Limitless Resources For Total Outreach

I would like to start off where I finished last night in Romans chapter 11. Last night my theme was discerning God’s purposes and then flowing with them. And I said that God’s purposes center in His people. The most important thing for God on earth is His people. The Lord’s portion is His people. Out of history with all its complications and its tragedies and its enigmas, God is getting Himself a people. If you don’t understand that, you’ll be a confused person. For God, people are the most valuable thing in the universe. And the key word which I believe describes God’s present thrust in relationship to His purposes is the word restoration. The Bible speaks both in the Old Testament and in the New of a period in God’s prophetic calendar of restoration. The language used in the Old Testament is ‘rebuilding Zion.’ And in the New Testament is speaks specifically of ‘a period of restoration of all things.’ And in that context the apostle Peter says that all God’s prophets have been speaking about this period of restoration since the world began. In other words, this period of restoration is one major theme of prophetic revelation.

And then I said that I believed the restoration of God’s people is, as it were, working along two parallel lines simultaneously. If you want to use the phrase in the natural, God is restoring Israel to their inheritance. I say ‘in the natural’ because the ultimate thrust of God for Israel is just as much spiritual as it is for the church. However, it begins in the political and the geographical. And the other thrust of God, going on simultaneously, is the restoration and completion of the church. And I suggested if you view history for the last eighteen centuries or so, the church has been as far from its spiritual inheritance in Christ those centuries, as Israel have from their geographical inheritance in the land. The way back is just as long and just as painful for the church as it has been for Israel. In fact, almost every experience of Israel in restoration has a lesson for the church.

I say that they are parallel, but it’s like this, if you look at two parallel lines at your feet and you see them stretching out to the horizon—let’s say it’s a railroad track—when it reaches the horizon they’ve converged. And I believe that’s going to happen too. In fact, in the last decade there has been an amazing convergence of the Jewish people with the Christian church. They had been separated by a tremendous gap, but that gap is rapidly narrowing.

Now in my talk tonight I want to deal with the restoration and completion of the church. I have taught many times of the restoration of the church. Some of you doubtless have heard that teaching: the restoration of the gifts, the restoration of the ministries, the restoration of divine order. And ultimately we must come to the restoration of unity. The church is not restored until it is one church again. And I believe we should give a very high priority in our thinking and our praying and in our attitudes to the restoration of unity. I am prepared, and I wasn’t always this way, but I am prepared to give less priority to some of my pet doctrines and higher priority to relating to other Christians. I’m prepared to lay down some things that are actually very precious to me, if it will help me to come closer to my brothers in Christ.

Over the years God has done a tremendous work in my heart. I’m from a Protestant background. I don’t like today to call myself a Protestant, because I’m tired of protesting. I don’t want to go on protesting the rest of my life. I’m certainly not a Roman Catholic. I believe in a sense I am catholic, which means universal. But I have come to have a deep love for my brothers in the Roman Catholic Church, for my brothers in the Lutheran Church. That was a miracle. Those of you that have read my first wife’s story will know she was a Lutheran from Denmark. And they, when she got baptized in water she was an outcast. And for many, many years she had a running war with the Lutheran Church. If you present to her a Lutheran pastor was like putting a red rag in front of a bull—she would charge. But God did a marvelous thing in changing my attitude to Lutherans. When I heard that God was pouring out His Spirit upon Lutherans and Anglicans, I thought, That isn’t possible. I know all about them. I’ve been an Anglican. My wife has been a Lutheran. It just couldn’t happen. But fortunately, God didn’t consult me before He did it. Today some of my closest friends in the Lord are Roman Catholics and Lutherans.

Just recently I had the privilege of being in a Lutheran church in Charlotte, and we saw the glory of God come into that church. I would also say I’ve learned a lot from Catholics, from Lutherans, from many others. I am willing to learn from anybody that’s got something valuable to tell me about Jesus Christ and the Word of God. I don’t care what race they are, I don’t care what denominational label they have, if they’ve got something to tell me about my inheritance, I want to listen, I want to receive, I’ll sit at their feet.

One thing I’ve learned, and this is probably a little bit out of line with the thinking and practice of many of you, I have come to see for myself tremendous value in the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist. I’ve just—certainly this isn’t in my note outline—but for me it is feeding on the body and blood of the Lord. And I personally feel I deprived myself for many years of this tremendous enrichment that God had. I take the Lord’s Supper every day. That’s a shocking statement to some of you, but Ruth and I always take it together. It’s become extremely important to us. The last thing I want to do is get everybody else following that fashion. But I just want to tell you that my mind has been expanded. Things that I would have felt were totally alien have become very, very precious to me. And what’s more, I know I haven’t come to the end.

Let me say one thing to you because I think maybe, in a sense, one of the biggest problems with Christians is prejudice. The apostle Paul speaks about casting down strongholds in people’s minds. Well I think the most characteristic word to describe those strongholds is prejudice. People have got their minds made up and they simply cannot hear what God is wanting to say. The truth cannot get past those fortresses that have been built in their mind. And looking back, I’ll share this, I was an Anglican and then I became a fanatical Pentecostal. I mean, looking at me today you couldn’t believe how fanatical I was. And I thank God for the Pentecostals. I owe them my salvation, I owe them the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I owe them many truths. And when I first came in among Pentecostals, because they were right about those things which I had never heard about in the Anglican Church, I naively assumed they were right about everything. Some others of us have made the same mistake. Well Pentecostals have their problems too.

