Purity - Cleansing for World Evangelization

But, uh, so you hesitate to mention them because you don't want people to go over there and then not not find a copy. But I just have chosen them with the hope that if you can't get them at the book table here, that you'll just write the title down and try to get these books. One is one of the main training books we've used in OM for years, Spiritual Leadership by Oswald Saunders, formerly the leader of OMF.

He's in heaven now. Just last year. I had the privilege of meeting this man in Singapore many years ago, and he's always been a model.

I had a little time with him in New Zealand as well a couple years ago. Just a very, very basic strategic book on leadership. And you may not think that you're going to be a leader in the work of God, but you're probably going to be in for a surprise.

First of all, there are all kinds of leadership. And even to be a father, you need to be a leader. Did you know that? Actually, to be a mother, you need to be a leader because the father keeps going off to preach.

So the mother has to take on the leadership. So principles of leadership are so basic. They're there for everybody.

And if you haven't read that yet, I'm sure one of the purposes God's brought you here is to get that book. This is one of the first books that we ever really studied in OM. It's now in 30 languages.

It's a hard-hitting book. Recently, one of our main leaders stood up and pointed out in this book the things he didn't agree with. So it's obviously not OM's handbook.

But in fact, after he did a very good critique of the book, it inspired me to reread it. And I thought it was great. There are a couple things that perhaps represent a worldview that may not be a hundred percent accurate, just the way he says it.

It's an old book. I've followed that man all of his life. Single man.

William MacDonald, one of the most godly persons I've ever been able to follow right through his life. And though that book's got a few things that might seem a little bit over-the-top, I believe it's one of the great books on discipleship. I found, like Brother Andrew said, it's easier to cool down a fanatic than warm up a corpse.

So if this book kicks you a little too hard, you know, somehow you write to me, I'll send you a copy of my book on balance. My daughter said to me some years ago, Dad, you're getting extreme in the balance thing. True discipleship.

William MacDonald, very inexpensive. I saw a few copies on the table. Books about the Muslim world.

There are not so many of them, but here's two. One about Turkey. We've been focusing on Turkey because Operation World for November 3rd, 4th and 5th or 4th, 5th and 6th is about Turkey.

And here's an easy-to-read book, like a novel, about Turkey. Gives you a lot of background. It's a true story of one of the first young men led to Christ by the OM teams when they went to Turkey, those early days.

So my big father, he's in heaven now. But the story continues to be used of God. I don't know why the story of Lilius Trotter was not in print before last year, because she was one of the giants.

One of the missionary giants of past generations. Story of a woman who pioneered missionary work in North Africa, written by Patricia St. John. I always used to pronounce that St. John, but it's St. John, and she just gone to heaven.

Another dear saint in glory, Patricia St. John. Her nephew is the OM leader of our work in Central Asia. So if you're interested in books about the Muslim challenge, there's one that will really warm your heart until the day breaks.

The life story of Lilius Trotter. How many of you have ever been blessed and challenged by something by A.W. Tozer? A.W. Tozer was a pastor in Toronto for quite a few years. I'm listening to a lot of his tapes.

Read most all of his, most of his books. And years ago, a friend of mine, I think we requested it, took some quotations from about 20 other Tozer books and put them together in this little book. Gems from Tozer.

If you want something powerful for your quiet time, which might become a little noisy as you read this and cry out to God for mercy, then I recommend this Gems from Tozer. Again, I saw a few of them there on the book table. It was also encouraging to see this new music tape.

Frank Fortunato, the leader of OM's music ministry, just talked to him on the phone as well, and he's produced this new tape of His Kingdom is Coming. Frank has done a similar presentation at major missions conferences. Moody Bible Institute.

I was just talking to a pastor on the phone in Pittsburgh. He says, I got Frank coming here for our missions conference in February. Well, you may not yet be able to get Frank to your missions conference, but you can get that cassette into your Walkman.

And there's some new songs there. About world missions. We declare your majesty.

Burn in me. Reign in me. When his kingdom comes.

A great cassette. I suggest you pick that up. Isn't it exciting to just go and pick up some of this literature? I've already read through that weekly paper.

They're giving you a free Christian weekly paper out there. I've already prayed through mine to some degree, and it's exciting. So much is happening here in Canada.

It's amazing. There's so many organizations, so many churches. I would have thought the revival would break out any minute.

Certainly have enough structure, spending enough money, but it's, of course, it's going to take some prayer. It's going to take perhaps a little more repenting. Is that the favorite thing in your church? Repenting.

People, brokenness, repenting. People, confessing faults one to another, getting right with God. Is this the biggest problem in this in this town? This is known as quite a Christian town.

Is that the biggest problem? Too much enthusiasm for Jesus. Too much evangelism. Too much love for Christ.

Too much vision. A.W. Tozer said to think this was the greatest problem in the average town was like sending a squadron of policemen to the nearby cemetery to guard against a major demonstration by the residents at midnight. So probably it's not the biggest problem in town.

Let's pray together. Lord, I just thank you for the printed page. I thank you that so many people have had their lives turned upside down through little books like True Discipleship, Gems from Tozer.

