of the reasons you should consider, you should pray. You should push some doors. The second reason that you should consider going and by the way, I'm not talking about the person next to you at this point. I'm not talking about the person you think is more clever. We've already made it clear that God is taking your picture. And so I'm talking to you and I believe you need to consider going. The second reason is there are so many open doors. There are so many opportunities and open doors. This is not the day where they're just looking for theologians and preachers and highly trained, experienced apostolic church planters, all kinds of people. Because in frontline spiritual community, for every person on the frontline, you need a number of people behind the scenes. We need godly people in missionary offices here in South Africa. We need godly people involved in training people in our Bible colleges and training institutes. And then on the field, we need people with many different skills, people with medical skills, people with computer skills, people with financial skills, people with organizational skills. One of the skills God gave me through being in business and through my training was the ability to organize, the ability to solve problems, which led, of course, to many other spiritual adventures. The opportunities for all kinds of people, including people that don't feel they have so much talent. We get a lot of those people come to our ship. Our ship is basically a training ship. We have a lot of people come to our ship because they're really not sure what country they should go to, they're not sure what their skills are, they want that experience, a lot of different people. And so they come, some of them quite young and inexperienced, they usually have to go through some preparation here before they're accepted. Guess what they discover on the ship? They have a lot more talent than they thought. What about music ministry? Wow, and we had some out of the box music ministry here. I love it, I love it. Some of you have got gifting in that area, maybe you need developing. We see a lot of people in the music ministry, they never even thought they had. It's exciting, there's so many opportunities, so many open doors. There are hardly any closed doors left. Even Saudi Arabia, people are flocking in, talking about Jesus. They don't go in with big Bibles and a big missionary hat and a sign, I'm a missionary. They go in because God gave them a job. God opened the door and they walked through it. That's happening all over the world. China is calling for another, I don't know, what is it, 10,000 English teachers? Some of you feel your English is not that great, don't worry about it. Really? When you're teaching in English, there's a book, Bluff Your Way Through English Teaching. God can use you. My English was terrible. I was teaching Spanish when I couldn't even speak Spanish. I'll never forget because one night when I was praying for finance, this is before I went to Mexico, I was just saying one lesson at a time, and I had these students who were really dummies. I remember one night driving home, praying for finance, and we were really short of money, and a fox dashed out in front of my car, stepped on a gas and hit this little fox, and I was able to collect quite a bit of bounty with this dead fox. I actually stopped telling that story, forgive me, because the animal rights people were in my audience. They got on my case. One of the most exciting things are the open doors that God has given in the former communist world. It's just bizarre. Some of you know, when I first went to Europe, I attempted this Bible smuggling thing in Russia, and I got arrested. And it was in that day of prayer, after that fiasco, that God gave me the vision, Operation Mobilization. Then for many years, we were major Bible smugglers in all those countries. We had stuff confiscated, vehicles confiscated, people thrown in prison. It was hard going. And then, in God's mercy, the Iron Curtain went down. I wanna tell you, brothers and sisters, it's harvest time in Eastern Europe. It's harvest time in Russia. And some of you, some of you need to get there as quick as possible. Go enroll in the University of Moscow. I think that's what I would do. I tried to learn Russian when I first went to Europe. I speak Russian. Goodbye, goodbye, glory, adios. You end that Spanish. Do any of you, just the last phrase, do any of you, oh, I love it when you turn those lights out for a while. You're up here preaching by faith that everybody hasn't walked out. The third reason why you should consider going is God's providence, God's providence. That's a big word, isn't it? God's providence. What does that mean? Circumstances. What does that mean? You're here. You've had to listen to me for five nights. How many people on planet Earth, do you think, have ever endured listening to me for five nights, being harassed, being poked, being pushed? Not many. So why has this happened? Because you're special. And because God wants some of you to go. If you don't go, who have had not just my challenge, all this other input, videos, testimonies, music, literature, people buzzing around with funny little jackets trying to grab you for world missions. If you don't go, who have had this kind of exposure, who will? Your little sister who's never heard her first missionary challenge? People from a church down the road who have no missionary program? Some student that's not even yet come to Jesus? Maybe, gotta get him saved first. In God's providence, you're here. A huge number of university students, even Christians, on a global scale, never go to a conference like this. We have Urbana in North America only once every third year. It's very expensive to go to Urbana. 