And then I don’t know what I became after that and I really wouldn’t know how to categorize myself today. But when I look back on my own mistakes and try to learn from them, this is the conclusion I’ve come to. It wasn’t so much that my understanding was incorrect as that it was incomplete. And that wouldn’t have mattered until I began to act as if it was complete and that’s when I got into trouble. There’s not one of you here tonight that has a complete understanding of all that God wants to say to you.

Do not close your mind off and say, ‘I’ve nothing more to learn.’ Those are the only people who cannot learn.

So I want to begin now with this theme now of restoration and completion of the church. And to understand what’s involved in both we have to go back to the beginning when the church was launched. My personal conviction is that when God does something He does it right first time. It never has to be modified, improved, adjusted or anything. When God gave Noah the instructions for building the ark and Noah built the ark the way he was instructed, it floated first time. There was never a need to recall the ark. And I believe that’s true all through God’s dealings with man. When we do things the way God tells us, that’s right. When God launched the ministry of the Gospel, He did it in Jesus. And I have no ambitions to improve on Jesus. I think He knew what to do and He did it right. I have to admit to you I haven’t arrived at that standard, but that is my standard. When God launched the church He launched it right. It came into being as I understand it on the Day of Pentecost, and we find it described in the book of Acts. They made many mistakes, they had many problems, but basically that was the way the Lord wanted the church to be. I am against improving on it. All I want to do is reproduce it and complete it.

Now when Jesus made preparations for the launching of the church at the close of His earthly ministry, He gave a number of very specific instructions. In fact, I would prefer to say orders. I don’t believe we’ll relate rightly to the purposes of God until we see that God gives orders. God is, amongst other things, a military commander, and in the army, or in the military, the commanding officer or the sergeant, does not make suggestions or offer advice. He gives orders.

I come from a totally military background. Every male member of my family that I’ve ever known has been an officer in the British army. I spent five and a half reluctant years in the British army myself. One thing that was drilled into us was when an order was given you obeyed. You didn’t ask why; you simply did it. It seems to me that attitude has disappeared from contemporary culture, even in the military. I was a rebel for many years, but I did understand the word duty. Today, I don’t find young people understand the word duty at all. Duty is something you do because you do it, that’s all. You don’t have to have a lot of reasons. You don’t need to analyze it. You don’t have to feel good about it. You just have to do it. It’s that simple. And that simplicity has helped me a lot in life. I am scared of complication. When things get complicated I stop and say, ‘God where ware we missing You?’

So I want to go back now to what I believe are the final orders of Jesus to the church. One of the great principles in military orders is that an order is in force until it’s canceled. It doesn’t matter whether it was given five minutes ago, five hours ago, five months ago, five years ago—that doesn’t matter. As long as it is given by a valid authority it is in force until it is canceled. Jesus gave orders more than nineteen centuries ago that have never been canceled, so far as I know. Unfortunately, they have seldom been obeyed. What I want to suggest to you is the restoration and completion of the church demands that we obey these orders.

We’ll turn first of all to Matthew chapter 28, the closing verses of Matthew 28—that’s verses 18, 19 and 20.

“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore…’”

Some texts leave out therefore but I like to put it in because there’s a connection. Jesus has all the authority and we are required to exercise it on His behalf. Authority is of no use until it’s exercised. Jesus, by His death and resurrection, wrested all authority from the hands of Satan and He now makes it available to us. But it is only effective if we obey what He tells us to do. So He says,

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. [You therefore] Go . . . and [and in essence demonstrate it. How are we to demonstrate it?] make disciples of all the nations, baptiz ing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to ob serve all [things] that I [have] commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

It says there, ‘Go and make disciples of all the nations.’ It could be translated, ‘Disciple all the nations.’ But one thing is sure; it’s all the nations, not some of them. And then Jesus says, ‘When they commit themselves to discipleship, baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ As I understand it, according to His program baptism was a commitment to discipleship. When people were willing to commit themselves to discipleship, then they were to be baptized. Having been baptized, they were to be instructed in all that Jesus had told His apostles. But the main point of what I am saying to you tonight is that the program included all the nations, and the program is not complete until this has been done to all the nations.

“Now let’s look in Mark chapter 16, in a sense a parallel passage. Mark 16 beginning at verse 15. And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’”

Carry the good news to every creature. Now notice that’s all-encompassing. It’s all the world, it’s every creature. I’ve just been dabbling in the life of St. Francis and he took that pretty seriously. He preached to the birds and they listened. That’s an attested historical fact. They listened. St. Francis had a pretty wide view of his position as a child of God. He called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. I would say that in his own way he had discovered his inheritance. But my point here is, this is all encompassing—it’s all the world, every creature. Never mind the birds and the animals for the time being, let’s at least focus on the two-legged creatures. All right? You may find it a little difficult to preach to the birds, well just put that in your pending file. But to the two-legged creatures, we all have a scriptural obligation.

Where it says preach there it means proclaim the good news. And then Jesus said, ‘These signs shall follow.’ Well we didn’t read verse 16.

Once the gospel has been presented there is no further room for neutrality. You’re either on one side or the other.

“And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Jesus said, ‘Go, and the signs will follow.’ Lots of Christians say today, ‘The signs aren’t

following.’ I heard somebody comment on that once: ‘It’s hard to follow a parked car!’ The signs are not promised to those who sit in church. They’re promised to those who GO. And my observation is the people who go have the signs following. Jesus said in Matthew, ‘Go and make disciples. I’m with you always to the end of the age.’ I tell people that I don’t find any real guarantee that the Lord is with people who don’t do anything. He said, ‘If you go, I’m with you. If you go, the signs will follow.’ The word sit isn’t found in those passages.

