Dawson Trotman and Spiritual Growth

Dawson Trotman was converted at age 20 and gave 30 years to vigorous pursuit of the goal to know Christ and make him known. He gave his life while saving another from drowning in 1956. Dawson was a man who believed God, who asked him for great things, and saw God answer. The ministry of the Navigators is one of those answers. It began when another man asked God to teach him the principles he saw practiced in Daw's life. The tape to follow clearly portrays how every person can become spiritually fruitful. 25 years ago, I wrote in the front of my Bible a sentence that I heard. I used to like to find sentence sermons, I called them. People called them that. Emotion is no substitute for action. And I wrote that down. That sounded good. Emotion is no substitute for action. As time wore on, I saw a lot of activity. but no production. And I wrote under that sentence, emotion is no substitute for action, action is no substitute for production. I was in Edinburgh, Scotland a few years ago, and I was standing on High Street just down from the big castle, and I was alone. I'd been traveling around the world, and I'd been home, hadn't been home for a long time. And I like children, love them. In fact, I'm the father of five. And I saw a little perambulator, they call them over there, coming down with a daddy and a mama, and very happy, well-dressed, apparently well-to-do people. And as they went by, I kind of looked out over, you know, and they stopped for me to see. Most people think their children are exceptional. Mine really are. But these people were among those that thought theirs were. And so they let me see, and I looked at this little pink-cheeked individual, and as they walked on, I was just watching them, and I thought, how beautiful that God would permit a man to pick one woman out of all the world that would seem the most beautiful and lovely to him, and she to pick this man of all the men she'd ever known, and they two together to separate themselves to one another, and that God in his great plan would... Have the means of reproduction such a beautiful thing, that a little child would be born into their family, part mom, part pa, some of his characteristics, some of hers, some of his looks, some of his, and that each could see in that little baby a reflection of the one they love. And I was just contemplating upon that and thinking how great it was and sort of getting a little homesick, and here came another little perambulator. Down the same street, and it was wobbling a bit, it was a second-hand affair, and the father and mother were obviously very poor. She had cotton stockings on and a very plain calico, unpressed dress, and wasn't the least bit fancy, and he had on some old work clothes, and you could just tell by the way they carried themselves that they hadn't probably had much education. But they had a little cart coming along. I stuck my head out and they stopped and with the same pride they let me look in. And here was another of these little pink-cheeked, beautiful-eyed individuals. And they were just as proud of it as this. And as they went on, I just got thinking. Two or three things went through my mind and I thought, just think. God gave this little baby of these poor people everything that he gave the other. Five little fingers on each hand, a little mouth, two eyes, properly cared for, those little hands may someday be the hands of an artist or a musician. And I thought of another thing, isn't it wonderful that God didn't select the wealthy and the educated and say, you can have children, and to the poor and the uneducated, you cannot. All had an equal and a right chance. Everyone on earth has that privilege. The first thing they say when a little boy or a little girl is born or a child is born, they say it's a boy, it's a girl, it's a future daddy, it's a future mom. But for one of three things, that little child may one day become a daddy or a mom and reproduce after its kind. And by carrying out the first law ever given to man, the first order ever given to man, they would help. Carry out God's original order, be fruitful and multiply. For God put two people on the earth, a man and a woman, and he said, the very first thing he ever said, be fruitful and multiply. He didn't tell them to be spiritual, they were already in his image. Before the sin had come in, he just said, multiply. I want more, just like you. More in my own image. Of course, the vision was marred. God started over with the second Adam, Christ, who was the firstborn of many creatures. And now he's doing it in another way. And he wants more Christ ones. Ones born in his image. And so Adam and Eve had children and they began to multiply and there came a time when God had to destroy most of the flesh that had been born and he started over with eight people and the two billion or over two billion people on the earth today came from the eight that were in the ark because they were fruitful and multiply and God gave a plan whereby everyone should have a part. Only three things will ever keep a human being from multiplying himself in the physical realm. One is if they never get married. If they are not united. And I think the first thing that needs to happen in a Christian's life when he becomes a child of God to realize that he is in union with Christ and live with Him. And when he lives, a man and woman may be married but not live together. There can be no children. But if we live with our Savior and Lord, that can... But there can be two other things that hinder reproduction. One of