4 Urbana 1968

4

Urbana 1968

(A message that George gave at Urbana, a large student missions event in 1968)

I do not think I can explain to you how difficult it is for me to speak. I have never spoken in conventions like this in my life. I have been out of America for almost eight years, except for a few weeks traveling to Mexico. Most of my life and time have been given to personal counseling and personal evangelism. So if you think that I am not serious in what I say, I can only ask you to somehow give me a chance to know you personally. I would do almost anything tonight to help at least one needy person in this auditorium.

I know of some young people who, when reading a missionary biography, only become depressed. I know some who, when reading the story of the men who were martyred in South America many years ago, become convinced that they will never make it. They read about George Müeller and how he prayed for millions of Pounds to support his orphanages by faith, which they could not even understand and become overwhelmed. I think if I had been sitting here as a freshman in college (I had been a Christian only one year at that time), hearing some of these challenges and facts and the qualifications so tremendously presented by our brethren, I have to confess that I couldn’t have done it.

Some of you already have come to me with your problems. Many of you have admitted and spoken among yourselves about the dichotomy I spoke about in an earlier message, and you know it is very real. My heart goes out to you who are sons and daughters of missionaries, Christians and strong evangelicals; to you who have been raised from a very early age like my own children on Bible verses. My son at six years passed around hundreds of tracts by himself in a single day. And perhaps some of you did the same thing as young children. Yet now at university or at college somehow it is not real any longer.

I admit that I am preaching for a decision on your part tonight as I believe Jesus Christ preached on the part of his hearers. He told Zacchaeus to come down. He told the blind man to put mud on his eyes. Wherever he went, he called people to make decisions.

However, it is with fear that I would call anyone to make a decision without counting the cost. I think of the words in Luke 14 where Jesus said that we must count the cost. Before you make a decision like this, before you sign your name for something like this, you must count the cost lest you become like thousands of young people (those of us on the platform know this is true) who have signed their names, who have raised their hands, yet who have never fulfilled that commitment.

Yes, I am afraid if I had been here as a freshman, I would have been somewhat frustrated. We speak about these qualifications. Who can live like this? Recently I was reading Andrew Murray’s book on humility and it made me want to quit the ministry! I could not even understand what Murray was talking about, much less ever have it. Time and again as I read books by men of God and studied biographies, I have felt so overwhelmed by it all—by the responsibility of the Christian life.

I want to speak especially to those of you who feel somewhat overwhelmed, somewhat incapable. You have problems in your life. You know that this dichotomy is very real for you, and though you sing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” you have never marched for Christ. Though you sing, “Who Will Follow in His Train?” you know deep in your heart you are not following in his train. The hymns that we have sung even in these meetings, carry enough spiritual truth to drive us to the uttermost parts of the earth, and to the unconverted people in our universities—our commitment is real.

If the statements on this card become real in our lives, we would become revolutionists for Jesus Christ. People would be won on our campuses. Our Christian unions would become alive by the love of Jesus Christ. We would be constrained to go, to give, to love, and to experience the tremendous reality that is in Jesus Christ. An atheist once said to an evangelical Christian in the British Isles: “If I believed what you say you believe, I would cross Britain upon my knees on broken glass to tell men about it.”

When I graduated from my high school I was called the class clown. Everything was a joke to me. I had more jokes, witty stories, swear words and things to keep people laughing all night. I always got excited or suddenly interested when a meeting ended early— because my Saturday nights used to begin about ten. We would go over the river into New York City with our girlfriends—I had about thirty-two of them when I was between twelve and sixteen years old. (Don’t laugh—some of you have had far more than that.) We would begin to dance old-fashioned rock and roll. (The Twist was just coming in when I got twisted out by the Lord. Praise be to God.) I had loud speakers all over my room that automatically kicked on in the mornings and roused me out of bed to jazz or something else. I lived on music. We would start about 10:00 p.m. and I loved it.

When Jesus Christ found me I could not say I was sad. I was fantastically happy. I had a beautiful blond next to me in the seat at Madison Square Garden. I was enjoying life. Some people think you come to Christ only when you are sad, overwhelmed, depressed, or have a tremendous guilt complex.

No, not necessarily. I want to say this with all my heart: God pulled me out of night clubs and he gave me something more real or I would never be here. I loved dance, music, and all the things of the world. Even today if somebody played a juke box in the corner I would have to hold my knees still. But for the past nine years the only thing that had kept me up as late as a prom night—and it has been every other week or so—is spending a night with believers in prayer and worship to God, spending seven or eight hours in the presence of God and in worship to him.

God is real. I want to tell you that God is so real that, though my friends said I would be back in one month, I have not been back once in eleven years. I want to tell you that God is so real, he can make Rock and Roll and all the poison, sugar-coated pills of this world seem like dead stones in the middle of a desert. I am convinced that Jesus Christ is so real, his love is so tremendous, that when we walk closer with him and really experience his love the things of this world fall off without the ninety-nine negatives that are often preached at us.