Let’s turn to Acts chapter 1. I remember—please the people that are here on the platform—please understand that I have the greatest respect for you. But I remember a classic example of the what I would call the average church attitude. I was in a small town in Denmark. In fact, it was the town of Odense, where Hans Christian Andersen was born, and I was in a little Pentecostal Assembly and I was talking to the daughter of the pastor, a girl of about eighteen. Somebody was talking about the elders, so I said to her—I speak Danish but I’ll say it in English—I said to her, ‘What are elders?’ And this was her answer, ‘An elder is one who sits on the platform.’ I thought, ‘Dear Lord, that’s classic.’ You have to sit somewhere. If you’re not an elder you sit in a pew. If you’re an elder you sit on the platform, but the key word is sit. That so sums up church mentality. It’s a question of sitting somewhere. Going hardly enters the picture. Let’s look in Acts chapter 1 verses 6 through 8.

“Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.’”

There, incidentally again, is that combination we’ve been talking about—times and seasons. You’ll notice Jesus didn’t question that God would restore the kingdom to Israel. He simply said, ‘It isn’t your business to know when it’s going to happen.’ But He said, ‘You have another responsibility.’

“[But] He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons.… But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me [or My witnesses] in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’”

So He gave them their assignment to be witnesses to Him. He didn’t say, ‘to witness,’ He said, ‘to be

witnesses.’ There’s a difference. Some people consider witnessing handing out tracts on the steps of the post office. That’s all right. But lots of people who hand out tracts are not witnesses in themselves. We should be in all that we are, witnesses.

What does it mean to be a witness? In my opinion you can define it this way; it means to lead such a life that there’s no possible explanation except that Jesus Christ is alive. That’s to be a witness. And He said, ‘I want that witness carried to the end of the earth.’

“The next words I think are very significant.
Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

As far as we know, therefore, Acts 1:8 contains the last words that Jesus spoke on earth. And the last phrase was, ‘to the end of the earth.’ And I personally like to think that as the apostles walked down from the Mount of Olives on their way back to Jerusalem, a walk that I have myself walked I suppose scores and scores of times—I’m basically familiar with every step of it—those closing words of the Lord were ringing in their minds—to the end of the earth, to the end of earth, to the end of the earth.

I believe when a man parts with those who are his closest and most intimate friends, he tends to reserve for his very last words the things that he most wants them to remember. And I believe it was so with Jesus. I believe He wanted to imprint on the minds of the apostles, ‘It’s got to get to the end of the earth. It must not stop until it’s reached the end of the earth.’ And I believe if our hearts are in tune with the Lord, we must have the same attitude.

Now let’s just put together those three passages. In Matthew 28 the Lord says, ‘Make disciples.’ That obviously includes a process of training. In Mark 16 He says, ‘Proclaim the good news.’ And in Acts 1 He says, ‘Be witnesses.’ Now none of those is a substitute for any of the others. And none of them is set aside. We have an obligation to be the Lord’s witnesses everywhere, to the end of the age and the end of the earth. We have an obligation to go to all nations and make disciples of them. But we also have an obligation to proclaim the good news.

In the last few years God has reawakened in me a tremendous burden to proclaim the good news. When I was in the early years of my ministry, because I came from a very intellectual background, I kind of felt I had to explain the gospel. I’m not sure that we’re ever required to explain the gospel. I believe the only person who can explain the gospel is the Holy Spirit. But I do know I’m called to proclaim the gospel. And when I’m making my radio programs I have such an inner rest and joy. I cannot tell you how excited I am to think that it could reach China with one billion people. Furthermore, just let me mention this, there’s a program being worked to translate my messages into Chinese so they reach the people of China in their own language. Understand, in the Orient English is almost everybody’s second language, and most people that know a little want to learn more. So people who have no religion at all will listen to religious broadcasts just to learn English.

For me I have the satisfaction that I am proclaiming the good news. And since I’ve come to know that I’ve tried to simplify what I have to say. I’ve tried to make it sort of trans-cultural. You can’t do that completely, but the great basic truths of the gospel apply anywhere. I know that. I’ve taught to Arabs, to Jews, to Africans, and to the most sophisticated and intellectual, and it’s exactly the same truth for everybody. There’s no special gospel for intellectual people, and there’s no special gospel for uneducated. It’s one and the same and it needs to be proclaimed.

I believe we have an obligation to proclaim it even where we are not able to make disciples. I believe it’s the purpose of the Lord that all nations should hear this news. Let’s turn to Matthew 24 for a moment. This chapter is a prophetic discourse of Jesus given on the Mount of Olives in essence outlining the course of events that will lead up to the climax of the age and His personal return in glory. It was sparked by a question. We will not go into the background, but the question is given in verse 3.

“Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? [That’s the destruction of the temple.] And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’”

Now the disciples thought that if the temple was to be destroyed as Jesus had told them, that would inevitably mark the end of the age. They couldn’t conceive that the temple would be destroyed and the age would continue. History would prove them wrong. The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.; the age still has not closed. They asked three questions, or two, whichever way you like to express it, thinking that they were synonymous. Jesus answered all their questions, but they were different questions. ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming [parousia—the technical Greek word], and of the end of the age.’ Now they may be identical, but I’m not sure that they are. I’m inclined to think that the end of the age is a specific brief period at the end of the age. That’s just a personal opinion.

At any rate, notice the question, ‘What will be the sign?’ not the signs, but the sign. Jesus answered that question. First of all, He gave them signs. He spoke about various different events and trends that would characterize the closing period of this age. We can glance at them briefly. He said, ‘You will hear of wars and rumors of wars,’ but that doesn’t mean the age is coming to an end. There have been wars and rumors or wars ever since that time until this time.

