What a challenge to be back in one of my favorite cities: Minneapolis. It’s in my top 1,000 favorite cities in the world.

Go Into All the World

It’s the Lord who said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every person.” This is not my thing. It’s not a missionary thing, but it’s for all who love the Lord Jesus and who want to obey his word. There are many nations of the world that are suffering right now in such a phenomenal way that probably if that kind of suffering entered your town, you would not perhaps be able to function. If you think of what’s going on in Algeria, if you think of what’s happened in other places. It’s a little easier right now in Afghanistan, but if you think of Sri Lanka there are 50,000 dead and no one knows when they’re going to be blown up. And many other parts of the world with less publicity, phenomenal suffering.

Before I share from God’s word, I would like to pray for some of the nations of the world. My big thing isn’t world missions. I’m actually not a good missions speaker and don’t accept very many missions conferences because my big thing is just Jesus and God’s grace. But we know as Jesus works in our lives and as we experience his grace and we start turning the other pages in the Bible, we do find a few other little challenges, like “Ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Back when that was stated, Minneapolis would’ve been considered the absolute uttermost part because that was stated near Jerusalem — Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth.

Linked Together in Ministry

I think I spoke a little too loud at Founder’s Week last night at Moody Bible Institute. When I see a couple of thousand people, even with a sound system, I tend to speak too loud, so it might take a few minutes for my voice to level out. I’ve had 40 years of voice trouble. I’ve had three operations on my vocal chords, but I’ve never hardly lost my voice, so you can relax if you think the meeting is going to end early because of my voice.

It is intimidating to speak to pastors and Christian leaders. Somehow I got into this when I was about 19, and somehow the Lord just gave me such a wonderful linking with so many pastors, first in the States, but then in Mexico where I learned Spanish and then in Spain and then in France and then in Great Britain and then in India and Nepal and Bangkok and different countries where my wife and I have lived. We just celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary a few days ago in the airport before I left London. We had a special breakfast together.

My heart really is linked with those who are pastoring God’s people. I count it a tremendous privilege to share with you this morning. I don’t just say that and I know that what we do locally, what we decide and what we do locally does impact the world globally. So I believe this is an important hour, and if you have a notebook and you can write a few things down that would be encouraging. I know you probably are on information overload and all of that. If you get at least 10 points from what I say and one year from now, mention those points, I will send you 10 challenging, motivating Christian books for free. How many of you still read? I know that’s not a popular sport. That’s great. And you probably noticed that we have brought a few books on display because you’ll need some books between now and when you get the 10 other free books.

Actually, the book I wanted to mention the most is John Piper’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions. I was preparing to speak at Urbana, and I was really struggling. I had two messages written out and submitted, something I never do except for Urbana. They were expecting, by the way, 19,000 there and I had two of the evening meetings. I just sense they were not the message, the messages that I was to share. I’d known about this book for some time. I’m a person of many books, and I had not read it carefully, even though I had a number of people urge me to do so. But somehow in preparing for Urbana about a year and a half ago, I picked up this book by John. It’s so amazing because I think you actually gave me a copy four years ago when I was here. I know John’s written so many books he’s lost track of it himself, but I believe this is one of the most significant books that has ever been written about world missions.

We know no book is as significant as God’s word and God’s word is about missions from Genesis to Revelation. But John has been inspired by the Lord and has put down his thoughts about the supremacy of God. We need to be God-focused in our missions and, of course, in everything. And so if you don’t already have 10 copies of this book, I want to encourage you to go to their bookstore. Don’t confuse it with my little tiny book display. Get some copies of this book and get it into the hands of other people. I just believe God will use that. You see, God’s glory is tied into all of this, and I can’t even begin to express it the way John has, but I believe this is the bottom line, the supremacy of God in missions.

Man-Centered Missions

Too much missionary work gets very man-centered. Maybe even in your own ministry you find things getting very man-centered. Forty years ago as a young Christian, God brought into my life some books by a man named Devern Fromke. I didn’t understand all that I was reading, but the whole focus of those books was becoming God-centered. And through that man’s writings and Dr. Lloyd-Jones on the Sermon on the Mount and Spiritual Depression: Its Cause and Cure and then through other people like A.W. Tozer, I learned more about repenting. I learned more about becoming God-focused and God-centered in every aspect of my life, and, of course, I’m still learning that.