We thank you for the power, the reality, the sovereignty of your Holy Spirit, who is working in many, many people and many churches right across Canada. And we are praying on the basis of Matthew 9 that you are going to send out labours into the harvest field. Grip us, O God, with the reality of what this is about.

For we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. I always like to use at least two Bibles when I preach.

This is Fraser Churchill's Bible. It's all full of papers and notes and business cards. And then this is my own.

I'd like you to turn with me to the book of Timothy, 2 Timothy, chapter 2. This is the authority for our missionary work, the Word of God. We've tried to point that out this morning. I want us to look at 2 Timothy, chapter 2, for the kind of challenge I believe we need in this day and age as we face so much confusion and so much compromise.

Someone was sharing with me today that, I guess I'm a bit out of date, that a major church movement here in Canada has actually approved, you know, a Christian church, whatever they may stand for, they have that name, has actually approved homosexual marriage and homosexual, practicing homosexuals, ministering in the pulpits. I'd never, I knew the church, you know, was going downhill. I've always known that ever since I was converted, but I didn't know it was going downhill that fast.

And I just talked to a man on the phone and a major Lutheran denomination may make the same decision. A task force has suggested that they make it, but they're going to take it to their local churches, and my Lutheran friend is hoping that it's going to be, you know, thrown out. But it is unbelievable that the church, perhaps, will eventually become more worldly than the bar.

I want to speak to you this afternoon about the subject of moral purity. We don't want just a lot of people to go to the mission field. We want the men and women that are going to stick.

We're not called to some kind of evangelical sprint. We are called to a holy ghost marathon. And we see plenty about that, plenty of that, challenge about that, in the Word of God.

In 2nd Timothy, chapter 2, it says, Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Thou, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

No man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits.

Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. Enduring hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. God is calling us to many things.

We cannot summarize the Christian life in one sentence, unless, as a great preacher from Britain once said at a conference I was at, we simply say a Christian is in Christ. By the way, if you study the epistles, you'll find that is the main description of a Christian. You study it.

In Christ, the person who is in Christ. But as we go on from there, and that's one of the reasons we have the New Testament, to see what that's about, we'll discover there's many ways to describe the Christian. One of the ways, that is certainly a lot less acceptable these days, is when the Bible talks about the Christian as a soldier of Jesus Christ.

I preached in an Anglican Church in Cambridge, University Town. I guess I, in passing, mentioned something about being called to be soldiers of Jesus Christ and spiritual warfare, and a lady, dear woman, wrote me, deeply offended that I would use military terminology in the church. The ideas that people have about Christianity, as if it were some kind of passive, brassie, sort of a peace movement, when we see clearly in the Word of God a clarion call to do battle in the name of Jesus Christ.

We have Ephesians chapter 6 where it tells us to take the shield of faith wherewith we can stop all the fiery darts of Satan. The fiery dart that I want to focus on this afternoon is the fiery dart of moral impurity. I don't want to limit myself to that, but I don't want to become too broad, because I think we have to face the reality that immorality is an epidemic in the church.

There's hardly a single church that's not having major problems in this area, and that we are also going to face this and are facing it on the mission field. One of the friends I challenged to the mission field, the woman director on his field, fairly known mission society of the day, was a practicing lesbian. Blew, literally blew the whole work apart.

He said, my OM experience in Mexico prepared me for my experience on the field. It's interesting because his OM experience in Mexico, one of the very first teams, was really bad. His team leader, never forget it, I was in Mexico with my wife about to go to Spain.

I came back, met these people at the border, gave him the training week, left for Chicago. I got in Chicago, my good friend, who was going to be the leader of that team going to Veracruz, had a whole load of neckties in his suitcase that he was going to just take into Mexico. That is actually smuggling.

He's going to take them into Mexico and give them away with the books. He thought the books, because they were going to do book selling, would go faster if they got a free tie. And at the second customs point, the Mexican border, he got arrested as they found these ties.

He panicked. He was very nervous, and he got arrested and put in prison as a smuggler. I just get to Chicago.

It was a very difficult trip. I was driving a very elderly missionary. The only thing more old was her car.

I mean, this is the oldest car I'd ever driven in my life, all the way to Chicago. And I had to get in a plane, go back to the Mexican border, and get this man out of prison. That summer, for my friend who later went to the field in Asia, now a very famous missionary, he's written many books, that summer was a disaster, because this fellow, his leadership, it just came apart after that experience.

But he said, you know, the troubles on that team, and seeing things go wrong, seeing unanswered prayer, that's what it seemed like that summer, prepared me for this thing I was to face on the mission field, which is beyond anything that I ever could imagine. We're not talking recent history here. We're talking 30 years ago, when he arrived the field in Asia, and found this moral impurity going on.

There's such a danger that as Christians, we lack sanctified imagination and divine spirit-led initiative, because we feel so inadequate. So many Christians seem to say, well, this needs to be done, and that needs to be done, but who am I You know, I've got my own problems. I'm no great man or woman of prayer.

I don't have enough knowledge of the Word. I'm not living every 24 hours a day in revival. Who am I to do anything about these situations? It's a great mistake.