“Then He said in verse 7:
‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom . . . there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows [or birth pangs].’”

So great international wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes—these are the beginnings of sorrows or birth pangs. We’re all familiar, of course, with the fact that when a woman is about to give birth to a child the indication that the birth is at hand is when the birth pangs set in and the nearer it comes to the birth, the more intense and the closer together they come. And that’s what Jesus is saying. Once you see these things, that’s the beginning of the birth pangs. From then on, expect them to get more intense and to come closer together until the birth takes place. And one thing we know—that when that process begins you cannot reverse it. And when we’ve entered into this period of history there’s no way to reverse it. And I think it’s somewhat vain to hope that the tensions will lessen and the crises becoming fewer. My opinion is the tensions will increase and the crises will become more frequent, because they’re the birth pangs and they’re going to come closer and closer together until a new age is born.

“Then He goes on:
‘Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.’”

Worldwide hatred and persecution of Christians. We need to bear in mind that that’s already here over more than half the earth’s surface. Here in America at present we don’t experience that. It could change in a decade. Believe me, the forces of humanism in this nation hate us with a hatred that would gladly see us blotted out. One thing about Elijah he was a realist. He knew what Jezebel wanted to do him. And if we don’t know what that force wants to do to us we’d better wake up, because it’s set for our destruction. Next verse:

“And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.”

Many Christians will fall away and act in an un-Christian way. The pressures will be so great. Verse 11:

“Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.”

Who can count the false prophets that we’ve seen in this generation—all the cults, all the gurus, all the different extraordinary manifestations or error? Verse 12:

“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. [All over the world there is a steady and even dramatic increase of lawlessness.] But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

The Greek says ‘but he who has endured to the end shall be saved.’ But He still, Jesus, still has not answered the question, ‘What will be the sign?’ He’s given many signs, but not the sign. In verse 14 He answers the question:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

That’s very clear. It’s not ambiguous, it’s not vague. It’s specific. What is the sign? This gospel of the kingdom, the same gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached. Not some watered down version, but this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world to all the nations, and then the end will come.

You see, I said yesterday that everything revolves around God’s people. Here’s an example. The final precipitation of the climax of the age, in a certain sense, depends on us. It isn’t going to be decided by the dictators or the military commanders or the scientists. They’ll contribute factors, but in the hands of the church is the key that will close the age. That’s always so. God will never allow the initiative to pass from His people because we are the body of Christ, and if He did that it would be dishonoring Christ, the head of the body. So on us rests a most tremendous responsibility to bring about those things which will close the age and bring the Lord back.

Now let me add this. I believe that there is a set day for the Lord to return. I have to tell you I don’t know what day it is. If I told you I did, I would be a false prophet. So I don’t think that the Lord is going to be surprised, but on the other hand, it cannot happen until we’ve done something. Can you reconcile those two statements? I can, because I believe in God’s foreknowledge. I believe God knows when He’ll be able to get ahold of a people that will do the job. And again I say tonight as I said last night, why shouldn’t we be the people? What could be more exciting than that?

I want to tell you that there are a lot—not a lot, but some Christians who’ve seen this and they are liv ing to do it. And basically I would say that they are the ones who have an exciting life. I know Christians who live in a kind of spiritual high and there’s two very simple factors. Number one they are earnestly looking for the return of Jesus, and number two, they are committed to carry the gospel to all nations and all the world. And when you get among people like that, there’s a difference. They’re not super educated, they’re not super-spiritual, their theology has got many gaps, but they know why they’re living. And I could pray and wish that you would be like that.

I know there’s all sorts of problems about the return of the Lord. I don’t mind that. But I can tell you one thing: if you read the New Testament honestly, you cannot but conclude that anticipation of the Lord’s return was a major factor in the way they lived. You say, ‘Well, their eschatology was wrong.’

Listen, if it’s necessary I’d rather have the wrong eschatology and live right, than have the right eschatol ogy and live wrong. But I don’t believe their eschatology was wrong. I believe there’s a mystery in regard to time which I’m not going to try to expound. Anyhow, I want to be one of those happy people. I’m real ly not ambitious for the things of this world. I enjoy them, I seek to use them, but I am not bound by them. I am not going to sell my birthright for a bowl of soup.

I’d like to look to a passage in Revelation chapter 5, verses 8 and 9. This is the scene in heaven when the scroll was opened. Unfortunately, there are theological problems about everything when you get to Revelation. But anyhow there was a scroll and it was opened. Personally, I’ll tell you that I believe the scroll represents God’s program for closing the age. It might be different, but that’s the way I see it. And there was only one person in the universe that could set in motion that program, and that was the Lamb that had been slain. He was introduced as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but when John looked he didn’t see a lion, he saw a lamb, a slain lamb. That’s such a marvelous illustration of the truth that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. The world doesn’t think that way. God isn’t going to use the super intellects, the super-geniuses. He’s going to use weak, humble people whose strength is in the Lord. We have to learn to be like the slain Lamb, then the strength of the Lion will be manifested.

I was in northern and southern California at the end of last year with some of the related groups. Probably some people are here from those meetings. And I was talking to a group of men, the same kind of meeting I had this morning with the leaders, and I was saying to them, ‘There are some verses in the Bible I cannot yet say with my full heart. One of them is Philippians chapter 3, ‘That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.’ I don’t have any problem saying that, but it’s the next phrase, ‘the fellowship of His sufferings.’ Now Paul was ambitious to know the fellowship of His sufferings. I really have to tell the Lord, ‘Be patient with me, Lord. I’m not sure I’m there yet.’’