We have a unique way of distributing books in OM and in the meetings I take, and some of you have already taken advantage of that the books are just there on a donation basis. I have a lot of struggles with God’s people, and I’m a reluctant Christian, saved in a one-night Billy Graham meeting in New York City. One of my struggles is that everything seems to go too slow, and certainly selling books is a very slow process, so we like to give books away and we want to give every one of you two books completely free, no strings attached. The first book is a book that I just got a hold of that is written by a pastor. It’s called When Good Men Are Tempted by Bill Perkins. It’s a book for men. It’s the most raw, straightforward book on the challenge of our sexuality that I’ve looked at in a long time.

I’ve always wondered why the church was so strangely silent on this subject when there’s 500 verses in the Bible about sex, and actually there are many whole chapters. Proverbs alone has three chapters all about sex. Amazing verses. I know some of you are into Bible exposition. How many of you are Bible expositors? At least you’re trying. Praise God. How many of you have expounded verses like, “Be thou satisfied with the breaths of the wife of thy youth”? Raise your hand. Praise God. Not many hands.

Chapter one in this book is, “Why Naked Women Look So Good.” That did catch my attention, I must admit. The second chapter is, “Why Other Women Look Better.” Chapter three is, “I’m Caught and I Can’t Get Loose.” And it goes on: “Raising the White Flag,” “Drag It into the Light,” “Your Family,” “Choosing Your Master,” “Discovering the New You,” “Breaking the Addictive Cycle,” “Why Locking Arms Is Tough,” “The Lost Art of Buddyship,” “Pure Sex,” and “Tools for Tight Corners.” I only have 90 copies. I know there’s far more here than that, but some of you already have this book. It’s free. Just go over there and get it. But I would encourage you, if you take it, to read at least part of it. I don’t expect pastors to finish every book they start.

Grace Awakening

I remember when I got into this book before this great grace awakening epistle of yours came out, John, I got into Charles Swindoll’s book on grace. I just started in the middle. Have you ever done that? It’s a good way to read because the first chapters are fairly boring, but they’re okay. Whatever you do, don’t get Swindoll mixed up with John Piper. But you’re not into motorcycles, are you? This is really more of a book about love and loving one another in some ways than it is about grace. It’s why it’s called Grace Awakening. But as I read it in the middle and read both directions, it was really confusing, but it was a blessing as well.

I think my favorite chapter here is called “The Grace to Let Others Be,” and that will especially be an encouragement in your marriage. So that’s another one you can pick up for free. I do little deals with a publisher. I bought 5,000 of these for the cost price. I don’t like to spend $20 for a book because generally I don’t have $20. I know many of you are broke. Quite a few of you look very broke. Even if you leave a dollar, because after you get past the first two books, they’re free. After that, we would ask for some kind of donation, even if it’s a postdated check up to the year 2000. We’re part of the AD 2000 movement, so we take checks. I had a whole load of checks from South Africa all postdated and sorry to say, I lost all of them. So if you do give a postdated check, probably it’ll never get cashed.

The Great Omission by Robertson McQuilkin is another great book. He is one of the leading men in missions, the man who gave up the presidency of Columbia International University to take care of his wife because she had Alzheimer’s. I was just on the phone with him. Godly man. There’s his book, The Great Omission. I would be very encouraged if you took any of my books, which are free, because they don’t sell very well. But another famous book that we have on the table is Paul Borthwick’s book, another great missionary visionary, which is How to Be a World-Class Christian.

It’s a book about the land of Turkey. How many of you pray for the land of Turkey? There are 70 million people in Turkey. There are not many books about Turkey, so that’s a great book. My Big Father. This is one of the books that we’re not giving free. It’s just a little too expensive to give away, and I haven’t pulled the deal off with the publisher since we’re actually the publisher. But feel free to take Operation World for any donation you can give. How many of you already have this great book? That is so encouraging. I always say all over the world, anybody without two copies of this book is probably backslidden. It’s such an incredibly important book.

Saul and Barnabas Sent Out

How’s your geography? Anybody? Can you tell me what country this is? If you can, you get an extra free book. I was really hoping for a more intelligent crowd. That’s okay. We’re very big into forgiveness. This is the flag of Tajikistan. Imagine if the American flag was held up in a country way off somewhere and we had a great group of intellectuals together, and we asked them what country that was. If you were an American in the meeting and not one single person recognized what country that flag was from, you might have some interesting emotions. Let’s now turn to our passage of Scripture. Acts 13:1–5 says:

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them.