We need a grassroots movement of moral purity. We need young people who are willing to walk right up to their Christian leader, and if they sense the right moment in the boldness, to ask that Christian leader if he's living. In moral purity.

I'd never be afraid of anybody asking me that. My daughter asked me that once, when she was having struggles in her faith. She walked right up to me.

She said, Dad, I want to know whether you have been faithful to Mother all of her life. I had been. It would have been worth being faithful, just to be able to answer my daughter, much less all the other blessings, from being faithful.

God is calling his people to openness and honesty. We're told in the book of John and James, we should confess our faults one to another and pray for one another, that we may be healed. We're commanded in dozens and dozens of places in the Word of God.

We're commanded in a general way concerning holiness, concerning purity, concerning integrity, concerning reality. These are the watchwords of God's people. Turn with me to 1 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 12.

Perhaps this could be the key verse for this little session together. 1 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 12. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in love, or charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. Now, there is a teaching factor in what I'm sharing with you this afternoon. Perhaps there's more an exhortation factor.

When George Whitefield led his teams of men and women across Britain and across America, he would call them oftentimes exhorters. And the ministry of biblical exhortation is an important ministry. And also the ministry of exhorting one another, encouraging one another, asking, asking our friends and our brothers and sisters in Christ, how they're doing.

How can we pray for them? Because I don't believe, if you're wrestling in the area of your sexuality and moral purity, I don't believe generally you're going to win that battle on your own. We need one another. In the very earliest days of OM, because of the influence of Billy Graham, who talked openly about sex, I guess I was too naive and too young a Christian to know there was any other way.

Then I went selling books door-to-door, and one of the books I went selling was Clyde Naramore's book about sex. It's one of the first Christian books. I think the first, believe it or not, was Stephen Alford, another mighty, mighty man of the Spirit, still alive today, great Bible expositor, who wrote a book to sanctity of sex.

And I just praise God that the Church of Jesus Christ, going back many, many decades, has not been silent on the subject of sex. Unfortunately, it was often a remnant of people speaking out. The average Christian not reading Christian books, especially back in the 50s and 60s, when there weren't many of these books, I guess didn't get much teaching on this subject.

Even today, we find in our asking arounds, so few people speak about sex. Over 500 verses in the Bible about sex. We should be studying the Word of God.

Three chapters in Proverbs alone. In the Netherlands, one of the leading healing evangelists, he would be the equivalent to Oral Roberts. For anybody in the Netherlands, just confessed all during his 20 years of ministry, sleeping with prostitutes all 20 years.

Does that surprise you? I can assure you it doesn't surprise me at all. Because I've been in the trenches for 37 years. When I first went to Mexico, one of the first missionaries in Mexico committed adultery by running off with the best girl in the choir.

When I first went to Europe, the head of a Bible school, my dear friends, a Bible-believing man had seduced one-third of the women in the Bible school. The church never caught him. The church knows little about discipline and spiritual discernment.

The police in that country caught him, and he was in prison for many, many years. I met him when he came out, a changed man. I'm told that when Jimmy Baker comes out, he'll be a changed man, now under the shepherding-to-sun degree of Charles Colson.

The Word of God is very clear on the subject of sex. And we are told, you are told as young people, I know not all of you are young, you're told very clearly that you need to be an example, and you need to know the reality of purity and honesty in your own life, and in your own walk with God. It is absolutely basic, and of course, it is going to be a battle.

That's why the Apostle Paul, later to Timothy in chapter 4, verse 7, said, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.

In another place, it says that we should flee. Flee youthful lusts. This is chapter 2. Again, we're back in 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 22.

Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 16. I'm sorry to say, before my conversion, I was a pornoholic.

You know what an alcoholic is, don't you? He's someone who cannot live without alcohol until he destroys himself. And it's so strange, because I was against drinking alcohol even before I was a Christian, because I saw my drunken grandfather only twice in my life. That was enough to scare me away from that.

But I got hooked on pornography at 16. Not the heavy kind of stuff that's floating around today, which is just so unbelievable. What's called mild pornography, but it was not mild in the enemy's efforts to destroy me.

And after I became a Christian, I knew this was wrong. I knew it was wrong even before that. I was sort of struggling with it, but I didn't have the power to overcome it.

And after my conversion, I experienced a surge of motivation and power to gain the victory. And this pornography went up in smoke. My dear mother didn't even know I had this material.

It wasn't so easy, however, to get it out of my mind. You know, it was there in the mind. And for a number of years, many years, just occasionally, Satan would try to roar back and destroy me through the lust of the eyes.

Finding a piece of pornography on, sitting on the table on a train in England. Once I was in a prayer walk. Some of you heard me preach at Urbana, and I shared this story of being on a prayer walk as a Christian leader, I guess 15 years ago.

And there was a pornographic magazine hanging in a tree. And oh, how I would love to have been able to testify how I just, in the power of the Spirit, zapped that magazine and it disintegrated. But instead, that magazine, on that occasion, made a fool out of me for a few minutes.

I mention this because so few people seem to be willing to mention that they're struggling and that they've had difficulties. And when I do just mention these things, I get the most amazing range of letters. And some of these letters from Christians have said, they say the same thing often, I've never shared this with anybody in my life.