them is... disease or an impairment to some part of the body that is needed for reproductive purposes. And that doesn't happen very often. Not one in a hundred couples find they cannot have children. Sterility. Not one out of a hundred have them. One out of a hundred don't have them. There's one other thing that keeps them from, and that's immaturity. Little children can't have Babies, because God in his wisdom saw to it that a little boy or a little girl, though they have all that is needed eventually in maturity for reproducing, the little organs are there, but he couldn't earn a living and she wouldn't know what to do. And when they've gotten to that age when they're able, then God makes it so. And all through all the creation. And that's the physical picture, but there's another one. And God never meant that man should just live and die, be a... A walking corpse to be laid in the ground, and everybody on earth knows that there's something beyond the grave. The plan is that everyone should be born again. And so when a man is born into God's family, he's born again. Born to the people of his name. Born to Mr. and Mrs. F. Theodore F. He takes their name and goes on. And you say you have children, you're a grandparent. So your parents are great-grandparents, and theirs are great-great-grandparents, and so it goes. We received Jesus Christ, as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons, not of our human parents, but sons of God. That's the second birth. Which were born not of blood, or flesh, or the will of man, but of God, the new birth. And so we're little children. It's God's plan that these little new babes in Christ grow. All provision is made for their growth into maturity. And then they are to multiply. Not the rich, not the educated, but all alike. Every single Christian that was ever born into God's family is to multiply. And wherever you find a Christian who is not leading men and women to Christ, one of three things is wrong. Either they're still remaining a babe, and when I say a babe, I don't mean someone who doesn't know a lot of the doctrines and is well informed with preaching. I know a lot of people that can argue the pre or post or amillennial position all about dispensations, but really they're immature. They walk as babes, and they're just babes in Christ. Paul says, brethren, I could not speak as unto you as unto spiritual or mature, but as unto carnal, even as unto babe. And because you're a babe, you're just immature and incapable of reproducing or bringing about... The fact that they're helping other people to be born again. I fed you with milk and not with meat, for you're not able to bear it. Are ye not yet carnal or babes? Whereas there is among you divisions and envy. I know a lot of church members, Sunday school teachers, woman members. of the missionary society. And one of them will say to the other, Did you hear about Mrs. So-and-so? And she does an abominable thing in the sight of God. Oh, how horrible it is when she hears of some of the sins she reads in the newspaper. But the book says, These six things doth God hate, seven are abomination to him, a lying tongue. And oh, the Christians I know that let lying come in. And he that soweth discord among brethren. You walk as babes, and I believe that one of the basic reasons why people don't have people born again into God's family, through them, by them sowing the incorruptible seed of the Word of God in those hearts, is because they're sick spiritually. There's something wrong. There's a spiritual disease in their lives, and they're immature, and there's not that union with God. But all things being right, regardless of how much you may know intellectually, you're still sick spiritually. Or from the standpoint of the world, you can be a spiritual parent. And that can be when you're very young in the Lord, incidentally. We have right now in our audience today, I've seen him since I looked here, a young man who found Christ at Haringey. We have in our office in Los Angeles, Pat Campion. You met her at the telephone desk. She was in the Young Communist League in Britain. a year and a half ago. She heard Billy and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. She and a couple of other girls in her school, art and drama school, were used of the Lord to win some more girls to Christ. And then we taught Patricia and some of the others, and they taught these girls, and some of these girls have led some girls to Christ. And some of these girls have led others to Christ. Patricia is a great-grandmother already. She's about a year and... four months old in the Lord. We see it all the time. I saw a sailor one day only four months old in the Lord and he was a great grandpa. He'd led some sailors who'd led some sailors who'd led some sailors. Only four months old. How? God used the pure channel of this young Christian's life and its exuberance and first love for Christ that out of their hearts were sown into the hearts of other people. The incorruptible seed of the word of God, it took hold, faith came by hearing the word, and they were born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they accepted him. And they saw this Christian that led them, and saw the joy and the peace and the thrill of it all, and in their joy they wanted someone else to know. And yet, seated in this audience today, I'm sure, are men and women, who've been Christians five, ten, twenty years. And you don't even know one person who's living for Jesus Christ today because of your lie. And I'm not talking now about action. I'm not talking