Full Transcript for Launch Out Into The Deep

American culture. I just want to say this to you. If you didn't grow up in the United Methodist Church or you don't know, the most secure job in the world is a United Methodist pastor, it's strenuous. To get there, the minimum, you have to have a Master of Divinity, four years of college, three years of graduate school, biblical language, the whole deal. You have to have that just to be ordained. But once you are ordained, they have to appoint you, they have to give you a church. You don't have to be anointed or good at it or straight, But you get a church and a parsonage, rent free furnished, insurance, retirement. The church has to invest in your retirement. It's the most secure job in the world. So when we sat at our little kitchen table and discussed resigning, that. Can you understand? That's over the waterfall in a barrel and one has no idea what's at the bottom. The passage through which God spoke to us, me and us together so dramatically was that which I just read to you. Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. That I just knew there was a deeper water than I had ever known, that there was an adventure, a risk that was worth it. Now, here's the great thing about this passage with Simon Peter. God doesn't expect you to obey him instantly, without question. He wants you to. That's the best way. That's the best way. As soon as you know God's will, say yes, sir, and launch out. But we are, after all, who we are, failed humans. So am I the only one here ever to hear from God and bicker and argue? I have explained things to God Almighty that I'm quite certain he could not grasp in his own limited ability. So did Simon Peter, Jesus says, launch out into the deep, let down your nets for a draft. And Peter said, lord, I know as the Messiah of the universe, you probably don't understand. Fishing on the Sea of Galilee happens at night. We fished all night. We've taken nothing. It's broad daylight. We're washing the nets. All of the objections that one makes to the will and purpose of God, all of the explanations, but at the end of it, one simply says, nevertheless. Now, second thing in this is God feels absolutely no obligation to tell you how it's going to turn out. So he doesn't say, launch out into the deep, let down your nets for a draft, and I will fill them with fish you've never seen before. He doesn't tell Peter that. He just says, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draft. And Peter does all the arguing, all the bickering, and then he says, okay, fine, we'll let the nets down and pull them up empty. And we hope you're happy. Of course, the exact opposite is what happened for us and everything that people, people often say to me, what has happened with Global Servants? Your dreams have really come true. And I can't keep from laughing. All of this. Girls, homes, children's homes, schools, education on three continents, hundreds of children that have come through our work. A new work in Honduras. All of

it. I dreamed none of that. I was just trying to figure out how to preach the full gospel message in Methodist churches and keep from starving to death. That was the limit of the vision. But God is the one who bulges the nets. God is the one who gives you more, shows you more, calls you out. And what you think is deep. You think, oh, I'm really in deep water now. Lord, this is scary. God says, no, now I'm going to scare the liver out of you. 3 00:13:01.000 --> 00:14:11.000 Speaker C: What happens when God interrupts your plans and calls you into something greater than you ever imagined? Discover Launch out into the Deep, a powerful book by Dr. Mark Rutland, now available in a special 50th Global Servants Anniversary Edition. In 1975, the Holy Spirit dramatically redirected Dr. Rutland's life, setting him on a journey of faith, obedience, and worldwide ministry. With humor, honesty and remarkable, remarkable insight, Dr. Rutland recounts five decades of extraordinary experiences, unexpected challenges, and the unmistakable faithfulness of God. This fourth revised edition features new chapters and reflections as Dr. Rutland looks back on a lifetime of answering God's call. Launch out into the Deep by Dr. Mark Rutland. Available in hardback and paperback. Get your copy through Dr. Rutland's online store at drmarkrutland.com every purchase directly supports the Ministry of Global Servants. Visit drmarkrutland.com today and discover what happens when you launch out into the deep. 4 00:14:11.000 --> 00:40:14.000 So the Lord began to really bless the work. The revivals didn't dry up. We were booking two, three years in advance. Many of those early years in the Methodist Church, I was preaching more times than there were days in the year, because in those days we had seven night revivals. One