I don't know how they're living. I don't know how they live with themself. Men in the ministry, men and women on the mission feed.

I'll never forget a graduate of one of Canada's leading Bible colleges. If we don't think that a good majority of young people in Bible colleges are having serious struggle with sexuality, then I would just claim you're living in an unreal world. You are living in some kind of fantasy bubble, and the sooner you get out of it, the happier you will be.

This young man graduated from one of Canada's leading Bible colleges. He was out on the mission field. It would be indecent of me to describe the sexual sins he engaged in in the mission field.

He never shared it with anybody. He was engaging in similar sins when he was graduating and receiving his diploma back at Bible College. Finally, he heard me share a message similar to this, and he couldn't bear the darkness in his soul anymore, but he couldn't verbalize it.

I was in Nepal at the time, and so he sat on a typewriter, and he typed out two pages of the most unbelievable sin and lust that he'd been living in, in India, off and on, always sort of repenting, but never gaining the victory. And on and on it went until he was ready to just end it all, spiritually. I had the privilege of taking that young man on as a Timothy, a mentoring type of thing.

It took two years, and I saw him come through. I saw him live big victoriously, though even during that time of living victoriously, once a woman in one of the ports when our ship came in nailed him. You cannot imagine when our ship comes into a port, these young men just walk off the gangway.

Women are just there, just throw their bodies at them, just like somebody was selling you popcorn going into the cinema. And I would ask you to pray for the men and the women on our ships, because almost all ports of the world are sex centers. I was just reading, in Operation World, you read it for yourself, in Operation World, about Thailand.

Quite a blunt little book, this. In fact, maybe we'll read that. See if we can find Thailand.

I think it was during the month of October that we got to Thailand. It's actually alphabetical order, so it should be pretty easy to find. Thailand.

Bangkok, the sin capital of Asia. Most of the country's estimated 100,000 and 700,000 prostitutes, that's 100,000 male prostitutes, 700,000 female prostitutes, operate in Bangkok. Over 2 million people derive their income from the sex industry.

Many girls are kidnapped or sold into prostitution, slavery. Most of the 35,000 street children of the city end up in this evil. AIDS has become a major scourge, with at least 500,000 infected by 1992, and a projected 4 million by the year 2000.

Pray for all who seek to minister to these tragic people. I remember a bright-eyed Bible school student going out as a semi-independent missionary to Bangkok. I'll never forget it.

Very gifted, very gifted speaker. Within six months in Bangkok, he was finished. The ministry, the evangelism, and he was a slave to every kind of vice, sexual sin the mind could ever grasp.

Bible college graduate evangelist. Old Maxwell used to say, I'm sorry that the book is out of print, world missions total war, and the first and major war is within. The first and major war is going to be fought in Canada.

It's going to be fought in your house, in your car. It's going to be fought in your heart and in your mind, as the fiery darts of immorality in their many different ways attempt to destroy you, or confuse you, or discourage you. Sometimes I'm dealing with young people who are not in any kind of major moral problem.

They are struggling with normal adolescent sexuality, and some difficulties connected with that, and yet they have more guilt on them than someone else who's out committing major adultery. So the kind of ministry and the kind of counseling we're involved with with young people in this arena is quite varied, and our message is not the message of the law. It's a message of grace.

It's a message of forgiveness. It's a message of spiritual balance, showing young people they are going to wrestle with aspects of their sexuality all their life. You don't arrive at some point how unfortunate there are actually some people that teach that you will arrive at a point through some sanctification, hocus-pocus, where you will never be tempted again.

You'll never sin again. You've arrived. One of the smaller denominations that teaches that in the United States, the leader of that whole area of four states in the United States, relatively famous man, unknown up here, has just been put in prison for 20 years of sexual abuse among women.

I guess he wasn't quite practicing what he was preaching. I'll tell you why he wasn't practicing what he was preaching, because it is impossible to practice what he was preaching. We will be tempted all of our life, not in the same way.

People in their 80s are not tempted the same way. Somebody who's 16? But the battle goes on. Sometimes it's only the appearance of evil.

I remember having to ease an older man out of OM, because he couldn't keep his hands off the women. And I said, we cannot have this in a youth movement. And he said, well, look, I don't have sexual problems anymore.

I'm just fond of these young women. I just want to show them a little love. And I said, you know, it's not on.

And he's out. And I believe in some ways in his own heart, he was quite innocent. He wasn't really planning anything sexually for these women.

But in our kind of movement, it was the appearance. The Word of God commands us to avoid the appearance of evil. People used to think Billy Graham was an old thuddy-duddy, because Billy Graham would not go anywhere with another woman.

He'd always have his wife with him or another man. Because he wanted to avoid the appearance of evil, some of these terrible scandal magazines try to push women into the arms of Billy Graham. Just get one photo of some, you know, loosely clad woman grabbing on to Billy Graham.

It would go. Well, they'd sell it for thousands to these scandal papers you pick up when you're trying to buy groceries. And when I heard Billy Graham was doing this, years ago, I decided, you know, I'm gonna do this.