about the fact that you may work for Christ. I'm talking about the fact that you're producing. I gave out a hundred thousand tracts. I don't want to know how many tracts you gave out. How many sheep did you bring in? I talked to 29 missionaries, candidates. They had graduated from universities and Bible schools or seminaries. I was on the board. I was interviewing them individually over a period of five days, giving a half to an hour each to these 29. Among other things that I asked them as I went along was two questions, always two questions. I never let them by without at least these two along with others. One is, how's your devotional life? How is the time you spend with the Lord? Are you getting sufficient time? And do you feel that your devotional life is what the Lord would have it? Out of this particular 29 that I interviewed in Oklahoma, only one person said my devotional life is what I believe it ought to be. I said, but to each one, well, why? Well, you see, I'm here and I'm at the Summer School of Linguistics and we've got a concentrated course and it's taking us a whole, only ten weeks to do a year's work and we're so busy. I said, all right, let's back up to when you were in college. Did you have victory in your devotional life then? Well, not exactly. And we trace back and find that never since they found the Savior had they ever had a period. That was the that that's one of the reasons for sterility, lack of communion or union with Christ. The other question I always ask them is, George, Mary, you're going out to the foreign field. You hope to be used of the Lord in winning men and women to Christ. Right? Yes. And you want them to go on and live the victorious life, don't you? Yes. You don't want them just to make a decision and then go back into the world, do you? No. Let me ask you something, Mary. How many girls do you know today, by name, who are living for Jesus Christ as a result of your ministry of winning and helping them on? George, how many? The majority had to admit that they were ready to cross an ocean, learn a foreign language. But they hadn't won their first. Who was going on with Jesus Christ? Well, a lot of them said, well, I got a lot of people to go to church. Or I got a lot of people, I even got some people to go forward. I said, are they living for Christ now? And their eyes would drop. I said, how do you expect to cross an ocean and do in a foreign language with people that suspect you? And you don't understand and don't understand you to do something you haven't done yet. But I'm not talking to missionaries. I'm not talking to, I'm just talking to God's people. I'm talking to ordinary lay people, every one of which ought to be a producer. Are you producing? If not, why not? Is it lack of communion with Christ your Lord, that closeness of fellowship which is part of the great plan? Or is it some sin in the life, unconfessed, something that has stopped the flow? Or is it are you still a babe when for the time you ought to be teachers you have one need that one teach you again? The problem of the fact that we are not getting this gospel to the ends of the earth isn't because it isn't potent enough. I'm not going to tell the story, but only refer to a fact or two. Twenty-three years ago, we took a sailor, and we spent some time with him and showed him how to reproduce after his kind. It took time. It wasn't a little hurried 30-minute challenge in a church service. hurried goodbye, say come back next week. But we spent time together. We took care of his problems and taught him how not only to hear God's word and to read God's word, but how to study God's word. And not only how to study it, but how to fill a quiver of his heart with the arrows of God's word that the spirit of God could lift an arrow from that quiver and place it to the bow of his lips and pierce a heart for him. And he found a number of boys on the ship. But none of them would go all out. They'd go to church. But when it came right down to doing something, they were also rams. And he came to me after a month or this, and he said, Doss, I can't get any of these guys on the ship down to business. I said, listen, you ask God to give you one. You can't have two until you have one. Ask for one. Ask God to give you a man after your own heart. He began to pray. One day he came and says, I think I found him. Later he brought him over. It was three months from the time I started to work with him. And he found a man. A man of like heart. He wasn't the kind of a guy you had to push and give prizes to do something for God. He loved the Lord and he was willing to pay a price to produce. And he worked with him. And those two fellows. began to grow and they each produced in their own lives. And on that ship, 125 men found the Savior before it was sunk at Pearl Harbor. And men off of that first battleship through this particular line are in four continents of the world as missionaries today. And it spread to another ship and another ship, and when the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor, there was a work going forward on 50 ships of the U.S. fleet. And when the war closed, there was a work, one or more producers. I'm not talking about Christians. I'm talking about producers. One or more men who were not sterile, fatherless. One or more on a thousand ships of the U.S. fleet, and that many army camps and air bases. Because it had a start. It had to have a start. And the devil's great trick is to stop it. And if he can stop it in you now, he's done the big job. If I were to take and had a blackboard