I try to spend a lot of time in the Bible, and I try to spend a lot of time in the book of Acts because it’s so motivating. It helps to increase vision, and I hope that each one of you, if you possibly can in the next six months, read through the book of Acts. You may want to try it, even one of these really mega modern paraphrases like The Message. Boy that will stimulate your biblical juices. I know there are some people who oppose that particular translation or paraphrase, but at least as a pastor you can read it once because it does bring in some very interesting things, and then you can always go back. I know most of you have your quiet time in the original Greek. You can always go back to that later on.

The Church

There are five words from this chapter that I’d like to leave with you. So then you’ll already be halfway to your 10 free books one year from now. The first word that comes out of these five verses is the word “church.” In the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. Somehow in God’s providence, shortly after my own conversion, I realized the importance of the local church, and we got linked with some local churches who really believed in world missions and who believed in the Acts 13 vision of sending out workers.

Now, this was a very young church. This church has partly been started, it seems, because some believers were scattered through persecution. I remember when I was in Brazil and they were trying to explain why they weren’t sending many missionaries yet, they said to me, “You see, George, our churches are very young. We don’t have the great heritage that you have in America or in Great Britain. We’re just very young and this is going to take a long time.” How old was the church in Antioch when they sent Paul and Barnabas? Some of you are from small churches. Some of you are from young churches, and you’re thinking, “We’re not ready to send out any career missionaries,” but I believe with all my heart, missions should be implanted within the local church at the very time that the church is born. Why should we hold back certain truths from young Christians or in a young church? If we are going to be biblical, then we need the Antioch vision from day one.

Of course, if your church has now been going for years and they don’t yet have this reality functioning, then you have quite a challenging job, and it’s not going to happen overnight. As you just go back and tell them now that you’ve become a visionary and you get yourself a balloon, a global jacket, and prance around your church telling everybody to go to the 10/40 window. We don’t want to unnecessarily start a major martyrdom movement in your churches. I believe it takes tremendous wisdom when you go home as a pastor, starting with your wife, how you share what God does in your heart at a conference like this. I know in our own movements so many of the problems — and we’ve had many — are linked with communication, how we go about sharing what we feel, what God has done, or what we feel we should do. I pray that you’ll take extra time when you get back home to be with your wife and first of all, listen to her, because God could be working in her heart while you’re away in a very powerful way.

A Conspiracy to Kill

We should not assume that God is always saying more to us than our wives. Various kinds of chauvinistic arrogance are still traveling at quite rapid speed, and then we wonder why increasing numbers of women are walking away from their husbands. I don’t know if you saw the film The First Wives Club, but it’s very important film, especially for reformed ministers. It’s interesting that as that film came out, statistics show that now more women are walking away from their husbands than husbands away from their wives. I’m not going to say much about it, but my great burden wherever I speak about missions is to also speak about marriage, because our marriages in America are under assault. They are under attack.

Many times when I speak to Christian leaders, I speak from Acts 23. I wonder if you could just turn there. Acts 23:12–21 says:

When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul. Now therefore you, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near.” Now the son of Paul’s sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered the barracks and told Paul. Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the tribune, for he has something to tell him.” So he took him and brought him to the tribune and said, “Paul the prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you, as he has something to say to you.” The tribune took him by the hand, and going aside asked him privately, “What is it that you have to tell me?” And he said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about him. But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him, who have bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they have killed him. And now they are ready, waiting for your consent.”

I think in some of the subtitles of various Bibles, it says, “conspiracy to kill Paul.” I believe you are apostolic men. I’m sure God’s anointing is on most of you, hopefully all of you. You have a ministry, and I believe there is a conspiracy to destroy you, to destroy your marriage, to destroy your family. I don’t speak like this easily. I’m not a person who emphasizes Satan or conspiracies. I’m not a demon-under-every-bush kind of a character. Like Tozer said, if you’re going to survive the present day evangelical world, you need a lot of reverent skepticism. Hallelujah for reverent skepticism. So when you read in your little gospel gazette that you know a tree out in the woods just got baptized in the spirit and is manifesting the gifts, you might just be a little skeptical. At the same time, the Bible says “Satan, as a roaring lion, seeketh whom he may devour.”

The Bible says Satan sometimes comes as an angel of the light. The Bible talks about resisting Satan, and I believe there is a conspiracy brewed in hell to destroy your ministry. I have been involved with hundreds of churches. Many of them have gone through serious splits. In Great Britain, we lose a Christian leader every week just on adultery. Every week on an average. That is an understatement in America. We lose a Christian leader every hour of every day through adultery alone. That, of course, is also an understatement. We are a huge nation. We have huge numbers of churches. The percentage is still small, but it concerns me. That’s, of course, why I’m urging you to pick up one of these books, When a Good Man Is Tempted. I’m sure some of you have other books along that subject.