And most of the time, I've been able to practice that and avoid pitfalls. Never dreaming in those early days that I would ever be anybody even in a tiny way famous, whatever that means. But we know Satan is out to destroy the work of God.

And if he can get some of these leaders at the top, he can drag whole churches, he can drag whole movements down into the mire, so to speak. Because they just love. They just love to print these things, even the Christian magazines.

Christianity Today just printed the story of a very famous Indian Christian leader, Theodore Williams, who just confessed adultery and immorality. It has shaken India. If you're not into world missions, you may not know his name, but anybody into world missions, WEF, AD2000 Beyond, the main mission societies in India, they know the man.

I don't know why Christianity Today has to produce a quarter-page article about such things with a photo. I know so many godly people doing great things. They've never had their photo in Christianity Today.

It seems even with Christian magazines, you'll somehow get a few more lines if you commit immorality. Personally, I'd rather not have any publicity at all myself. And I think we need to cry out to God for Christian magazines, because I'm sure there is a place for reporting these things.

But they need a lot of wisdom how they do it, or they become just like the world. They become just like the world. World missions, total war.

The flesh lusted against the spirit. The spirit against the flesh. The two are contrary.

No wonder Paul talked about buffeting the body and bringing it into subjection. Now, I think at this point, it's important to look at another scripture in the book of Hebrews to keep this whole thing in perspective. So, I'd like you to turn to Hebrews 13 in verse 4. By the way, on our book table today, we don't have many books on this subject.

But there are outstanding books on this subject, and I'd urge you, if you can get a few minutes, to go to one of your Christian bookstores and pick up some of the writings of Josh McDowell or other great books that speak openly and honestly on this important subject, especially a book published by the Navigators called The Snare. The Snare, written by Lois Mowdy, is a book specifically aimed at helping us discern and understand the methodology of Satan against Christian leaders in the area of morality. I consider it one of the top most important Christian books in the world today.

And I'm sorry we don't have it here. The Navigators allowed it to go out of print. They then gave us permission to do a special edition in Great Britain, but we haven't managed to get that into the pipeline all over the world yet.

Hebrews 13, verse 4, is very, very clear. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. According to this scripture, according to the Song of Solomon, according to many other verses, like in the Old Testament, be thou satisfied with the breasts of the wife of thy youth.

Have you ever heard anyone expand that verse? You know, we get people talking about how they preach the whole counsel of God. Well, I haven't heard anybody on that verse yet. I guess they skip it.

Why are we embarrassed about sexuality? Sexuality is a beautiful gift from God. Many of you are single, but you still have sexuality. Some of you may be committed to a life outside of marriage as a single man or woman, but you still have sexuality.

You're still a sexual being. You need to be ashamed of that, those impulses that suddenly come in the middle of the night, or whenever. The Word of God is so beautiful and so balanced about this.

It is my experience that often Christian married couples have more problems than non-Christian married couples when it comes to sexuality. Now, a Gallup poll has just been taken in the United States. It's the most devastating Gallup poll in the history of Christianity, as far as I'm concerned.

Because this Gallup poll shows that in surveys in the United States, there's basically no difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. Imagine the implications of that. Now, I'm challenging that.

I'm going to do some letter writing. I just can't figure that out because I know a lot of Christians, and I see complete difference in their lives. And I know the people that I've been close to over the years, I walk in the light with.

I know them, and I know their lives are different, their marriages are different. Maybe it's just such a remnant, but when they take one of these polls, I don't know which people they survey. Maybe all the godly Christians are praying and don't answer the door, or they're out in evangelism, so they don't get incorporated into the Gallup poll.

But it still is a devastating, is a devastating thing. And my experience is that sometimes Christians are having difficulty in their marriages, in the area of sexuality, because they think it's really unspiritual. It's like a man who came to me in Asia about 20 years ago when the ship was in a particular country.

He said, I've just been removed from the ministry because I've committed immorality with someone in the choir. And he went on to share that his wife was the most committed woman in the whole church, and his wife was winning so many souls and so much prayer that she never had any time for sex, and she felt really they shouldn't have sex. She thought sex would only take place when they backslid.

It's unbelievable, and she had no plan of backsliding. She was totally committed, so they never had any sex. This guy is trying to keep up with his highly dedicated wife.

Eventually, he ran out of gas and committed immorality with someone in the choir. As the pastor, of course, he was in trouble, and he was fired. And I had the joy of sitting with her, and sitting with him, and showing them the biblical plan for sexuality.

Even that verse where it says, you should not defraud one another. You should not abstain from sex within marriage except for prayer and fasting, which certainly isn't a big thing in the average family today. Therefore, the sex should be going on on schedule.

And praise God. Praise God he put that couple back together. Some of the greatest thrills in my Christian life has been to see God putting couples back together.

And to have biblical sexuality in your marriage, you often have to work at it a lot harder than you may have expected when the wedding bells were ringing, and you felt so wonderful. I had the joy of talking to a young couple just the other day, and though they were married recently, I had the joy of giving them the first Christian book that really lays it out the way it is. Now, I know some people are upset with these books by Tim LaHaye, and this guy Wheat, and now there's another book intended for pleasure, or restoring the pleasure.