here, I'll take the keys of this order. Take the first key of E, that is 10, and here's the key of C. There's the number C. Now, let's say that that represents a man. Now, that's a Christian man who has in his heart what I'm talking about, or trying to get over to you. And so, with all the rest of the work he does, oh, he works, yes. He gets up in the morning and he goes to work. You say to him, why are you going to work? Well, I've got to earn money. What are you earning money for? Well, I've got to buy food. Huh, what do you want food for? Well, I got to eat so I can have strength to go work and earn some more money. Well, what do you want more money for? Well, I got to buy clothes so I can be dressed to go to work and earn some more money. What do you want more money for? Well, I got to buy a house, pay the rent, so I have a place to rest up so I'll be fit to work and earn some more money. What do you want more money for? Well, I'll be hungry again. I got to buy some more food so I can earn some money to buy some clothes to go to work to earn some more money to pay next month's rent. And you've got a lot of Christians like that just going in big circles. Well, this fellow here is doing that. But you say, what else are you doing? Oh, well, I find time to serve the Lord and I'm preaching here and there. But down behind all of this, he's got a one-track mind at least for one thing. He wants to be a daddy spirit. And he's praying that God will give him a man. So he finds a man. A man with a light heart and he begins to teach him. Maybe it takes him six months. It doesn't take that long, but maybe it takes him six months to get the guy rolling. And taking it in and giving it out and getting a man for himself. So this man, at the end of six months, this is his man. You go after the man while I'm going after the man. So this one takes this one and this one takes that one. And so it takes him another six months and at the end of a year there's just four of them. They're doing all this out of it. Maybe they're taking a Bible class, maybe they're down in the street meeting, and maybe they're talking to a group, but one thing he's doing besides is you see him and you say, well, how you doing? Great. Old George is coming along great. He's getting a vision. And so at the end of the year, there's four of them. They get together, they have a prayer meeting. He says, now listen, let's not let anything sidetrack us. Let's give the gospel out to a lot of people, but let's check up at least on one and see him through. So the four of them in the next six months go out for another man, and there's eight at the end of a year and a half. And they all go out after another, and the end of two years is 60, and the end of three years is 64, double twice. At the end of five years, there's 1,048. The end of... Fifteen and a half years, there's two billion, 176 million. That's the population of the world of people over three years old. But wait a minute. C here helps D. And D, just about the time that he's to get his man, while C is going after B... When D is supposed to go after E, he gets sidetracked. And he washes out and he doesn't produce that first man. Fifteen and a half years later, you can cut your two billion, 176 million down to one billion and half of 176 million because the devil caused that first man to be sterile. Just like as if Hitler could have been on Mount Moriah. When Abraham had a knife poised above Isaac, God had told Abraham, in Isaac thy seed shall be called. And Abraham waited for that one son. It was a long, long time. And he wasn't going to be satisfied with a son. It's because he had to have one son before he could be the father of a nation. as the sands of the sea and everything was wrapped up in Isaac. If Hitler could have been there and pushed the knife into Isaac, he'd have killed every Jew, every man who's a prophet, whose name is on a book of the Bible. He would have killed in that one stroke. And that is why, I believe that is why, Satan puts all of his efforts to get the Christian busy, busy, busy, busy, but not producing. Where's your man? Women, where's your woman? Where's your girl? Where's the one that you've led to Christ who's now going on? The story in 20th chapter of 1st Kings. The 40th verse tells about a king who left a servant. The king had a prisoner. He said to the servant, his servant, he said, Now you watch this prisoner. Watch him with your life. There's your job. Watch this prisoner. And he went off. And he came back. And there was the servant. He said, Where's the prisoner? Well, he said, As thy servant was busy here and there. He was gone. The curse of the day. Busy. I'm not talking about being busy, earning money to buy food to buy. I'm talking about Christian things. Spiritual activity with no productivity. And that comes as a result of what we call, or are pleased to call, a term, for want of a better term, the subject of follow-up. How did this first come to mind? When Billy Graham came to me five years ago and said, Doss, you know, we'd like you to help our follow-up. He said, I've been studying the great evangelists and the great revivals. And he said, I fail to see that there was much of a follow-up program. And he said, we need it. And he said, we're having an average of about 6,000 people come forward in our month's campaign. I feel that with the work you've done, that you could come in and help us. I said, Billy, I can't follow up 6,000. Man, I said, my work is all with individuals and small groups. Yeah, but look, Dosti said, everywhere I go, I meet navigators. I