Then I happened to discover another passage in Paul’s writings that’s rather extraordinary in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 when He said, ‘I will all the more gladly glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ Not most of you think like that. Well, I’m not sure I’ve come to the place where I can say that either. But the Lord took me up on that one. Because for the rest of that very exacting trip I was sick with a skin condition which became extremely painful. In fact I lost large areas of my skin. It was like having burns. But I went through with my ministry in Hawaii and in southern California, and I’d have to say I don’t think I’ve ever seen God move as He moved there. So God took me up when I could glory in my infirmities, the power of Christ rested on me.

And, you see, there’s a paradox that we can walk around or refuse to face, but it’s there. God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. It isn’t the people who’ve got it all together that do things for God. That’s a fact.

“All right. Now we’re going to look at this scroll.
Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. [Have you ever pictured your prayers being offered up to the Lord in golden bowls by the four living creatures?] And they sang a new song, saying [to the Lamb]:
‘You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed men to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made [them a kingdom] and priests to our God;
And [they will] reign on the earth.’”

I want you to notice there it says that the Lamb has redeemed by His blood, for God, men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. So the church cannot be complete until at least one representative of every tribe and every tongue has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. And I believe there is no more urgent task before the church then to reach the tribes and the tongues from which nobody has yet been redeemed. And it rests upon a very tiny little handful of dedicated people.

I often think at my age, if I could have my life again what would I like to be. And one of the things I would love to have been would be a Wycliffe translator, because I love languages and I believe passio nately that every tribe and tongue has got a right to know that Jesus died and rose from the dead.

There’s a—I have a record sung by a Jewish believer and it’s mostly Jewish songs, but there’s one that’s completely non-Jewish in its whole tone and just got squeezed in at the end of the record because I think there was space, but I never listen to it without tears coming to my eyes. And the chorus of it goes like this:

“May the book of life never close
Till the whole world knows He arose.”

I believe that every person on the face of the earth has got a right to know that Jesus rose from the dead. I think of the words of Oswald Smith, the former pastor of the People’s Church in Toronto. He said, ‘No one has a right to hear the gospel twice, until every one has heard it once.’ To me, that’s logic.

Now I was asked for a title for my message and I usually get hung on my titles, and I said, off the cuff, something about Resources for Outreach. I want to talk now about the resources for doing what I’m talking about. Because most people think, ‘Well, that’s an impossible task. Four billion people in the world; how could we ever expect to do it?’ And yet as a matter of fact, this generation has all the technical tools that are needed to do it. It’s the first generation in human history that actually could do the job in one generation. That’s one of the many reasons why this is such a significant generation. So many things have come together in this generation which were never there before.

But I want to give you a rather brief kind of example of how it can be financed of the resources avail able in God to do it. And I’m going to take an example from the miracles of Jesus in which He fed thou sands of people from the tiniest resources. There are two such miracles—the feeding of the five thousand, that’s men, and women and children have to be added, the feeding of the four thousand. And the feeding of the five thousand is a very significant miracle. First of all, it’s the only one that’s recorded in all four Gospels. And second, it, and the feeding of the four thousand, I think are probably the only miracles that Jesus actually commented Himself. So I want to read these two records. First of all, the feeding of the five thousand in Matthew 14—they are also, as I said, recorded in other gospels, but we’ll stick to Matthew. Matthew 14 verses 13 to 21:

“When Jesus heard it [that’s the death of John the Baptist], He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion
for them, and healed their sick.”

I read those two verses deliberately, not that they’re directly related to the miracle, but because they bring out a principle that most times Jesus healed people en masse. There are a few occasions in which He healed individuals separately, but in most cases He had an appointed time and place and to be healed, the people had to get there. They were blind, they were dumb, they were lame, they were maimed—that was not a little for them to have to go all that way into this desert place, but there was where He healed them. And I say that because I am learning in my own ministry that it’s better to set a time and a place and deal with everybody then just try to deal with one or two individuals here and there. People come up to me at the end of an ordinary meeting and they say, ‘Brother Prince, will you pray for me?’ And I told the Lord some time ago that I was never going to make prayer just a kind of religious excuse. So I say to such people, ‘Well, if you want me to pray for you I will, but I don’t expect anything to happen.’ That’s usual because there is no anointing on me and it isn’t the way God has arranged it. But if you will pray about coming to the healing service, then I’ll do my best for you.

Another thing I have discovered is that when I’ve preached the message God wants preached I have an anointing on me which makes me a different person. I wonder sometimes at the things I hear myself say and the things I do, because I know in myself they’re not mine. It says about King Saul before he was king, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he became another man. I know what it is for the Spirit of the Lord to come upon me and make me a man I could not be without that. And I do not command the Spirit of the Lord. I do not tell the wind where to blow. I try to find out where the wind is blowing and get there.

“All right. Now we come to this miracle. Verse 15:
When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.’ [The disciples saw a problem coming and they wanted to sidestep it, see?] But Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’”

Now that was impossible. And what we’re talking about, reaching the whole world in one generation with the gospel, is impossible. And our tendency is to say, ‘Well, send them away.’ And Jesus says, ‘You give them something to eat. You do the impossible.’

“And they said to Him, ‘We have here only five loaves and two fish.’ He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’ Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. [Notice the disciples were an essential part of the chain. It couldn’t have happened with Jesus only.] So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained.”