20,000 go, they don't even represent 1% of the Christians in America today. Even in the United States, many students never get a missionary challenge. They never get the facts. They never get the thing sorted out in their own mind. And so they continue through university, even as a Christian, with completely cockeyed ideas about what missions is all about. And old paradigms that have changed ages ago so that missions today is cutting edge in a postmodern world and filled, just mission societies are filled with new recruits and young people who are writing books, who are producing films. It's awesome what God is doing through the younger generation. I sit back just as a Holy Ghost cheerleader and say, go, go, go. Go. God's providence, if you don't go, who are here, who have heard this challenge, who the Holy Spirit, I believe, has prepared. Now some of you come from really good churches, and I'm gonna get to that in a moment. But if you come from a good church that is willing to support you financially, and I'll tell you, that's a mega hunk of providential good news, because many churches are not into sending out missionaries. And many of you may come from even a church out in some little village, some place where they're probably not too keen on sending you to Libya or wherever. So if you have that kind of church, that's a providential factor. If you have some people in your network that are gonna help make this happen, that's another important factor. I had a lady come to me before the meeting tonight. She's just got money. She's got money. She's looking for somebody that will go to one of these 10 nations that I mentioned, and she's ready to put some money into that. That just happened to me when I came in here. We're not organizing these things. God is moving. God is wanting to send. And just as these disciples left their nets and followed Jesus, so tonight some of you are gonna leave your nets, and you're gonna follow Jesus. You're gonna take at least those first steps, and God's gonna bless you, and God, as it was in Acts 4:31, is gonna fill you with the Holy Spirit and enable you to go forth and speak the word of God with boldness. The fourth reason you should consider going is because there's a major missions movement going on in South Africa. I've been coming here regularly for about 36 years. I have seen transformation in this nation. There've always been some, what I call, from Acts 13, Antioch churches, but now you have many Antioch churches. You have a national network of mission leaders who gather together. I've spoken at some of their events. 10 years ago, I was here at one of the biggest mission events in the world called Jokoway, and South Africa, under the leadership of Willie Crew, hosted that major event. I was a co-director of a missions executive track. We met in one of the churches. We had 600 mission executives. There were six other tracks. There were thousands of us meeting for that Jokoway event. South Africa has become a case-setting nation in missions. You have hundreds of Antioch churches. They wanna send people. They wanna help find the money. They wanna pray. This is something that's been done by the Holy Spirit of God, and it's one of the reasons we need to consider going. I know if you're not from that kind of church, it may be more difficult. Some people have felt the Holy Spirit leading them to leave their own church that had no vision for biblical missions and get involved in a church that has. It's not for me to say only God can decide that, but I believe it's an important reason. Tied in with that are other providential factors. This golden nugget South African passport that used to be like an old wet noodle that wouldn't get you hardly anywhere except maybe in jail. And now the world is out there. The world is out there waiting to see you. And let me be really honest. Don't misunderstand this. They would like to see some of you non-whites a little more than they'd like to see the whites, but they wanna see the whites as well because they're hoping you change. You're not like your great-grandfather, though God bless him. And the amazing thing about God during the apartheid years is that he was so merciful. He was blessing the church and doing great things in those years as well. That's how God is quite different from us. He's much more patient. He's much more merciful. He works within our culture. He works where we are. He doesn't say until you change and you get this sorted out and this psychological baggage gone, this cultural baggage gone, until you do that, I'm not gonna work in your life. No, God in a mysterious, merciful, beautiful way worked during the apartheid years in this country. Of course, he wanted us to move on into greater truth and greater reality. And we have that now, but don't think that automatically makes us such better people because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And if through these changes, we become arrogant, we feel we're better than those who went on before us, we will trip and fall on our face. God have mercy on us. Let us walk in humility. Let us esteem those who have gone before us, whatever their difficulties and mistakes may have been. Without that, I don't think you can understand