met him in school in Wheaton. He said, they're in my school right now. He'd become the president of this Northwest. And he says, there must be something to this. And I said, well, I just don't have time. He tackled me again. The third time he asked me, he pled with me. And he said, Doss, he said, I'm not even sleeping now. And I was on my way at that time to Formosa. And I said, well, while I'm there, I'll pray about it, Billy. And on the sands of Wallian Beach, I paced up and down two and three hours a day. With a little raincoat on and the drizzle of the rain in my face, praying, Lord, how can I do this? I'm not even getting the work you've given me done. How can I take six months of the year to give to Billy? But he laid it on my heart. Why? Why should Billy ask me to do it? I said to him that day, that third day, I said, Billy, you'll have to get somebody else. And he took me by the shoulders and he says, Who else? Who's majoring in this thing? I had been majoring in it. What's the history of that? I think it takes something to jolt us and jolt our hearts into the reality of this thing. I talked to a group of students at a seminary last week and I talked to the president later and he says every student in this school, 250 he said, has been loosened and jarred. And he said the faculty, my own heart, and he said, Doss, what do we do? So that we don't get hardening of the arteries. Because that's what happens after a conference like this. What is there that can jar us out of this thing and send us back to our home with a one-track mind, if you please? God, give me a girl that I can win. Or maybe if you can't let me win one, let me take someone that's already won and it's an infant and let me train them so that they're at least a producer. God, give me a man. I've talked to preachers. I talked to a young preacher that I knew when the Navigator work started, and he's been the pastor of eight churches. And he told me about a year ago, he said, Doss, he said, I don't know one man in my church today or any one of the other six or seven churches that I've been the minister of who's down to business for Jesus Christ today and producing as a result of my ministry. 23 years, 22 years. Oh, how we get stirred about the masses filling up the seats. Oh, the room was filled. Where's your man? It was years ago when I was driving along in my little model T-Ford and I saw a kid walking down the street like this and I picked him up. And as he got in the car, he said, Jesus Christ, this was tough to get a job, a ride. And I never hear a man take my Savior's name in vain, but when my heart aches. And I reached in my pocket and I said, I'd read this. He looked up at me and he said, haven't I seen you someplace before? And I looked around and he looked familiar. And we figured out that it was a year ago on the same road, when he was on the way to the same golf course to get caddy, as he was now doing, that I'd picked him up. And he'd gotten in my car and he'd started out with the name Jesus Christ. And I'd plowed into him, and I'd opened up the New Testament, and I'd showed him the way of salvation, and he'd accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. And I gave him Philippians 1, 6, and spit on my merry way, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God bless you, son. Read this, and boom, off I go. And now I see him a year later, and there's no more evidence of the new birth of the new creature than if he'd never heard the name of God. Jesus Christ and I was one of those guys that wanted that I never let a day go by without I'd learned this in my youth and I'd been brought up around people pressing you to win souls all the time and boy that was my one big main gun I had a plan whereby I wouldn't go to bed at night until I had at least talked to one unsafe soul every day remember one night I went to bed about 11 30 and as I knelt down I remembered I hadn't talked I said Lord I didn't talk to any of the the buddy today, but I'll talk to two tomorrow. I got in bed, you know, but I didn't sleep. If you let this go by tonight, Dosh, you'll do it again, says me to, I to me. I knew that, too, because I know, boy, you give the devil an inch and you'll take a mile. So I got up and dressed and I started out in my car. I said, Lord, you've got to give me somebody tonight. And I drove one mile, two miles, three, four, five. Suddenly I saw a man running. I saw a wigwag of a trade. He just missed the trade. I picked him up. He said to me, how far are you going? I said, I'm going exactly as far as you're going. Well, that scared him. He said, what do you mean? I said, look, man, I'll get right down to business. I've been in bed already tonight. I want to get back. And I just make it a rule in my life to tell the goods. A wonderful story about Christ, at least once a day, and you're my chance. Can I start now so I can go home? He left and said, you bet. An hour later, a man by the name of Mr. Ford said to me, he said, son, you don't know what you've said. Twenty years ago, I began to search for God. I've been in a church nearly every Sunday for twenty years. I've been in big ones, little ones, he says, but this is the first time I've heard the answer to my problem. And he received the Lord. God blessed that. I had a great passion for souls, but then when I met this boy on the way to the golf course, I began to go back and find some of my converts. And I want to tell you, I was a sick boy. Philippians 1, 6 wasn't working. A boy came into my office one day and told me about all the souls he'd won, and he said, they're