Guarded from Temptation

One of them that I love, I wish I had it with me today, is written by a woman who lost her husband when she gave him a birthday present of a hot air balloon ride, and the balloon exploded and he plunged to his death. From the moment she stood there, Lois Mowby, now married to a man named Steve Rabey, she experienced the supernatural grace of God to handle the grief and the sorrow. And then as a single woman, she discovered the slippery path there is in ministry into moral compromise and wrote that amazing book published by The Navigators called The Snare. If you can’t find it right to me and I’ll send it to you for free. I’m convinced if The Snare and other similar books were read by men, preferably at seminary, that we would cut the immorality in ministry at least by 30 percent.

If some of you feel in your ministry you’re under pressure and you’d like someone to pray for you personally, I would count it a privilege to add you to my list of people that I would like to pray for, because I believe you and your church will be attacked.

Somehow in God’s mercy, the apostle Paul was spared. Imagine if you got back to your house the day after tomorrow, whenever, and there was a little petition on your door. I know some of you are probably very laid-back kind of characters, not easily upset. We need such people in ministry. They often need a spiritual bomb put under them, but we need these kinds of phlegmatic people. They make tremendous church planters in the Muslim world. But if you got back home and there was a list of 40 people that were not going to eat, not even a Big Mac, until you were dead, I dare to say some of the most laid-back among you might have a slight metabolistic uplift at that moment.

Let’s get back to our original passage, Acts 13, the first word, the church. My prayer for this meeting this morning is that every one of our churches could be Antioch churches. You don’t have to start big. You can start small. Send one in the next year into missions. I don’t believe missions work is some kind of a volunteer youth movement where we look for volunteers who are 18 years of age. I believe we should be sending some of our best, most mature, godly people into missions. Were Paul and Barnabas just the latest two just kicked out of the youth fellowship for misbehaving? Can you imagine in some churches if suddenly two of the senior people in the whole church claimed that the Holy Spirit was sending them into overseas missions? I will tell you, you will have an interesting elders meeting, especially if one of them happens to be the chairman of the elder board. But I believe the Holy Spirit is wanting to lay his hands on mature, seasoned people. That’s not against young people getting involved. God operates sovereignly in the lives of so many people in so many different ways.

The Holy Spirit

Let me get to that second word, which is not really a word, it’s a person: The Holy Spirit.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus (Acts 13:2–4).

The Holy Spirit is the chief executive officer of all missionary work. Brothers and sisters, if we’re going to plant churches in America or if we’re going to see our churches strengthened in America, and if we’re going to send out missionaries, we need an ongoing directorship from the Holy Spirit of God.

I have a great fear for some of us, like myself, a fairly conservative person theologically, even in terms of practice and different avenues of ministry. For example, in connection with a whole Catholic question, which is a huge thing over here in the United States. I’ve written a book against extremism in the church. I have seen so many people hurt by extremism, even sometimes under the name of the Holy Spirit, but I’ll tell you, there’s another danger. It’s overreacting to what you may think is extremism in connection with the Holy Spirit into the deep freeze of dead orthodoxy. Don’t do it.

D.L. Moody was a great man. I guess I have him on my mind because next year is the hundredth anniversary of his homegoing and I studied at Moody Bible Institute and graduated there, and I’m here now because they brought me over from England to speak there last night. But D.L. Moody is described in a secular encyclopedia. This might encourage some of you: “Overweight American evangelist who depopulated hell by 2 million souls.” Not bad. How are you doing? I’m not speaking of the weight. I’m speaking of the souls. And D.L. Moody, long before it became more popular to speak so extensively about the Holy Spirit, long before that, around 1904, the birth of the Pentecostal movement, D.L. Moody constantly emphasized the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

I think some at the prayer meeting in Acts 4:31 had actually been at Pentecost, and yet in Acts 4:31 we find them gathered together praying and the place where they were praying was shaken and they were what? Filled with the Holy Spirit, went forth and spoke the word of God in boldness. D.L. Moody used to emphasize the need to be filled again and again. One day a woman said to Moody, “Why do you keep talking about the need to be filled again and again?” I know some of you have heard this. It’s a great story. He looked the lady in the eye and he said, “Madam, because I leak.” Can any of you relate to that? Praise God for free refills.