revival that I preached in Rome, Georgia, was supposed to go Sunday morning through Wednesday night. We wound up being there for a month and preaching twice a day. So there were many years of 365 days that I was preaching 450 or 500 times. But it was all in the United States and it was, you know, revival type services. Gradually, the invitations began to shift from the United Methodist Church, as one might imagine, toward Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. And that was fine, too. But invitations to preach. I made my first trip as a preacher out of the country to Mexico, which is really just South Texas. And God gave miracles there, true miracles, in a way that convinced me that I was supposed to go be a missionary in Mexico. I talked to Allison about it again. She's always been so precious about it. And I said, I'm going down. I was an old retired missionary and I said, I'm going to stay in Jim's house and pray. And I went in the back room of his house and just with nothing but fruit juice and Bible and prayed for a week. And I felt God unmistakably say, this is not my call. Go home. I'm going to use you, but I'm not calling you to be a missionary in Mexico. I want to tell you I felt rejected. I struggled with it. I. I said, lord, all the people in the world you're trying to call and they won't obey you, and I'm volunteering. How can you do without me? So I came home from that trip really feeling somewhat, in a sense, rebuffed. In 1981, I was in the middle of the night. I had a supernatural experience. I'm not handy with words, even after all these years in Pentecost. Some of the words that Pentecostals use easily. Still I struggle. I don't know vision, I don't know what it was. Had a supernatural kind of experience in the middle of the night, all alone in the living room. I felt the world kind of open to me in a way, like a map that opened flat. And I could see myself moving from country to Country. The only place I'd ever been out of the US was Mexico. And I could see this world map. And cities began to come up off of the map toward me like this. And I knew I would preach there. I knew that God was going to do a work worldwide. It was flabbergasting. I'd never seen anything like it. And then I had a subsequent sort of visionary experience. I saw myself standing like this at the base of a tree, if one can imagine this tree being here. And there were African people, obviously Africans, that were all seated like this on the ground and on felled logs and things. And there was a man standing beside me with his Bible in his hand. And I looked. I saw him as clearly as I can see you just standing beside me. And I felt the Lord said, go to Ghana and I'll open the world. And I said, this is the moment where obviously God does not understand things. And I spent months explaining to God why that was not practical. I had never been to Ghana. I'll be honest with you. I did not know where it was. I mean, Africa. But I had to take an encyclopedia. Anybody remember actual encyclopedias, books? You remember that? So I took one of the kids encyclopedias and looked up Ghana. And it was a shocking experience. As I read in the encyclopedia about Ghana, I began to weep on the encyclopedia, tears dropping on the pages. Said, this is crazy. And I said, lord, you opened the door for me to go. It doesn't make any sense to me, but if you open the door, nevertheless, at thy word, I will launch out into the deep. Nothing happened. I kept. Every time the phone would ring at the house, Allison can tell you I had jumps. Every time the phone would ring, I'd say, I'll get it. I'll get it. I don't know what I thought. Somebody, hello, this is Ghana calling. But the phone didn't ring. Finally, I met a man from Kenya, an African man from Kenya. And so I said, can I come to your church? He said, yes. So I thought God got the right continent and the wrong country. So I said, I'll go to Kenya. Great. Kenya got East Africa, West Africa, close, you know. So he invited me. The closer I got to that invitation, I began to have almost a sense of dread. Finally, Allison has said, mark, if you sense something's wrong, don't go. But I just. I just