all Armenians. He was an Armenian. He had the list. I said, well, what's this one doing? Well, he said, that one isn't doing so good. He sort of backslid. Well, what about this one? And we went all down the list. And there wasn't one living the victorious life. And I said, give me your Bible. I turned to Philippians. I put a cardboard right under the sixth verse. And I took a razor blade out of my pocket. And I started to come down on it. And he grabbed my hand. He said, what are you going to do? I'm going to cut this verse out. It isn't working. You know what was wrong, friends? I'd been taking the 6th verse away from the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th verses. Paul didn't just flop that at the phone and said, All right, now the Lord started something, He'll finish it. You know, that's what people tell me when they want a soul. They say, Well, I just committed Him to God. I see Norm Lewis here. He's the father of seven. If I went up to Norm and said, Who's taking care of your children, Norm? Oh, I left them with the Lord. I got a verse for you, Norm, if you say that. If any man provide not for his own household, he's worse than an infidel. Paul said to the elders of the church at Ephesus. Take heed to the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made you the overseer. You don't make God the overseer, He makes you the overseer. We began to work on... And this went on for a couple of three years before the NAV work started, actually. This running down some of these converts, and then it was less converts and more time with the converts. And pretty soon I could say like Paul did to the Philippians, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making request with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. He followed up his converts with prayer daily and fellowship. Then he could say the sixth verse, because I just quoted the third, fourth, and fifth, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ, even in the seventh verse, even as it is right or proper for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart. I forgot my convert. God's converts threw me. And there began to be this time spent. And that's why when this sailor came to me, I saw the value of spending three months with one boy. I'd rather have one Isaac alive than a hundred dead, or sterile, or immature. Because Isaac had Jacob, and Jacob had the twelve, and all the rest came down through there. Follow up. You can lead a soul to Christ in twenty minutes to a couple of hours, but it takes twenty weeks to a couple of years to get him on the road into maturity, victorious over the sins and reoccurring problems that come along, wisdom in how to make right decisions. Warning him of the various isms that are likely to reach out with their octopus arms and pull him in and sidetrack him. But you've got yourself a man. And what you've done is doubled your ministry. You've more than doubled your ministry. You know why? Because when you help your man, he sees how it's done. And then he mimics you. I talked to evangelists for a long time. Oh, they said, well, now I hold my little meeting and I go on. Sometimes I come back three years later and a lady will come up and say, I accepted the Lord in your meeting. And someone else will come up and say, well, I accepted you. Well, some of them are going on. I said, OK, sure. Five, ten going on out of a hundred. But the Lord said this. There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, and only one wandered off, and he wasn't satisfied. You're satisfied to let the ninety-five wander off. But we won't worry about the ninety-five, we're going to worry about the one right now. Because I'm talking to you, and to you, and to you. I'm talking to you. You're a trumpet. That's beautiful, and your voice is better. They're both tops, the first time I ever heard them, but I could sure use that. But it's no substitute for your big job. If I was a minister of a church and I had deacons or elders to pass the plates and choir members to sing, I'd say, thank God for your help. We need you. Praise the Lord for these extra things you do, but I'd keep pressing home for the big job. Be fruitful and multiply. That's the thing. All these other things are incidental to the one big job of winning a man or woman to Jesus Christ and helping them go on. Where's your man? Where's your woman? You got one? You can ask God for one. Search your hearts. Ask the Lord, am I sterile? If I am, why am I? You say, oh, but I'm so, I don't know much. My little daughter, three years old, sat in a high chair around the table. Used to be the plan of the Navigators in the early days that... Whenever the boys were there at supper, as we closed the meal, each fellow would quote a verse. We were kind of hard on them in those days. And they had to learn a quote of verse they'd learned in the last 48 hours. And I'd say it this way, quote a verse you've learned in the last 48 hours. If you have one, otherwise, give us a verse. And we were going around the table and... We came to my little daughter, three, and there was a new sailor next to her, Dale Heim. And when he saw it was coming, he never thought about her quoting a verse, so he started to quote a verse. And the word came out and she looked up at him as much as if to say, I'm a human being. And when she got her composure again, she looked back and she said, for God so loved the world. that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now she put the emphasis on the whosoever because when she was first trying to say that