A Normal, Spirit-Filled Life

In much weakness, I share with you my conviction that the Spirit-filled life is the normal Christian life for every believer. I was saved March 5, 1955, in a Billy Graham meeting in New York City. The Holy Spirit came to live in me that very night. I don’t understand all that, but that’s what the Bible says. You are temples of the Holy Spirit. If you have not the spirit of Christ, you have not Christ. That’s pretty clear, and I testify now 43 years later next month, the Holy Spirit, as far as I know, has been working and filling and refilling my life every single day. I’ve had people that have been with me from the earliest days of this movement. My own wife has been with me 38 years. They will acknowledge that every single day for 43 years I’ve known this grace, this reality, this peace, this joy, this longsuffering fruit of the Spirit described in the book of Galatians — none in the absence of struggles and doubts and tears, blunderings, yes sin, but in the midst of that, crawling back to Calvary for repentance and refilling.

One of the most exciting pastor’s conferences I ever spoke at was at Moody Bible Institute about a decade or more ago, and the main speaker was a man named Vance Havner. Have you ever heard of this man? He’s now in heaven. He’s sort of the A.W. Tozer of the Southern part of the United States. He had a very powerful humor. He’s the guy that said in the average church near where he lived, he had to backslide to get into fellowship. But when Vance Havner shared with those pastors at Moody and had the faith or whatever boldness to give an invitation, one-third of the pastors came forward, many of them weeping and repenting and asking God to do a new work in their lives.

Surely before we go from this place, we would love for God to do a fresh work in our lives. I do! But there’s something greater than that, greater than special meetings where we have special times of repenting and tears and recommitment, and that’s when you learn how to do it every day. Jesus said, “If any person comes after me, let him deny himself, take up the cross and follow me,” and I’m convinced that much of the impurity even among Christian leaders is because we have neglected that message of the cross, the crucified life, the disciplined life. How can anyone pretend he’s going to be effective in ministry without a disciplined life? I mean it’s ridiculous.

Paul said, “I buffet my body.” This is Paul. Forget me. We’re talking about Paul here, my friends. He said, “I buffet my body, I bring it into subjection lest after preaching to others I become a castaway.” If statistics are right, a certain percentage of you will be cast away and out of ministry within the next five years. There will be another batch by the next 10 years, unless you’re willing to go against the tide and develop discipline and develop a greater prayer ministry and learn how to handle such fiery darts as pornography. If I had more guts, I’d ask how many of you are struggling with pornography to put up your hand, but I won’t do it. I know from experience many hands would go up.

No More Pornography

Missionaries sometimes are a little more avant-garde than the average evan-jellyfish pastor, and so they take wild surveys on the mission field, and one of the leading mission societies just took a survey and asked their missionaries, how many of them are starting to get hooked on pornography on the internet? The percentage of missionaries feeding on pornography in that society on the internet is a statistic I would not want to release without a little more confirmation, but I will tell you, the floodgate of hell is open! And if you start drinking from it, you are going to choke! Just two days ago, another phone call, a pastor confessed addiction to pornography. Some people in the church want him out. Some want him to stay. It’s chaos! The church will probably split, then the marriage will split, then the children will get discouraged. The time has come to say no more! No more pornography!

It had to happen in my life when I was converted because I was already hooked at 16. You see, I wasn’t from a Christian home. I did go to church and I’d love to take a few moments to speak about how I believe in the 1930s and the 1940s and the 1950s liberalism ransacked so many of our great churches, I come from the Reformed Church of America, and half our churches in our denomination were ransacked by liberalism, and there was almost nothing left. Others stood firm. Some of you are probably from that denomination. My church was so liberal. I never remember hearing the gospel or the call to repentance, and I became the president of the youth fellowship. I became the assistant to the pastor. I was in a New York City nightclub on Saturday night and I was helping the pastor on Sunday morning. I was a religious hypocrite when a little lady came into my life who believed in prayer, and she put my name on her hit list.

I’ll just briefly give you this testimony. Not only did she pray that I would become a Christian, she prayed, can you imagine, that I would become a missionary without even consulting me? People from New Jersey where she’s from are known actually for being rude. I mean, at least a phone call would’ve been somewhat polite. And then she sent me Gospel of John through the post, through the mail, and reading that Gospel is what began to change my life and prepare me for that billy Graham one-night meeting, speaking at an anniversary meeting of Jack Wyrtzen, and that’s where I was born again and indwelt by his Spirit.