how God works. The first reason I want you to consider going is because there's a lot of money out there. There's a lot of money available to support missions. If I told you the OM story of finance, you would maybe fall over backward. God providing finance. We were a group of nobodies and we asked God for an ocean going ship. And guess what God did? He gave us that we were completely crazy. Some of them even apologized to us, especially as the ships that had been six years of effective ministry. We prayed again and again for God to release millions and he's done that in answer to prayer to enable us to give one billion people, our little OM fellowship, one billion people, the word of God face to face, excluding all of our radio and television work across the world. And we're only one of a number of major movements that God raised up at that time. Campus Crusade for Christ, Youth for Christ, YWAM, other organizations, more indigenous in various countries, South Africa and around the globe. It's so amazing to see God provide finance. For a long time, I prayed for one gift of a million. And I began to give up and then I got back into it again. Our total income for a year, of course, was way beyond that. And then bam, God led me to this friend who liked this global jacket. We got knit together. I've never heard of hedge funds. If you know how to make it in the hedge fund market, God bless you and let's have contact. God enabled him to prosper in the investment world. And one Christmas, you know, a lot of people when they make money, they give 10% and bank the rest to make more money. That's how most people operate. But God gave us this unusual guy. When he made the million, he gave a million away. And I saw 40 years of prayer, a million dollars in one single gift. Our God can supply our needs. According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. We know that missions cost money. We know air tickets cost money. We know even in these short term things listed on the back of that paper, use both sides of this cost. But I wanna tell you, the money is there. There's more money in the hands of Christians than ever before in history. The story of OM in South Africa, largely financed by South African money. With our two bases, our training base and our coordinating base. I've visited both of them in the last two days. Because God answers prayer. Because God has prospered some people. God doesn't prosper everybody. There's not some formula for prosperity. That's extremism. But God prospers some. Because that's their ministry. There to be sorts of buildings. I have a friend in Singapore. He's a prosperous businessman. He's got buildings. He's got in selling. He lives on a different level than me. His car's a lot better than my car. He's a steward of what God has given him. I only have to be a steward of what God has given me. I don't need what that man needs. I'm not into simple lifestyle. I'm into moderate lifestyle and biblical. I think simple lifestyle has become judgmental and confusing. And it's not even possible in many cultures. And it leads to extremism. Where if we have a moderate lifestyle and we emphasize stewardship and God works in different people in different ways, it's much more, much more glorifying to God. Leave. Some of you are being called to make money for the kingdom. I believe some of you are clever. You're entrepreneurs. God's not gonna send you to Mongolia or Tibet to plant churches. He's gonna send you into the business world of South Africa where we desperately need entrepreneurs. We desperately need, have you read Charles Robertson's book on job creation? A brilliant book. We wanna pray about this unemployment. We wanna see these people getting jobs. We want to launch into things here that will create jobs. Contact this man if you want to know more about this amazing movement. Yes, finance is available. We can pray. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's there. And if a bunch of characters like us could eventually get to a budget of 40 to 50 million American dollars equivalent in all different currencies, a year, that's what our budget is at present, started with three of us at 19 with hardly any money, going to Mexico in a beat up old truck that broke down 300 miles down the road. And I had to make a phone call to a businessman crying out that he'd give us a new engine. And we finally made it to Mexico. We could have quit when the vehicle broke down, but somehow we knew that as God's children, as God's people, as God's disciples, we couldn't be quitters. Yes, that's an important reason. My final reason that you should consider going is because God is so merciful. It's because God is a God of grace. As you start moving to the mission field, you start getting excited, you come forward, maybe when I give this invitation to, you start planning, guess what? Our sovereign God, as you pray, he can stop you. God could stop you. You can trust him. He can lead you, he can guide you, he can stop you. Or he can say, not now, next year. Or not now, five years from now. Or he can say, no, I'm not sending you, I'm gonna make you a mission mobilizer. You're gonna spread the word here, you're gonna... God is not gonna ask us to do something and not give us the grace and the strength to do it. Because God's work can be done in God's way through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the end, it comes down to trust. In the end, it comes down to taking a step of faith, fear, and trembling. So there, I