But I personally believe, for married people, those books are brilliant. For couples just about to get married, I think they're brilliant. Some of them may not be best for single people battling away in singleness, you know, to sort of go reading through.

It's not your greatest need right at that particular moment. Some of these books that are very explicit. The Word of God is quite explicit, and it seems to me that it is really quite foolish that so many Christians are having difficulty in this area.

Again and again, couples come to me, their marriage is breaking, and they say, we haven't had any sex in six months, we haven't had any sex in two years, we haven't had any sex since this happened, or that happened. And they wonder why the marriage is about to break. Somebody once told me that if your sex life within marriage is going properly, doesn't mean perfect, you can handle a lot of other strains.

Marriage isn't just sex. Marriage is many, many, many things. But sex is part of it.

And it was pointed out to me that if that part of the marriage is going relatively well, you can handle a lot of the other stress and strains. The money, the children, this thing, that thing. But when that trumbles, these other things get magnified, and often the marriage ends, or there comes an extramarital relationship.

Our society now is trying to tell us, and some Christians are believing it, that a few extramarital relationships really, if it helps your marriage, there's really nothing wrong with it. It's unbelievable. You see, once we throw the Bible away, once we no longer have the final authority of the Bible, what do we teach on these things? There's another movement right now that is saying that we should legalize sex with children.

Men of 20 or 30 or 40, if they want to have sex with a little kitty at 4 or 5 or 6 years of age, they should be free. Now, of course, at present, praise God, 98% of our society says, you know, that's out. Maybe 99% I would hope say that's out.

But there's a little group of people in our society so perverse, so lost, so distorted, they will continue to do everything they can to destroy those things which we count as so sacred and so beautiful and so pure. I arrived in a big US city just four weeks ago. I don't ask for these things.

I am in no way looking for these things. But the church I'm about to speak in, of four and a half thousand people on a Sunday morning, has just asked the director of music, two weeks before I get there, to step down because of immorality. So the pastor before I preach feels he needs to share this with me, you know, just so I know what I'm getting into, since the director of music had a higher profile in the church than he did.

Two days later, I sit down and have breakfast with the new director of missions. He says, I've just left the pastor because the last church I went to, we had two young men that abused 60. Abused over 60 women.

In the church. I don't know what happened to my water. Here it is.

Abused over 60 women. It was the greatest child abuse case in the history. It was all in the newspaper.

It was all in the courts. Some of you may have read about it. Can you imagine coming to pastor a church, small little village church, on Lake Michigan, and discover this has been going on in the church for ten years? How do you handle that? Nobody taught me at Bible college that these kind of things ever happen.

I don't know if you've ever heard my message on tape, seven things they didn't teach me at Bible college. But it's a very interesting message. Because at least when I went to Bible college, they really so often didn't tell us what life was all about.

In fact, I believe many colleges in the 50s, I have no bitterness about it, I can assure you. But I believe many colleges in the 50s, they produced a fantasy view of life. And no wonder, many, many students who went through that.

Some of them today are not even Christians. They're not even Christians. They've checked the whole thing.

Some of the people producing the worst films in Hollywood right now were reared in strong Christian homes in places like Grand Rapids. And today, they're producing mega pornography that I hope none of you are going to see. The church has failed in this issue.

There are exceptions. And we're not going to point fingers. But it's good to repent where repentance is needed.

Too much has been swept under the carpet. Again and again, churches are afraid to discipline anybody. Especially if it's an elder.

Especially if it's somebody putting big money into the church. And so it's swept under the carpet. I listened to the tapes of this pastor in Grand Rapids.

When he stood up in front of his congregation. That takes a lot of courage. And shared what he believes about disciplining leaders who have fallen.

And it was a brilliant tape. There is hope. The majority of Christians who love God's word are committed to purity.

The majority want to live righteously. And there are hundreds of thousands of leaders in North America who have never fallen. We need to give them, perhaps, a little more publicity.

Rather than just focusing on those that fall. But at the same time, the word of God is very clear. In bringing to our attention the danger.

Thank you so much. The danger of falling. In fact, we have a report in Corinthians of 23,000 who fell in one day.

So the Bible is very honest and very, very blunt. If we are to stand in moral purity in a day of phenomenal impurity. Then there has to be basic commitment.

Every one of us has to have a basic strategy. And I want to share the strategy that I have attempted to practice. Ever since the early days of my conversion.

When I realized in my life. That my sexuality and my sexual drive and the temptations I had in that area. Would either make me or break me.

Now some of you may not feel this is so relevant for you. But if you love Jesus Christ, you have enough discernment to know. That this is incredibly relevant for many people who are sitting here right now.

Or who are listening to this cassette tape. And so if it's not so relevant for you. Then you can pray.

But I in these closing moments want to share with you. From my heart the biblical strategy I have attempted to practice. These 37, 38 years.

Since I picked up Billy Graham's little pamphlet. What the Bible says about sex. And then started actually preaching a similar message.

Which I have done now faithfully for 38 years. And I've had the privilege of seeing thousands and thousands of men and women. Repent and begin walking in purity and reality.