Many of you may think that God is not that real to you. You say, “Well, that’s okay for you. God found you in a nightclub. But what about us—Christian young people?”

I want to tell you about one of my best friends. Jonathan was a student leader at Moody Bible Institute when I was a student. He met me in the Student Council. Jonathan was born on the mission field and raised by missionary parents. Jonathan once told me he had never kissed a girl in his life. I told him that I would not take a girl on a date if I could not. . .(never mind the word I used). But I could not believe a fellow could be like Jonathan. And from his very early years on a mission field Jonathan has, to this day, gone on for God. There was a time when his commitment became very unreal. There was a time when he almost became an agnostic, even in the middle of Bible school program. But as he met other Christians, as he experienced reality and saw that Christianity could be lived, that Jesus Christ is alive in the 20th century, he recommitted his life to God and has become a mighty man for God. It is only because of Jonathan that I have been able to go to Asia, because he coordinates our work all over Europe. He has the same life, the same zeal; he has more love and more reality than I do. Yet he came from a home just like many of you.

Jesus Christ can meet every need. Whether God found you in the deepest ditch in Chicago or as a missionary child, he can meet your need tonight.

There are needs here—needs in the social life. Billy Graham, in his book, World Aflame, says we are a nation of sex gluttons. It is true. This is the biggest battle of your life on campus. Billy said in the 1957 convention, “And if you do not win this battle, you are going to lose all around.” I am convinced that Jesus Christ is sufficient for your sex battles, wherever and whatever they may be. I pray you will take some of the Inter-Varsity books on this subject and devour them. But what they say will only be a reality in your life, as you experience the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to meet your emotional longings.

When he meets your need, when you experience victory and know reality, then and only then can you be God’s man and God’s woman on the mission field.

I am not talking about perfection. I have not come to offer you any kind of spiritual pep pill. I did not say, “Believe this, and everything from now on will be perfect.” No! Jesus Christ said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Do you believe that? He repeatedly said that in each of the Gospels.

There will be struggles and battles. Victory is not easy, but there is victory. The Book of 1 John says, “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.”

In a few minutes, though I do not like it and my personality rebels against it, I am going to give you the opportunity to express faith like Zacchaeus’ when he came down from the tree. You are going to be thinking about it in these next few minutes.

My invitation to you is not necessarily to become a missionary. You have to work out what and where you are on your knees before God. I do not believe that we as so-called missionaries are necessarily any more committed than the person who never moves out of his place. I believe that with all my heart. If God calls you to a carpenter shop, remember Jesus was a carpenter most of the years of his life. As you work out your vocation and location, prayerfully seek God’s will (that is one of the great privileges we have—to know the will of God) you can fill out the card with sincerity and faith.

My invitation is to those of you who want to know reality in your life at any cost. Maybe during these days at the conference something has been ringing in your heart. I cannot explain it to you. It will be as unique in one man as it is in another.

The decision for one might be to know Jesus Christ, maybe you do not know Christ. Maybe you came here believing you were a Christian, and now the Spirit of God has witnessed to you and you realize, you have never been born again. I have known people going door to door with our movement to distribute Christian literature or testify personally for Christ, who discovered they did not know him—and they were converted on the door step!

Some here already have confessed faith in Jesus Christ. But my main invitation and appeal to you—and I appeal to your logic more than to anything else—is that you will come to the end of yourself. I pray that you will be honest and admit that you do not have reality in your heart and the Lord convicts you about it. You may admit that the dichotomy exists—that, what you say you are, is not really operational and real in your life.

All of the reality will not come in one night, but there has to be a beginning. I believe that there has to be some kind of crisis in each person’s life. Most people experience many crises in their lives for God. I think the idea that there is only one special spiritual crisis for a person, is one of the biggest lies Satan can ever get us to believe. The men of God whom I have studied have had all different kinds of crises, and some have had many. But in all instances their crises were followed by a process. If you are not ready for the process, to place importance on your quiet time, then do not stand to your feet tonight.

If you are not serious about Bible study, if you are not enthusiastic to get into God’s Word and let it devour you, then you are not ready. You see, our problems are in our unconscious mind. The dichotomy of our life is rooted in our unconscious mind. We do and say things we do not want to do or say. They just come because those deep problems surge up from our background, and our childhood. We wonder, “Why did I say that? Why did I do that?” I believe one of the areas for the cleansing power of the Word of God is in the unconscious mind, that is why you must be serious about Bible study.

You say, “But I don’t have time to get into the Word at the university!” During my first year at university I did not know how I would ever get any time for Bible study as I was running back and forth across the campus. But the only way I got through all of the courses I took, including Bible teaching from unbelieving professors, was through spending hours on my knees.

I asked a Ph.D. holder from Princeton, “How did you get through Princeton University and still remain a tower of strength preaching the full gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?” He said, “Young man, I spent two hours every day on my knees, studying the Word of God.” You have to find time to get into the Word of God and you will find it. I prayed, “God, give me time” and he did.