couldn't call the brother and tell him I'm not coming. So about three days before I was supposed to get on a plane for Kenya, he called me and he said, look, we've had a disturbance in the church. It's just not a good time for you to come. Do please don't be mad at me, but I need to cancel. You're coming. And I said, oh, it's fine. I never told him. I figured let the African brother have a little guilt in his life. So I was right back to square one. That summer I went to a Methodist church in America, and I heard a guy named Brew Riverson, who was a college president from Africa's little tiny Methodist school in Ghana, preached. And afterward I went up and got his business card. And so he went home. And so I wrote him a letter. I wrote it on July 1, 1981, and I said, I heard you preach at such and such a church. I'd like to come to Ghana. Would you please invite me? I never heard from him. Never heard from him. So finally I began to feel, against all my better judgment, that I should just buy a plane ticket and get off at the airport in Ghana. That just sounded so crazy to me. And so what one thinks is that one's wife will talk one out of crazy things. That's what you cherish is the myth that your wife cares about your life. So I went to Allison and I said, baby, I'm kind of feeling the Lord says, just buy a ticket and go. She said, mark, I think you should. She said, if we're going to live by faith, this is what we told God. Launch out into the deep. So I left that conversation and went straight to my mother. Now, this is true. One's mother does not want one killed in Africa. So I told my mother about it. And my mother said, oh, Mark, do it. She said, just go. So obviously nobody in my family cared about me. So I went to my pastor, where I tithed. He'll talk me out of it. Evidently, the tithe was not sufficient. And here's what he said. Spirit filled pastor. He said, go, Mark. I said, well, what if nothing happens? What if I get off that plane and stand there? He said, then you got got off your back. He said, God told you to go call his hand. He said, go, get off the plane and stand there. What I'd like to tell you is that I went that day and bought a ticket. But that would be a lie. I still couldn't get my head around it. I just argued with God. This is crazy stuff. I opened my Bible one night. What are the young people here? Don't pray like this. This is horrible. I opened my Bible and put my finger in and landed in Galatians said, immediately after that, I sought counsel no more, but obeyed God. I said, oh, no. Close the Bible. I couldn't. I just couldn't pull the trigger. One Sunday morning, we were at our little spirit filled Methodist church where we were attending. I was not pastoring anymore. And you remember the old days, they had hymn books in the racks in the back. There was a hymnbook in front of us, and there was a little piece of. A little strip of construction paper hanging out of the bottom of that hymn book. And it came to me, I'm telling you, like a voice that said, I'll give you the final confirmation on that piece of paper. And I said to Allison, I said, God's going to answer me on that paper. She's so wise. She said, now, Mark, that's fine, but what if it says, go and hang yourself? Which again was proof to me that she didn't care all that much. So I pulled that piece of construction paper out of that hymnbook and in a child's crayon, purple crayon in it said, go, and I will be with you. It was a thunderclap. I don't have the words to explain to you. So I bought an airline ticket, round trip in face. And it was a terrible time. There was a State Department advisory that Americans should not go. It was under a communist military dictatorship, was very dangerous. And even the lady that sold me the ticket said, do you know about this State Department advisory here? And I said, fine. I got to London. I had to fly. On those days, you couldn't fly to Ghana directly. So I flew to London. This is how long ago it is on an airline that doesn't even exist anymore. British Caledonian. I got to London and there was a lady from the airline standing there with a sign that said Mark Rutland. So I went over and she said, look, the airport in Accra is closed, so you'll have to go back. And I said, no, I'm not. I'm not going back. I said, now I'm going to stay here until that airport opens. Well, the airport did open and flew to Kaduna and then Lagos, Nigeria. And then on the flight from Lagos to Accra, Ghana, I was the only white person on the plane. And finally a nice young man came over and sat down beside me and he said, who are you? I told him. He said, why? Why are you going to Ghana? I said, actually, son, I'd rather, really rather not discuss it with you. So I got off the plane. The airport was a wreck. It was horrible. Now, if you Go. Everybody says, boy, you know, it's really changed. Ghana has changed. It's a democratically elected government. It's more prosperous, everything. But in 1981, it was horrible. The airport was dark, it was chaos everywhere, everything. And a soldier grabbed me, took me into a room, and I could smell the alcohol in his breath. And he had an automatic weapon, and he demanded $400 in American money. And poverty gives you faith. I had no 400. I had no $400. So I told him, I'm an extremely important man in my country, at least to one person, I think. And I said, if you shoot me, there'll be an international incident and I'm leaving this room. I went out shaking, shaking. I could feel those machine gun bullets in my back. I went out, opened the door, and there was an officer standing there and had captain's insignia. I said, captain, this soldier's trying to rob me. Will you help me? And he came in, closed the door, and he started yelling at that soldier in tree, not in English. And I didn't speak any tree then. So he's yelling and yelling and let the soldier go out and close the door. And he drew his side arm and stole my watch. I felt I had traded