Interestingly enough, in John’s gospel we find out that it was Jesus who told them to pick up the fragments. The disciples would have wandered off and left the fragments on the ground. But Jesus is pres ident of the ‘anti-litter league.’ Really that’s such an insight into the character of Jesus. After He’d per formed this tremendous miracle and the people were ready to crown Him as king, the disciples were probably marching off, Jesus said, ‘There’s a lot of fragments to pick up first.’

“Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Probably there were ten thousand persons. That’s the first. Now we’ll go on to the second which follows in the next chapter, Matthew 15 verses 32 through 38. Begin at verse 29 instead.

“Jesus departed from there, skirted the Sea of Galilee, and went up on the mountain and sat down there. [So He’d walked quite a considerable distance.] Then great multitudes came to Him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus’ feet, and He healed them.”

Notice they had to go all the way to where He was with their blind, their lame, their maimed and so on. Jesus had a time and a place, very practical. He would have never done anything else but pray for people if He’d done it all the time. Brothers and sisters, if you have a ministry to the sick I promise you one thing, you’ll never be short of customers. And alas, you don’t have to go outside the church.

“So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel. [May God grant us to see such
things in our day.] [Now] Jesus called His disciples to Him[self] and said, ‘I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.’”

That was a long meeting, wasn’t it? I have a mental inner vision somewhere in Africa I’m going to get to a place where God is going to start to heal people. And I know the Africans well enough, all you’ve got to do is stay there and they’ll come for miles and miles and miles when the rumor gets around. When Brother T. L. Osborne was in the coast of Kenya in 1958, the Mombassa region, missionaries had been there eighty years but the majority of the coastal tribes had never really responded to the gospel. But when the news got around that people were being visibly healed and evil spirits were being cast out, those people just emerged—as they say ‘they swarmed out of the woodwork.’ And half naked women streamed out of the hills and the forests to the meetings because that was the way they were normally dressed, or not dressed. And this is what they said and this has stuck with me. They said it in Swahili but I’ll say it in English, ‘Where is the hospital where they cast out evil spirits?’ They didn’t know the word for a church. But when they heard about that they said, ‘That’s what we need.’ All right, we’re going on in Matthew 15 verse 33:

“Then His disciples said to Him, ‘Where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a multitude?’ Jesus said to them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ [Start with what you have.] And they said, ‘Seven, and a few little fish.’ [So] He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples; . . .”

One of the things that impresses me in these miracles is the power of giving thanks. It never says that Jesus prayed, but He gave thanks and that did it.

“He took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitude”

Notice the disciples were an essential link in the chain. It couldn’t happen without them. Most of Je sus’ miracles could have been done without the disciples.

“were left. Now those who are were four thousand men, besides women and children.”

The first time it was five thousand, the second time it was four thousand. Now I want you to see that Jesus paid great attention to the quantities and the numbers of people. Go on into the 16th chapter, and without going into the context we’ll read from verse 5.

“[Now] when His disciples had come to the other side [that is of the lake], they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.’ And they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘It is because we have taken no bread.’ But when Jesus perceived it, said to them, ‘O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many baskets you took up?’”

So Jesus attached great importance to all the relevant figures. And these are the figures to recapitu late. The first time He fed five thousand men, He started with five loaves and two fishes, and the frag ments were twelve baskets. Now there’s different words for baskets, but let us not get involved in that because it’s complicated.

The second time He fed a smaller number of people, four thousand, He had more to start with—seven loaves and a few fish—and they took up only seven baskets. Did you get the message? See, it’s a very important message. When He had a bigger crown and less to start with, He had more left over than when He had a smaller crowd and more to start with.

What’s the lesson? God operates according to our faith and according to the need, not according to our initial resources. And I believe that is the pattern for what I’m talking about. I don’t believe that the church will ever have in the bank all the money that it needs to evangelize the world. I don’t believe that we will ever, sitting in our churches, have all the spiritual gifts that it will take. We’ll just have five loaves, two fishes—financially, spiritually. But when we start to operate, then there’ll be no limit to our resources. You just sit there and say, ‘When we have enough we’ll do it.’ Believe me, you won’t.

Now let me just outline the application as I see it. First of all, the disciples did not want to accept re sponsibility but Jesus gave them an order. The disciples said, ‘Send them away.’ Jesus said, ‘You feed

them.’ I believe Jesus says the same to you and me about the millions that are not yet reached—2.7 bil lion it is estimated in today’s world have never heard the name of Jesus. We say, ‘Lord, we can’t reach 2.7 billion. You do something.’ The Lord says, ‘You feed them.’

Then I want you to see the relationship between order or discipline and the supernatural. Jesus did not operate in disorder. Had He just made the bread and the fish available, the people would have stampeded and people would have been injured and trampled on. But He first of all got them in good order, sitting down in fifties. When they were sat down in order, then the miracle started.

Now, generally speaking, amongst Christians we’ve got two ways of thinking—they’re the people who say, ‘We need order,’ and they’re the people who say, ‘We’ve got to have the supernatural.’ Each is right, but each is incomplete. What we’ve got to have is order and the supernatural. If they had just seated the people they would have had beautiful order, but just a lot of hungry people.

Now I believe probably amongst the people represented here, order to a large extent has been estab lished. Perhaps more than in most sections of the church anywhere. Praise God for that, brothers and sis ters, but we’ve still got a lot of hungry people. And we’ll never minister to them without the supernatural. I’m not talking simply about miracles of healing or deliverance. I’m talking about a life that’s lived out of the infinite resources of God, not measuring how much do we have in the bank, or how many people do we have, but believing that if God breaks the bread and the fishes and gives them to us and we give them out, we’ll never run out until everybody’s been fed. That’s my conviction.