wrote on the back of this little decision paper. And I want you to write something on the back of this. And pass it in later on, filling out the front as well. I want you to write, first of all, as many as possible. If you mean it with all your heart, here am I, send me. Pray it first, and then write it down. And I'm praying that others who will also come forward and gather in a few minutes around my globe, I want you to write, I believe God is leading me to short-term or longer-term. Overseas missions. Would you take that paper out? Would you pray about that? Would you take that step of faith? Let us pray. Father, help us now to think your thoughts. You said we have your mind. As your children, we have your mind, oh Christ. Enable us to take these steps of faith. If you'll pray that prayer, here am I, send me. I want you to stand up right now across this great amphitheater. And just pray that prayer in your heart. And then I wanna pray for you. This is the generic challenge for every believer to simply be available. I want you to do that. Here am I. send me all across the amphitheater and you can write that on that paper we know that's gonna mean totally different things to different people I've clarified it at least three times we're not saying that you're gonna go overseas that you're gonna be a missionary that may come later but we're saying you're available you've experienced God as Isaiah did you've come in brokenness and repentance and worship during these days and now you've heard the voice of God as Isaiah did and you're saying Lord here am I send me I'll go where you want me to go I'll do what you want me to do if it's across the street or if it's across to the uttermost parts of the earth in your timing in your way God bless you God bless every one of you Lord I pray for those that are standing before you right now I pray Lord fill them afresh with your Holy Spirit I pray that many of them would sense you've already sent them they're already right here in their uni studies they're sent by you and they'll rejoice in that they may not realize how much you Oh God were involved through Providence through their families through other circumstances brought them here at this moment of time in history and then Lord send across the street across the sea send in your timing many of those who are praying this prayer right now here am I send me let's say it once together on three one two three here am I send me Lord I pray bless these people in Jesus name amen let's all stand and if you sense this is part two if you sense that God is leading you to get involved in missions short term or long term I want you to come forward stand around this globe maybe put your hand on a country that's of interest to you there may be people there may be people God is speaking to you about a specific country that's okay that's not my main thrust but the Holy Spirit is working in different people in different ways so you can come and say Lord I'm available for Tibet I'm available for Zimbabwe Lord I'm available for China Lord I'm available for Russia you come if God has put a specific nation but my main thrust is for people to come who will begin to push the door and begin to move out somewhere and God will guide step by step I know there may not be enough room but you come just stand along this stage this is an outward expression of an inward transaction thousands of people are praying for this meeting we're taking this step of faith and those others have done all over the world and I believe God honors this God honors this I've done it a couple of times after I became a Christian once when Oswald Smith was preaching I thought I was already committed I was already headed to the mission field but when he gave that invitation for more radical commitment to missions and reality in Jesus I couldn't hold back and I went forward again and God met me as I prayed as I said they'll be counting years six months career you come you come God will honor your step of faith God bless you anybody else God bless you God bless you Keith Green was a close friend a great Christian musician he was a little extreme yes he said if God hasn't called you to stay you need to go Wow somebody put that as a title of one of my CD series without even asking my permission I'm not even sure it's true God bless you God bless you let's pray father all these who stand before you have taken serious steps of faith and we pray they have wisdom wisdom from your word from above we pray for anointing we pray Lord they would be filled as it was in Acts 431 when they prayed the place was shaken where they were gathered together they were filled with the Holy Spirit and went forth and spoke the Word of God in boldness I pray every one of these most of all many of whom already know the reality spirit fill them again tonight in preparation for launching out short or long-term missions Oh Lord Jesus we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to you as it says in Romans 12 we are not only available but now we've taken that first step honor this step for these people honor this step I plead with you Lord you know special needs you know worries you know financial situations you know family complexity you know church complexity we ask for breakthroughs we pray together for breakthroughs in those areas that we may cast every care upon you know the reality of intimate dynamic fellowship bless them bless everyone Jesus name amen God bless you fill out that piece of paper you want to pray with some