up. It was a cheap Timex and certainly not worth $400. So I walked out on the front of the airport and it was absolute pandemonium, just chaos. A taxi wove its way through all this crowd and pulled up and I got in the taxi and he turned around and said, where do you want to go? I said, okay, now, I don't know. So he turned around and looked at me and he said, well, why are you here? I said, okay, see, that's the second thing I said. I'm not exactly clear why I'm here. So I said, take me to the Methodist headquarters. So he and I found the bishop, this all Africans. I told him the story, everything like that. And I said, will you help me? He said, no, I won't help you. He said, this is the craziest story I've ever heard of. I'm not going to help you. I don't know who you are. And he said, you may be a con man. I don't know what's going on. But he said, let me tell you something. You need to find a hotel for the night, and you need to stay in that hotel. It's dangerous. And you need to be on the British Caledonian flight out of here in the morning. But I'm not helping. So I went back out. The driver was still there. I said, where does the British Caledonian crew stay when they stay? He said, oh, they're not allowed to spend the night here. They're already flying back. I said, well, where might they stay? He said, I think they might stay at the Intercontinental Hotel. I said, take me there. So we went there. It was before the Berlin Wall came down, of course. It was an East German half track parked in the driveway and Communist soldiers there. Machine gun nests. I went inside to check in, handed the desk clerk my passport and he said, you're an American? I said, yes. He said, now listen to me, go to your room and stay there. He said, these soldiers are drunk. It's dangerous. At 10 o' clock at night, an air raid siren is going to sound and if you're on the street, you'll be shot, no questions asked. So go to your room. Stay in your room. And I did. I've heard people say, I don't think I can pray all night. Have you ever heard anybody say that? I just don't think I can pray all night. Yeah, you can. No, you can get all alone in a communist military dictatorship in West Africa without a friend or a contact or anything. All alone in a hotel room with East German communist soldiers drunk in the lobby. You'll pray. Finally, I fell asleep. The next morning, the air raid siren went off again at 5am I got up, got dressed. I was sitting on the end of my bed two hours later, wondering what should I do. There was a knock on the door. I opened the door, There stood a man. Nice looking man. He said, are you Brother Rutland? I said, yes, I am. He spread his arms out. He said, I'm Godfrey Bampfo. I've come to find you. I wanted to kiss him on the mouth. I said, who are you? Are you ready for this? The letter that I wrote to Dr. Brew Riverson and mailed on July 1st. Arrived in Kumasi, Ghana. I was in Accra. Arrived in Kumasi, 150 miles from where I am on the day that I arrived. Had no further contact with him the day that I arrived. He took it to a prayer meeting that night, faculty prayer meeting. And when he knelt down, he felt it. He said, oh, I forgot this. He said, I got this letter from some American. He said he heard me preach in the us. He wants us to invite him to come over here. It just seems like a horrible time to invite an American. Let's pray about it. They knelt down to pray and Dr. Michael Bremenu, who I know, who became a professor at Harvard University, it was a Pentecostal Christian. As they prayed, he said, God has spoken to me. We have to quit praying. That man is in the country. He's in the country right now. He had no conceivable way of knowing that. And so they called the head of the Full Gospel Businessman's Fellowship in Accra and said, there's an American named Mark Rutland somewhere in Accra, a city of 3 1/2 million people. Find him. And so he came to the Intercontinental Hotel and asked if they had an American in the hotel. I don't want to drag this out long. I'm just trying to get to a point here. If you'll stay with me just for a moment. So I made my way up to Kumasi, and I was at Brew Riverson's house, the little shabby little college there, so poor that the students had to farm their own food. They had a little vegetable patches in the back of the dormitories. And I