That’s the next thing I want to say. The multiplication depended on the disciples passing it out. If they hadn’t passed it on, it wouldn’t have happened. Jesus did not do it by Himself. He had to have the cooper ation of His disciples. Their faith became involved just as much as His. That’s how it is. The multiplica tion did not cease until all the needs were met. God is interested in meeting the needs of humanity. He will not dry up the supply if we will move out in obedience and faith.

And finally, as I have already said, the greater the need and the fewer the resources, the greater the surplus. And Jesus was careful to point that out. He said, ‘Get the principle.’ It does not depend on your resources. It depends on your faith and God’s supply. I trust that being here for me will be a blessing to you. I want to be a blessing. But I want to tell you very clearly, if it’s not a blessing it will be the oppo site, because tonight I think I have confronted every one of you very clearly with what God expects of you. And from tonight onwards, you cannot hide behind the plea of ignorance or insufficiency. You’re either going to obey or you’re going to disobey. There’s no third option left. The Word of God is a sharp two-edged sword. Nobody sits on it.

Furthermore, we here in the United States probably have an obligation that exceeds that of any other group of Christians anywhere in the world. I’ll give you one Scripture. Luke chapter 12 verse 48, the lat ter part of the verse. Luke 12:48.

“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”

So the more you have, the more is required of you. Now if you’ve not at any time traveled in any ex tent outside the United States, you probably do not realize how, as American Christians, you are privi leged far above almost all other Christians anywhere in the world. Your government, up to this hour, makes special concessions and gives special privileges to Christian groups which are not found in hardly any other nation—perhaps to some extent in Canada. The idea of contributions to churches being tax ex empt is unthinkable in Europe. The people they go after first would be the churches. That’s their attitude.

Furthermore, by the standards of the majority of the world tonight, every one of you people is weal thy, myself not least. I think it’s probably true the majority of the people in the world today don’t have sheets on their bed. Certainly they don’t have a choice of food. If they have any food at all that’s a bless ing. Many of them have probably never worn shoes. If you’ve gone all your life with shoes you don’t know how exciting it is to get your first pair of shoes. I saw that in Africa. The Bible says in the Song of Solomon, ‘How fair are your feet, oh prince’s daughter with shoes.’ I heard a preacher once say, ‘When you get shoes you feel like a prince’s daughter.’ You have no concept of the level on which most of the world is living. That’s not to be accusatory. Much of it is due to your ancestors, because the forerunner of this people were uniquely blessed of God.

We are living on capital inherited from Christian forebears. That’s God’s faithfulness to men and women who prayed, believed, sacrificed and worked for His kingdom. This nation was born as no other nation has ever been born. Probably you’ve heard me say that the Jewish people in Hebrew have a special name for the United States. Hebrew is perfectly capable of saying the United States, but it doesn’t. It says ‘the Nations of the Covenant.’ Because the Jewish mind with its prophetic insight discerns that this nation was born in a unique way. It was born out of a covenant and that has set it apart in its destiny from other nations. Please understand, I’m not saying we’re the lost tribes of Israel, just in case you should mi sunderstand me.

Just one other thing, you can go out tonight and on the table will be my books. You could go to al most any conference or meeting anywhere and the tables would be stacked with Christian books on every subject—marriage, the home, the family, the gifts of the Spirit, the ministries, demons, what have you. You need to know that most other nations have scarcely any teaching material in their language of any kind about any biblical subject. The Germans maybe, and the French and the Swedes have theological tomes, which don’t help anybody. But any simply practical teaching is almost non-existent outside the English-speaking world. You haven’t any idea what a blessing you enjoy because English is your language. The wealth of the men of God of almost all ages is available to you and it isn’t available to most people. ‘To whom much is given, of him shall much also be required.’

Now I want to close by just adding a few words of warning. I realize that sometimes I impact people powerfully. I’m glad I do, but I want to cushion the impact a little. Don’t go out of here tonight, get on your horse and ride rapidly in four directions at once. The first thing that I want to produce in you tonight is not action, it is attitude. I want you from this night to see yourself co-responsible with your fellow

believers for all the nations of the world. Don’t immediately start to do anything but accept that attitude. Secondly, if in due course God does give the privilege to some of you to go to the ends of the earth or wherever it may please God to direct you, those of you who do not go must consider yourselves every bit as much involved as those who do. Okay? The great problem of ‘missions’—I don’t even like the word missions—is that it sets aside a small group of specialists and all the rest of the people just go on sitting in

the church. The truth of the matter is, we are collectively responsible. Who goes and who stays is God’s business, but we are all equally responsible.

And thirdly I want to say God will not place upon the fellowships and believers here the responsibility to go to every part of the earth. At least I would be surprised if He did. But if you seek God He’ll give you your particular sphere of responsibility. And that’s very, very important. It’s a principle. I could give you Scriptures but time is running out, I won’t. But the apostles recognized their spheres of responsibility. Paul and his co-workers went to the Gentiles. Peter and James and John went to the Jews. That was a recognition of divinely given spheres, and who knows…

I have a sort of feeling tonight—let me be careful what I say—but I have an impression tonight I’ve got some men behind me whom God wants in Africa. That’s just an impression. It could work out that it isn’t so. But if it does work out that it is so, I’ll look forward to meeting you there.

I love Africa. I lived five years in Kenya. For me, black is beautiful. I want you to know that. When I was there I could not look at those people without tears streaming down my face. God gave me such a passion for them. I’m thankful I have one black daughter and she’s a very beautiful Christian girl. What a gift. And you know, I nearly missed it.