word, when she was learning it earlier, she couldn't say it. And we'd say, now we'd say, whosoever. And so she got so, she, whosoever. Well, Dale Heim today is a missionary in South America. Two days after this, Dale Heim came over and he came up to me and said, you know, I was going to quote that verse of scripture. He said, that's the only verse I knew, but I didn't know it. Not until little Ruthie quoted it. And when she said, whosoever, I thought that means me. And he said, right there, I accepted the Lord. Grandpa and Grandma Clayton didn't know the Lord. Grandpa Clayton didn't like it when his daughter married me. I'm not an ordained minister, but he thought I acted like one. And he didn't want his daughter to be married to a preacher. He'd been married, his father had been a preacher, a circuit preacher, and they'd lived in want. And he had a good job. He shipped all the oil for Texaco. And he wanted his daughter to marry a man with some money, and he was just afraid that I wouldn't have any. I've carried out his fears, of course, but... He's sort of false, but I tried to act like a gentleman, and the wedding day, he gave her away. But he still shunned the gospel. When Ruthie was three and Bruce was five, when Bruce was three, he could quote 18 verses correctly with the references for and after. He started on his third birthday learning three a week for six weeks. I just did that to prove to some of these grown-ups it could be done, you see. Well, they'd go up to Grandpa and Grandma's, and Grandpa'd put little Ruthie there and little Bruce there. He'd say, now, Mary had a little lamb. They'd look at him kind of funny. Or he'd say, little boy blue, and they'd look at him, well, who's little boy blue? And he thought they were kind of dumb. So the mother said, they know some things. Give them Romans 3.23, Bruce. Ah, and he quoted Romans 3.23. And she said, I quote another one, Grandpa. Sure. And he started quoting and he quoted 5, 10, 15 and Ruth had quoted some in between and boy he thought, I am the grandpa. And he took them over to the neighbors and over to the aunts and over to the uncles and showed them how great these young kids were. But the word of God was doing its work. And it wasn't very many weeks until the Holy Spirit through the voices of babes planted the seed. in their hearts. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou our ordained strength. Soul winners are not soul winners because of what they know. It's because of whom they know and how well they know him and how much they long for others to know him. Those are your soul winners. Oh, but I'm afraid. The fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be saved. There is no reason under God's heaven but sin and immaturity and lack of communion. That'll put you in a position where you can't produce. And there isn't anything under God's heaven that's going to keep that new born-again one from growing on with the Lord. If he has a mammy or a pappy or someone to take care of him. And to give him that which God has provided for the new babe for his normal natural growth. Effects obey their causes by irresistible laws. seed and you'll get results not in every heart not every time the seed is sown is there a soul born but there'll be a soul born these other things being right and when it's born you give it the care that paul gave paul believed in it he was a great evangelist but he had time for follow-up the new testament is largely made up of the letters of paul which were the follow-up letters to the convent james believed in it Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Peter believed in it, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word. John believed in it. He said, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the faith. And all the writings of Peter and Paul and James and most of the writings of John, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, are food for the new Christian. The gospel spread to the... then known world in the first century without radio, television, printing, press and all because each produced one was a reproducer. But no, today we got a lot of pew sitters. We got a lot of people who think if they're faithful in church and put good sized gifts in the collection plate and get other people to come, they've done their deeds. Where's your man? Where's your woman? Where's your boy? Where's your girl? Every one of you. I don't care how old you are. We've had people 80 years old finish our memory card. In one Sunday school class, a woman 72 and one 78 did. They had something to give. Load your heart with this precious seed. You'll find that God will find plenty of hearts ready for it. Shall we pray? Holy Father, we cannot do the work of the Holy Spirit, and part of his work is to bring to our remembrance the things he has said. Whatever he has said through our lips today to the hearts of people, bring to their remembrance. Give them the courage to believe, to obey. Lord, I pray that even as we close this meeting, many of these will be thinking of someone left by their wayside that needs to be followed up. Be thinking of others to hear the word, the precious word, who may be unto them as Isaac was to Abraham. Lord, seal the work that you've done in our hearts today. We ask in Christ's holy name. Amen. We have just listened to Dawson Trotman continuing to relate his personal testimony, and he has talked about the early development of the Navigators. He has emphasized that God's intention is that every Christian be fruitful in evangelism and multiplication of disciples.