was at Dr. Riverson's house. They came and I was speaking over and over and over. People found out there was an American pastor. And I just. I was going three, four, five times a day somewhere. One day I was at his house and they came and said, there's a fellowship at Santasia Village some distance away, and they want you to come and speak. I said, great. Got in the car, went with them. We got to the schoolhouse where the fellowship was supposed to be. It was empty. I said, well, they left. They said, no, there was too many of them. They couldn't get them in the building. They're down in the cocoa grove, but they've been there for hours. Let's go down. So we went down and I went. They said, go over there to that tree and preach. I stepped up to the tree and a man came over and stood beside me to interpret. And he had his Bible. And he turned to me and he said, I'm ready to help you. And it was the man in my dream, Sammy o'. Donnell. He's been our Africa director all these years. Now his son is the Africa director and our son is the international director. I remember when those little boys went with sticks and tortured the lizards in the mission compound. Now they run the whole thing. That doesn't inspire confidence. Sammy has worked with us all those years. The girls homes in Africa and Southeast Asia, Newark in Honduras. All of that. All of that. Let down your nets for a draft. Let down your nets for just obey me. Just obey me. But God will explain it to you, and he won't tell you the outcome, he just says, obey me. Look, serving God. If. If there's one thing I could say to young people, it is this. My

generation has often accomplished the impossible. We have convinced young people that Christianity is boring. Don't listen to that. Serving God is a breathtaking adventure. And I'm not just talking about taking some crazy trip to Africa. I'm not just talking about that. All kinds of things. Look, you in going, obeying God says, go and tell your brother in law, you forgive him and you can explain God. You don't know. He's nuts, he's bad. He did this. He did this. God will sit there and listen. And then when you're all finished, you say nevertheless and you launch out into the deep. That's an adventure. You don't know how that's going to come out. But you. Just because God tells you to do it doesn't necessarily. He doesn't necessarily explain the result. Going, obeying, giving. Giving is like that. I don't know who counts the offering here. I don't know. Anybody ever get these tithe checks that are $314.17? You ever get those? Sup with that? I can tell you what it is. He takes his paycheck. I believe in tithing and this is not bad. It's not a bad thing. Take his paycheck times 1300, $14.17. There's your tithe and not one penny more. Come on. Round it up. Occasionally double it. Sometimes just make an offering. That's breathtaking. If you can calculate it on your calculator. You're in shallow water if you say this. Okay, Lord, here we go. That's where the adventure is. I believe that the passage of scripture, the very time when Allison and I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit that captured our souls the most, became the title of my very first book. Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. That's all you do. That's the only thing. That's the only part you play. You take the boat deeper and you let down your net. Everything else is God. Everything else is God. The only thing is, it is God. You never really know the scariness of an adventure. Look, you take the Jungle Ride at Disney World. That's not an adventure. The hippopotamus is made of plaster of Paris. That's not. There's nothing really scary. It's not an adventure until the hippos are real. Is that making sense? So I have been young, and now I'm old and I can tell you this. The adventure. Just the adventure is worth it. God is God. Whatsoever he saith unto thee, do it well. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this precious church for Pastor Joe and Mia. Allison and I are grateful to you, God, for allowing us to have this friendship and to have this church as friends. Thank you, God, for how you've blessed the journey, how you've blessed the adventure. You give me a partner that would stay through all the craziness and the ups and downs. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. You filled the nets. You did everything. You filled the nets. Now bless, O Lord, the adventure of this church. Give them adventuresome givers, adventuresome goers, adventuresome in obedience. And I believe you for the results. In the mighty name Jesus, the strong son of God. Amen. Amen. And amen. 5 00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:33.000 You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr.markrutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.