I went, by the way, back to this high school. By that time I was about to become sort of president of the student council, sort of a radical student leader. That’s also about the time that I got hooked into the sort of mild pornography of the 1950s, if any of it can be mild. That lady had been praying for that school for 14 years, and I’d encourage you to pray for your high schools. I’d encourage you not to give up on your public schools. You may have Christian schools and that’s fine, but don’t give up on our public schools. Praise God for things like praying around the flagpole and schools that now have Bible studies before and prayer meetings before and after school. There have been some changes in recent years. That lady had been praying for that school for about 15 or more years and when I went back to the high school and started prayer meetings and started sharing, it’s like her prayers had built up behind a dam, and the dam broke.

The Spirit’s Missionary Work

In one meeting alone where I shared about Jesus. I went off to a good old Presbyterian college before I went to Moody in Tennessee, and I came back over Christmas and the students organized a meeting, and about 500 came to that meeting when I asked for those who would like to repent and profess faith in Christ, 125 stood up and came into the cafeteria for counseling. One woman was praying. Among those young people was my own father. I was just with him two days ago. He’s followed the Lord ever since. He’s 92 years of age. He left that liberal church and he went to the church of the very same denomination, an Antioch-style church that was sending out missionaries. They soon sent out my wife and I and we declared the gospel of grace. It’s Faith Reformed Church, Midland Park, New Jersey. I just had the joy of sharing at their 125th anniversary.

The Holy Spirit wants to fill us on a daily basis. Being filled with the Holy Spirit does not make you super spiritual. It does not dehumanize you, no matter how filled you are with the Holy Spirit, and I’m sure you’re teaching this — I don’t like bringing oranges to Florida — but no matter how filled you are with the Holy Spirit, you’re still incredibly human. You still probably will look twice when you see a very attractive woman, and the Holy Spirit won’t just immediately depart from you. Though you may grieve him very quickly.

The Holy Spirit is the one that wants to send out missionaries from your church. I am absolutely convinced he wants to do that. And I’m convinced that you should at least work in that direction, even though maybe there will be problems and maybe you’ll fail. It’s better to try and fail than never try at all. I’m convinced that if you’ll go back and have an Acts 13 prayer meeting with a few of your deacons or elders, that you’ll experience something similar to what we find there in Acts 13. The Holy Spirit will start speaking, and the Holy Spirit may guide you to even speak to someone in the church, and you take the initiative to ask them to consider and pray about going out as a missionary.

Some people wonder why I wear this global jacket. This is not just a gimmick or something to get you to think globally. I’m known for being a little extreme. I’ve got global socks and global shower curtains. I’ve got global underwear. I was at a big Christian rock festival. By the way, there’s a lot of CDs and cassettes. I buy those so cheap, I can’t even tell you, but if you want a CD with some wild music, leave a dollar, and just take them because I don’t want to carry them back to England. I can hardly lift up my suitcase. I promise my wife not to take my trousers off anymore to show people my global underwear. That was creating a little strain in the marriage.

But this jacket really is more like a survival jacket. This is a true story. I was flying from Brazil to Argentina. You can see it on the map. It’s a little over my stomach, which somehow has been growing lately. I went up to the cockpit of a British Airways jumbo jet to try to talk to the pilot. They allow you to do that on British Airways. I do it all the time. And they started to discuss where they were, and the co-pilot said, “I believe we’re flying over Ecuador,” which is way up here. They used this jacket to see where they were flying. They were flying over the small country of Uruguay right here, so you may want to get one of these jackets if you’re doing much flying or maybe you could go on British Airways or American Airlines.

Struggling Churches

But God wants to move in our churches. It’s so easy, even for those of us who read a lot, to get wrong impressions. Do you know one of the greatest wrong impressions? I visited the United States 10 times last year. I minister in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of churches. And I find one of the greatest misconceptions, if I can correct this alone, it’d be worth being here, is that there is phenomenal blessing somewhere else but not much here in the United States. That is completely cuckoo. I’ve lived there, in most of those countries, for the last 38 years.

Do you think there’s revival in Argentina? Go talk to people from Argentina. They will tell you there is no great revival in Argentina. There are tremendous individual churches that have had phenomenal growth, and some people call that revival, but overall the church in Argentina is still a small struggling percentage of people. We thought 15 years ago, Argentina would send out thousands of missionaries. Argentina has only been able to send out a small number of missionaries. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t have my eyes on Argentina. I do.

But every nation I go to where the church is fairly big — Brazil, Argentina, Korea, Kenya, South Africa — the church is not much different from the church here. The great difference is between one church and another, not between nationalities. This church, which I’ve followed for some years, is a tremendous, biblical, Holy Spirit-guided, empowered church, and our nation has thousands of great churches. There is no nation in the world more equipped in terms of money, people, and fairly solid churches, all of which want to improve, of course, and would love to experience greater revival. That’s true everywhere. God in his sovereignty has greatly blessed this nation.