My Physics teacher lectured about everything but Physics. So I took my Physics book and covered it with memory verses, hundreds of Bible verses that God put in my thick skull by his grace, and this revolutionized my thinking.

I am sorry to confess that at the age of sixteen I began, among other things, to peddle pornographic literature. My unconscious and conscious mind was warped by the pornographic filth that pours out in our country. But I can confess today that because of the power of the Word of God I have a new mind. I want to tell you it is a liberty, and freedom beyond anything you can ever experience. That which Jesus Christ can give, I believe, makes drugs seem like a useless pill, to say the least.

Oh, young people, do you think I am just saying this? If so, will you ask the hundreds of young people from all over the world who have worked and lived with me? The only reason these young people—Cambridge and Oxford men, Swedish people, and all the rest—have stuck it out is because in their lives and minds—God is real. Men can actually live like the Lord Jesus Christ in the 20th and 21st century. There will be failures, sin, and violence, but God is real. Victory can be yours if you love Jesus and if you want it.

I want to speak for a few moments to the women. I wish my wife was here. Maybe you think I am burning all out for Christ because I have a fanatic wife. Well, my wife could not be more human.

To begin with, she had everything against her. She is from a broken home. Her father was killed in Germany and she had to leave home and live in an orphanage as a small girl. She had the major human problem: She wanted love. She wanted marriage, because she thought that everything would be settled if only she were married. I know many girls here tonight are like that. You would not dare think of going to the mission field single.

My wife was converted before I met her, but that had not solved all her problems. That was only the beginning. (The Bible says that the new birth is only the beginning. If only we would realize that!) After we met and had fallen in love we got to know each other and to my surprise I discovered she had some serious problems.

My wife’s problems were three psychosomatic illnesses: migraine headaches, back tension pain, and heartaches. (Doctors say 50 percent of our illnesses are due to psychosomatic causes.) With such physical problems, my wife could not go to the mission

field. She went to Mexico with one of our teams, and was in bed every night in tears and all kinds of problems you could possibly dream of. When we got back, she tried to get help from a book, Health Springs Forth, but her problems remained.

So we knew we had to part. I had to go to the mission field. We sat in the lobby of our school one night, and I told her that though I loved her with all my heart, we would have to break it off. That could have destroyed her because she wanted to marry me more than anything else in life. This was the one thing she had hoped for. Her sickness got worse. She went to her room and did what everybody told her to do—“cast it on the Lord.” But she picked up her pain the next morning and carried it all day.

At the end of the fourth day she realized the greatest truth in the Bible—that Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient Savior. He is sufficient for all our needs—for our emotional problems, and intellectual problems. There in her room, in complete quiet, she bowed down before God (as I am going to ask some of you to do tonight) and said, “Lord, I believe that you are my victory. I believe that you are all that I need. I am ready to go to the mission field without George Verwer.”

Peace and joy flooded her heart and she was miraculously healed of all her sicknesses. She has been pioneering on for Jesus Christ in difficult circumstances all over the world since then.

People say, “Be careful,” and I am sure even tonight some are saying, “Watch out! this commitment business is just emotion.” It is amazing—we can get emotional about anything and nobody says a thing. I used to come home at six o’clock in the morning, singing, shouting, doing all kinds of activities. I was the craziest one in the school. I would get out on the football field and shout and play the drums and do anything in the football game—and they elected me Student Body President.

But if you begin to shout for Christ, if you have an emotional experience with the Lord in which he becomes real to you and you express your love for him, people will call you fanatic and say, “Be careful, the emotion will wear off.” That is what they told me the night I accepted Christ in the Billy Graham meeting. But the emotion does not wear off if it is followed up by continual interaction with the Holy Spirit of God.

I could tell you stories about Communists in London, girls from the back streets of Paris, boys from the Hindu temples of southern India, young men who have taken bottles of strong poison to kill themselves before they found the living Christ in reality—I could give example after example.

Christianity is real, young people, but I believe with all my heart it is real only to those who come to the place where they say, “Lord Jesus, you are all I want.” It cannot be Jesus plus this or that, not even Jesus plus evangelism. With me, it could not be Jesus plus Operation Mobilisation. It has to be Jesus Christ and him alone.

I am convinced that if you are willing to come to the end of yourself and say, “Lord Jesus, you are all I want,” then God will begin to break that dichotomy and you will begin to experience a reality that you have never known in your Christian life. I know this is true. I pray that you will consider it, and act as God leads you.

In Colossians 2:9-10, we read, In him (Jesus Christ) the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority (RSV). Please, young people, consider Jesus Christ who can give you fullness of life—not a dichotomy, not two people—a whole person in him. Tonight, come to that place where you say, “Lord Jesus Christ, you are my all. You are my everything. I will follow you. I will do whatever you want me to do.”