I’ll just take a moment to tell you this story. It was in 1958. I was principal of a college for training teachers. I worked from six in the morning until ten o’clock at night. And I never got through everything I had to do. And we were sitting, about six o’clock in the evening, in our living room just waiting, I think, for a meal. I forget now. And this strange assorted group turned up in a car—a white lady and a black African couple. And the white lady was carrying in her arms a very sick little black baby, wrapped in nothing but a dirty towel. And they said, ‘This little girl’s mother died when she was born. She was found in a coma on the floor of the hut. A man picked her up and took her to the hospital. She’s been six months in the hospital, but the hospital says they’re not a children’s home. They can’t keep her any longer and we have been traveling around this area for three days looking for anybody, black, white or Asian, that would take this little girl.’ And they said, ‘We went to a hospital’—a Friend’s hospital, a Quaker’s hospital, a little further north where the doctor knew Lydia and me—and he said, ‘Why don’t you go to the Princes? They take children.’

So we looked at them and I said, ‘I’m really sorry, but that was a long while ago we did that. And we’re too old to take a little baby now. Besides it would interfere with the work we’re doing in the educational field.’ ‘Well,’ they said, ‘we’re so tired. Would you let us sit down for half an hour?’ So of course we said, ‘By all means, sit down.’

At the end of half an hour they got up to go and as this lady carried this little black baby past me, she stretched out her hand to me like that, and it was so clear to me she was saying, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ So I looked at my wife, and we never committed ourselves in public if we made a major decision without talking it over first. And I said, ‘Maybe we’ll change our mind.’ And Lydia, bless her, because she was much older than I was, she said, ‘Give me a week to get a crib and some baby clothes and you can bring her back.’ And a week later we had her and she was very sick. She would wake in the night and nearly choke with coughing, but she’s lived, she knows the Lord. But you know what Jesus said, ‘He that receiveth one little child in My name receives Me.’ And I realized that when that little black baby came into our house that night it was Jesus. Had we turned her away we would have turned the Lord away. So you never really know when God is going to challenge you to something. I pray that you’ll be ready if the challenge comes.

One more principle and I’ll close very quickly. Even when others go to a sphere that is not the sphere that God has assigned to you, you should still see them as your representatives and your responsibility, because the body of Christ is one. I’ve mentioned the Wycliffe translators. I have no particular association with the Wycliffe translators, but as a Christian I’m proud of them. I wish there were more like them.

Now I just want to close in a practical and I don’t want to be emotional, but I want to be fair to you at the same time. I’ve talked about an attitude. I’m not talking about action. I’m not calling for volunteers, but I do believe that for many of you God would wish to see your attitude change. And I believe that if you would let God know you want Him to change your attitude, He’ll start to do it.

Some of you are really, in a way, rather frustrated. You’re kind of saying to yourself: Isn’t there more to the Christian life? Well the only way to find out is to start to give out. It’s in giving that we receive. I’m not talking about giving finance. I’m just talking about being open to the need of the world. You know that ten million people die every year of starvation in our present civilization, or non-civilization? We are not answerable for the death of those ten million, but you could do something to save one child somewhere. You really wouldn’t even notice the difference financially. For probably fifteen years my first wife and I and now Ruth and I have maintained three orphans—two in India and one in Korea. I don’t even think about it and I just give my secretary instructions and she mails the check every month. And I’m certainly not boasting about that. But you know the Bible says, ‘To him who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, it is sin.’ And I’m not trying to condemn you. I’m just suggesting that some of you are missing a whole lot. There’s a lot more than you’re getting, but you won’t get any more until you start to give. And I believe you’re a generous group of people.

I want to say as a Britisher, the Americans are a marvelously generous people, and I owe them so much myself. One thing I’ve said is that I will never take any pay for the radio messages I make. That’s my way of expressing my gratitude to the American people. So I’m not condemning the Americans. There’s probably only two or three nations which are more generous. Would you like to know which they are? Well today Norway is probably one of the most generous of all nations, and Finland always has been. Sweden used to be and has slipped, but basically the Americans are the best givers in the body of Christ. I don’t know about Korea. They may far outstrip all of us.

Now what I’m saying is, Would you like to let God adjust your attitude in these matters, deliver you maybe from self-centeredness, or indifference or ignorance? Put in you a kind of compassion for a world that needs help? If you would like us to pray for you, I’m going to ask the brothers on the platform to come join with me in prayer. If you want to signify to God and ask prayer from us that you want to be plugged to whatever it is that God is saying, you want to sense the heartbeat of God, then I would like you to think it over, because it may make a lot of differences in the way you’re going to live and upset some of your plan. But if you really are willing to be changed, then I’d like you to stand to your feet and we’ll pray for you. That’s your decision. Now if you’re already in the vision, you don’t have to stand. I don’t want to get everybody standing just for the sake of standing. But I do believe there is a real inner response of people tonight.

‘Oh, Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You tonight for Your unspeakable gift. Lord, I still recall that beautiful solo. Thank You, My Father, for giving Your Son. Thank You for what You’ve done for every one of us here tonight. Lord, we want to be grateful people. We want to be responsive people. Thank You for those who want to respond, Lord, and yet we know that without Your Holy Spirit just in our own fleshly nature we cannot respond. And so, Lord, we invoke the Holy Spirit tonight upon those who are standing, upon the leadership, upon each one of us. Touch our hearts, Lord. Take away the carnality, the indifference, the lack of vision, forgive us, Lord, for the way we’ve failed to do good when we could have done good, and do something special, Lord, we pray tonight for each one standing here. For Your glory, in Jesus’ name.’