If you are into reconstruction theology, then, of course, everything will always be miserable for you because you will never be satisfied until we have a born again president and we’ve taken over Wall Street and taken over Madison Avenue and taken over everything else. That has to be the most cockeyed, extremist, ugly theology of anything that anyone could ever imbibe. That has never happened in history. That is foolishness! Even if we have a great revival, my praying pastors, we will not turn the hands of this nation or history back! Don’t play the fool!

If revival breaks out, even on a large scale, there will be some changes. Hallelujah! But probably the next day and the next week if it happens in your town will be the toughest, most difficult period in your life. And the history of revival, even when you talk about my beloved Wales, where I’ve preached over 200 times, shows that a great revival, unless it’s immediately followed up with a kind of basic material and things we’ve been talking about these days, soon leaves many people and whole churches totally backslidden. Or worse, some become cults or go into extremism. I believe the way ahead for God’s people in America is going to be rough and it’s going to be tough. There is a tremendous fallout. There is enormous confusion. There is phenomenal division, and we need to fasten on our spiritual safety belts and make sure that every day we’re denying self, taking up the cross, and following Jesus, and we need to understand that we cannot consider sending out missionaries, and sending finance out to missions as something optional, that maybe we’ll do it when things get better.

Apostolic Ministry

People used to say to me, “Aren’t the Koreans going to really make up and send out the missionaries that are needed?” I’ve been to Korea a number of times. How many of you know what’s just happened in Korea? They have had the greatest financial setback in the history of their modern nation. We have 200 Koreans on OM. All of them have lost 50 percent of their support. If we were a traditional American society, which we’re not, they would have to go home, but we’re trying to put more water in the soup. We’re sharing, and we’re trying to keep those Koreans with us even though it is a nightmare for us right now. Because with it went Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and a number of other Asian countries. Their money was devalued more than 50 percent. Now, if you’re a missionary working there, then that’s a plus, but the overall negative factor, humanly speaking, is way beyond any pluses. Now, there are some signs of it improving and coming back.

Meanwhile, have you followed the stock market in the United States? Do you know how many tens of thousands of born-again Christian millionaires we have in America, of whom only a tiny percentage are giving to world missions? Brothers and sisters, our nation, your churches, my churches, we must continue to play a major role in world missions. What an embarrassment that we have churches that claim to be biblical and are actually almost boasting that they don’t send out any missionaries in the old-fashioned way. What do you mean, the old-fashioned way? Acts 13? Full-time, dynamic church planting apostolic missionaries?

Short-term, if we are not careful, could become a curse. I believe in short term missions, but it can never be a substitute for the kind of Paul and Barnabas apostolic ministry where we can plant churches in countries like Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. By the way, I could take 10 countries that would have a population equivalent to the whole of the United States that would have less witness than just Minneapolis. I know this city and I know there are many, especially when we start talking about the kingdom and building the kingdom and holistic ministry, of which I am committed to if we’re talking about it in a biblical and sensible way, not this kind of off-the-wall thing that leads us into the deep ditch of dominion and reconstruction theology.

I ask of you, make your church by God’s grace, an Antioch church. Let the Holy Spirit be in charge. Have an Acts 13 kind of prayer meeting where you can wait upon God and where you can see at least one sent out.

Sent by the Spirit and the Church

The next word, and we got to go a little quicker is the word “send.” “Send.” I think we see it twice in that passage, the Holy Spirit “send” and the church “send.” I think immediately of Romans 10:15. How will they go? How will they preach? Unless they are what? Sent. This is the ministry of sending. That’s why I don’t think I’m here to recruit all of you to the mission field. The ministry of sending is just as important as the ministry of going. It really is.

In Europe we have what’s called Grand Prix racing, similar to indie car racing. For every one person in the car, there are 50 on the team. And today for every missionary we send out, even short-term, we need at least 50 senders. There’s a book called Serving as Senders by Neil Pirolo. If you don’t find it, look in the Bethlehem Bookshop. If you don’t find it there, you can write to me. I’ll send it to you for free. It’s called Serving as Senders by Neil Pirolo. I remember First Baptist in Atlanta when they first discovered this book required everybody on the missions committee to read that book.