In this area of their sexuality. To me it's been one of the most exciting things. That God has done.

In Operation Mobilization. And considering we have 82,000 people who have been through our training. And a high percentage of them are going on for God.

I believe God has honored us in this stand. Though we feel it could have been much clearer. Much better.

And you're always sort of babbling the clock. Especially in an OM conference. When you're trying to give people the whole counsel of God.

And that's still a great frustration. First of all. I would urge you to have an irrevocable commitment to spending time in the word of God.

And especially memorizing scripture. I know that's considered outdated and old-fashioned. And that's sad.

Because the psalmist said. I have hid thy word in my heart that I may not sin against you. I've always memorized scripture since I was a baby Christian.

And I found that it had a definite power to clean my mind from impure thoughts. Even in my dreams. Which used to be pretty nasty.

I found that the scriptures and the beauty of God and God's work. Were constantly flowing into my dreams. Rather than some of the old immorality.

The word of God is powerful. Sharper than a two-edged sword. I recommend that you not only meditate and memorize scripture.

But listen to the scripture on tape. Every week. I almost every week.

Listen to the scripture on tape. Why go out just running? I'm a bit of a runner. I have some other exercise programs as well.

But it's so beautiful you can go out today and run. And listen to the word of God. You can even make your own tape.

Buy a tape for a pound. And record your favorite verses. Or the ones you want to memorize.

The word of God. Must be studied. Must be meditated on.

So that it affects not only us consciously. Not only intellectually. But it affects our whole being.

I might just say that any one of these strategies for moral purity. In itself is not enough. In itself is not enough.

You've got to somehow get the whole thing together. And more. That God will give you in your own situation.

Secondly, you must determine. That you are. If it takes all your life.

You're going to become a disciplined person. And you must reject. Ideas of sanctification.

That give the impression. That it's just a matter of somehow getting zapped by God. And then you'll live happily ever after.

There's a beautiful book by a man named Taylor. That brought together teaching about the Holy Spirit. And the disciplined life.

I remember the second book. Because the first book was called The Disciplined Life. By Taylor.

The second book was called The Cult of a Slob. It was a terrible title. And I think they changed it.

And he touched on the subject of culture as well. But I believe it is possible. To have a balanced emphasis on the crucified life.

The fullness of the Holy Spirit. All that we have in Jesus Christ. Which is beautiful.

It is mystical. And it can be a reality. It is possible to have a balance between that.

And discipline. Where it's your responsibility. I remember a young man.

Brilliant young man. Bible college chap. He decided that he was going to get totally delivered once and for all.

From some moral struggle. I think it was masturbation. And that's a big subject.

No one ever talks about that much. And it's just amazing. The Church of Jesus Christ is so divided.

We have Bible college teachers in England now. Teach masturbation for the glory of God. Publicly.

In the Bible colleges. You go down the road to another Bible college. And they're teaching that it's the 15th deadly sin.

And the fact is hardly anybody is saying much about masturbation. A very high percentage of men are struggling with this. Less percentage of women.

And the devil is having a field day. Especially through excessive false guilt. Because the truth is.

In my 38 years of research. That it's generally for men. Not something you just get instant.

Once and for all. Never tempted again kind of victory. If you've had that.

Fine you can come and autograph my Bible. At the end of the meeting. I have a little section in the back that says hypocrite.

Sign here. I told a young man the other day. I said look.

If the only problem in your life is occasional masturbation. You are going to go to heaven as one of the most victorious people. On this planet.

So shouldn't throw away the false guilt. And get in the race for Jesus. How can it be.

When we've got these huge problems going on. Massive child abuse. Massive immorality among top Christian leaders.

That some Bible school first year person. Is heaping guilt on himself. Because he hasn't got everything totally.

Arranged in his life. In this area. And occasionally has a spill.

In this area of self control. Since masturbation generally is accompanied by lust. To me it is something has to be dealt with.

And repented of. But I don't see. It as a greater sin than lack of love.

I don't see it as a greater sin than impatience. Bad attitudes. And dozens of other things.

That we seem to tolerate. And not feel very guilty about. All that people would feel a little more guilty about.

Their impatience. Their bad attitudes. And other things that are clearly condemned in the word of God.

Like subtle forms of pride. Self love. And arrogance.

Because we are imbalanced in the area of sex. Anything in that area gets magnified. And excessive confusion.

That is brought into the situation. This man tried to get total victory on that weekend. He prayed and fasted.

Of course he didn't get it. You know what he did? This is a smart. Top five students in this Bible college.

He overthrew the Christian faith completely. I met him years later. He was in the stock market trying to become a missionary.

Christianity for him was irrelevant. It's just unbelievable. One weekend.

He didn't get what he was demanding from God. Missionaries. Christianity.

Irrelevant. This is so. So sad.

Beware of demanding things from God. On your time schedule. That God isn't going to give.

He doesn't work that way. You're a human being. You're going to struggle with these things.

You haven't got the right to try to push God in the corner. Even by seven or eight days of prayer and fasting. I've often worked with people with homosexual problems.

It's a big thing in the church. The church again has failed to address the issue. But it is my experience that God can give victory and grace to people.