By the way, it’s great to have a missions committee or missions work group, whatever you want to call it, but you as a pastor need to be involved with them. I did a missions meeting Sunday morning in a dynamic church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and then we went out to lunch with a missions committee. It was an encouragement. Do you know why? Because the pastor joined us. Some pastors seem to distance themselves from the missions group and from missions activities. Maybe they’re just practicing delegation. That’s good, but the church needs to know that the pastor is a hundred percent committed to the challenge of world missions. It’s wonderful when a pastor studying a book like John Piper’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad, can share this kind of material from the pulpit. The visiting speaker shouldn’t have to do that. The visiting speaker can come in with his globe and talk about nations and talk about other things. There’s always plenty to share when we talk about missions.

I’m praying for 100,000 new sending churches. I believe if we could see 100,000 new sending churches — we’re speaking about the whole world now, Korea, Argentina, Brazil, and all these new sending countries — I believe they could send 200,000 new missionaries. That may sound like a lot, but we’re in a world of 6 billion. We’re in a world of 6 billion, and if we’re going to be even moderately holistic, which is a great dream, and sometimes it happens, you need 10 times more people and a hundred times more money to carry on holistic ministry. That’s why sometimes people who are into holistic ministry never get out of their own city, because the needs are so great.

Imagine if you’re in New York City and you get into holistic ministry. You don’t need to look at any other part of the world. But if we’re going to be biblical, we cannot do that, because these other places, hundreds of millions, have never even heard. In many people’s groups, the church doesn’t even exist. It’s not fair, especially when God has blessed our churches so much. That doesn’t mean we don’t emphasize the home because it has got to be both.

Prayer

And then another word is prayer. But I’m not going to take so much time on that except to say, as I’ve shared already in my testimony, that when it comes to missions, prayer is the bottom line. I’d urge you, I’d beg of you in the name of the Lord to be involved in some missionary prayer group and to have some kind of missionary prayer meetings in your church, even if only a few come to start with. We all agree that prayer is biblical. We all have a life of prayer, hopefully, though surveys among ministers show that quite a few of them do not have a life of prayer. But we find in the Book of Acts, the prayer meeting, as we did this morning, that is also biblical. Five men prayed and God spoke. There is spontaneous prayer and organized prayer.

Helper

And my last word is the word “helper.” There in Acts 13:5, they took Mark as their helper. For every person with a ministry, like many of you preaching and teaching, there have to be many helpers, and if you want to build a church that’s going to be ascending Antioch Church and a dynamic church in your community, learn to esteem those who are helping you, who are giving their finances. That’s a big ministry. We estimate on a global scale, between 30,000 and 40,000 people have volunteered to go into missions. It’s a guesstimation. At Urbana alone, when we gave the invitation, 9,000 signed up to go short or long- term. There is a sense where we’re not lacking volunteers. Why do such a tiny percentage of them ever get there long-term? Because we don’t have the Antioch churches. If a young person volunteers in a church like this or a very small church that has a similar vision, they have 100 percent better chance that they will go than if it’s just some young person who comes to Christ outside of the context of a church or gets a mission vision outside of the context of a local church and doesn’t have a sending church.

Many churches are actually pouring cold water on zealous young people in their churches who want to go. They always say, “You’re not quite ready,” or “Prove yourself at home here first.” How many of you proved yourself so dynamically in your hometown where you were born and reared in the church? Maybe you could write to me about that. One of the reasons we invite thousands of people to come on OM and about 90,000 have been through our training programs is because we believe getting people out of their culture and into intensive training in other cultures and other situations — even on those ships — is a way of discipling them and preparing them to send them back to the tougher situation in their own hometown.

Praise God for that mention of Mark. He actually didn’t work out too well. They had to ask him to leave the team. Later on, Barnabas wanted to bring him back. Do you remember that story? I hope you’ve preached on that one. That’s a great sermon for all these churches that are splitting. Paul didn’t want him back, and so there was what? A contention between Barnabas and Paul. But God kept working. God kept working, and I’d urge you, as I try to bring this to a close, that failure can often be the back door to success. If you’ve had failure in your ministry, don’t let that intimidate you or discourage you. Allow it to push you forward to new horizons. Maybe you’ve missed plan B in your ministry. Maybe you’ve had a moral failure. Maybe you’ve been through some other sort of difficult broken world experience. I praise God for Gordon McDonald’s book, Rebuilding Your Broken World. Maybe you feel you’re on plan G. Surely some people in your churches will, so I hope you’re preaching grace, and I have the joy of telling thousands of people who may be on plan G or F because of so much failure, praise God for a big alphabet. Press on.