Who are struggling with homosexual problems. But it doesn't always come instantly. I remember a young man on one of our ships.

I only found out later. He went into this phenomenal time of fasting. He thought if he denied the body.

Food day after day. He would have a miraculous deliverance. From his homosexual temptations.

Maybe he thought he was delivered. Because later he got married. And within a year or two.

The marriage blew up. I believe everybody on this planet. Has a weakness that they will battle most of their life.

I've unfortunately got more than one. I don't know about you. And I don't think we have the right to demand.

That God just deliver us. And I have researched this. I've read hundreds of books.

I've interviewed thousands of people. And I believe sometimes in our zeal. Especially as young people.

We are creating a kind of hero Christian. That doesn't exist. And later in life when we discover.

The guy doesn't exist. Our heroes begin to fall. We lose our faith and we're discouraged.

And we abandon the whole thing. It's happening all over the world. That's why my plea is for reality.

That's why my plea is for young people. To slow down a little bit. Just slow down a little bit and be real.

And just don't overdose too quickly. On Watchman Nee and Andrew Murray. And all these other great books.

As I tended to do. And became very confused. Until I did intensive research on their biographies.

And discovered a high percentage. Of these great men and women of God. That have lived through history.

A very high percentage had sexual troubles. And many of them bad marriages. Including John Wesley.

George Whitfield. And I could give many more names. I don't use that today.

To defend sin in my own life. My commitment to holiness and godliness. Has been at fever pitch.

Almost since my conversion. But I want to know the truth. I don't want to be fed.

Something that isn't true. I don't want to be given the idea. That there's some kind of perfect person.

That I can eventually be. Some kind of spiritual combination. Of Superman and Spider Woman.

And E.T. In which there'll no longer be any great temptations. Or struggles. It's not on.

You're going to have to battle this. And it means you need to develop. A disciplined life.

To develop a disciplined life. Of course. You have endless instruction in the word of God.

Endless chapters. Endless examples. I love the expression.

Discipline by grace. Because discipline involves. Knowing what to do.

When we do sin. Look at first John. Talks about walking in the light.

Talks about fellowshipping with one another. Talks about being cleansed from all sin. Isn't that beautiful? Chapter 1 verse 7. It condemns extremism and perfectionism.

In verse 8. If we say that we have no sin. We deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us.

That should close the case. On that kind of extreme teaching. And then look at chapter 2 verse 1. My little children.

These things write unto you. We have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ.

The righteous. So moving on from the developing of a disciplined life. I go to point 3. Which is developing.

The ability. The reality of confession. And repentance.

And walking in the light. That doesn't mean every private sin. Has to be confessed publicly.

Private sin. Can be dealt with before the throne of God. Sin clearly against another brother or sister.

Can be repented over between the two. Sin that affect people in public. There are exceptions.

And complications in all of this. I can assure you. Sometimes need to be publicly confessed.

The Lord led many of them in the East African Revival. To publicly confess immorality. Africans have a very unique style.

Of handling their sexual sins. Walter Trobush wrote some great books. I was just with his widow a few weeks ago.

Brilliant books on sex. Sexuality. Repentance.

The only person that ever wrote a full book on masturbation. Called My Beautiful Feeling. What a courageous pioneer.

Missionary to Africa. The Trobushes were. The fact of the matter is.

When Revival hit East Africa. Christian leaders stood and confessed immorality. And God used it to break people's hearts.

I know in other cases. That seems to go out of control. And angers Christians who don't like to hear confession.

And I don't have a slick answer to it. But I know this. Without confession.

And without repentance. We're not going to make it. Without confession.

And without repentance. We're not going to make it. I remember Roy Hession standing up in one of our conferences.

I'll never forget it. It's not easy to remember things from 1965. It's a long time ago.

But he stood up in our conference. Roy who wrote Calvary Road is now in heaven. One of the great Christian books of all times.

He said. No matter how many times you have failed. Jesus Christ cleanses it.

We're not talking about now your salvation. That's hinged on what Jesus Christ did on the cross. We're talking about fellowship.

We're talking about growth. We're talking about spiritual reality. We're talking about being a soldier of Jesus Christ.

We're talking about ongoing fellowship with God. On a practical level. And with your brothers and sisters.

He said. When the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses that sin. It is as if it never took place in history.

That makes a legalist angry. Legalists like to pay the price. Through some kind of self-installed purgatory.

Legalists can't understand grace. Forgiveness. I don't know what you thought of Jimmy Baker before he fell.

It was not my favorite program. I could assure you. Watching it sometimes almost made me ill.

But I tell you. When Jimmy Baker comes out of prison. If he has confessed his sin.

And repented before God. It is under the blood of Jesus Christ. And I hope God's people will respond accordingly.

My experience. Is that God forgives. But God's people don't.

My experience is that the church. Is one of the few organizations in the world. That practices shooting the wounded.

When we should be putting on the bandages. Believing the best. And helping people to experience restoration.

God is calling us to a disciplined life. God is calling us to balance. In the area of biblical sanctification.

And that involves repentance. It involves spiritual growth. It involves confession.