25 years ago, I wrote in the front of my Bible a sentence that I heard. I used to like to find sentence sermons, I called them. People called them that. Emotion is no substitute for action. And I wrote that down.

That sounded good. Emotion is no substitute for action. As time wore on, I saw a lot of activity. but no production.

And I wrote under that sentence, emotion is no substitute for action, action is no substitute for production. I was in Edinburgh, Scotland a few years ago, and I was standing on High Street just down from the big castle, and I was alone. I'd been traveling around the world, and I'd been home, hadn't been home for a long time. And I like children, love them.

In fact, I'm the father of five. And I saw a little perambulator, they call them over there, coming down with a daddy and a mama, and very happy, well-dressed, apparently well-to-do people. And as they went by, I kind of looked out over, you know, and they stopped for me to see.

Most people think their children are exceptional. Mine really are. But these people were among those that thought theirs were. And so they let me see, and I looked at this little pink-cheeked individual, and as they walked on, I was just watching them, and I thought, how beautiful that God would permit a man to pick one woman out of all the world that would seem the most beautiful and lovely to him, and she to pick this man of all the men she'd ever known, and they two together to separate themselves to one another, and that God in his great plan would...

Have the means of reproduction such a beautiful thing, that a little child would be born into their family, part mom, part pa, some of his characteristics, some of hers, some of his looks, some of his, and that each could see in that little baby a reflection of the one they love. And I was just contemplating upon that and thinking how great it was and sort of getting a little homesick, and here came another little perambulator. Down the same street, and it was wobbling a bit, it was a second-hand affair, and the father and mother were obviously very poor. She had cotton stockings on and a very plain calico, unpressed dress, and wasn't the least bit fancy, and he had on some old work clothes, and you could just tell by the way they carried themselves that they hadn't probably had much education.

But they had a little cart coming along. I stuck my head out and they stopped and with the same pride they let me look in. And here was another of these little pink-cheeked, beautiful-eyed individuals.

And they were just as proud of it as this. And as they went on, I just got thinking. Two or three things went through my mind and I thought, just think.

God gave this little baby of these poor people everything that he gave the other. Five little fingers on each hand, a little mouth, two eyes, properly cared for, those little hands may someday be the hands of an artist or a musician. And I thought of another thing, isn't it wonderful that God didn't select the wealthy and the educated and say, you can have children, and to the poor and the uneducated, you cannot. All had an equal and a right chance. Everyone on earth has that privilege.

The first thing they say when a little boy or a little girl is born or a child is born, they say it's a boy, it's a girl, it's a future daddy, it's a future mom. But for one of three things, that little child may one day become a daddy or a mom and reproduce after its kind. And by carrying out the first law ever given to man, the first order ever given to man, they would help.

Carry out God's original order, be fruitful and multiply. For God put two people on the earth, a man and a woman, and he said, the very first thing he ever said, be fruitful and multiply. He didn't tell them to be spiritual, they were already in his image. Before the sin had come in, he just said, multiply.

I want more, just like you. More in my own image. Of course, the vision was marred.

God started over with the second Adam, Christ, who was the firstborn of many creatures. And now he's doing it in another way. And he wants more Christ ones.

Ones born in his image. And so Adam and Eve had children and they began to multiply and there came a time when God had to destroy most of the flesh that had been born and he started over with eight people and the two billion or over two billion people on the earth today came from the eight that were in the ark because they were fruitful and multiply and God gave a plan whereby everyone should have a part. Only three things will ever keep a human being from multiplying himself in the physical realm. One is if they never get married.

If they are not united. And I think the first thing that needs to happen in a Christian's life when he becomes a child of God to realize that he is in union with Christ and live with Him. And when he lives, a man and woman may be married but not live together.

There can be no children. But if we live with our Savior and Lord, that can... But there can be two other things that hinder reproduction. One of them is... disease or an impairment to some part of the body that is needed for reproductive purposes.

And that doesn't happen very often. Not one in a hundred couples find they cannot have children. Sterility.

Not one out of a hundred have them. One out of a hundred don't have them. There's one other thing that keeps them from, and that's immaturity. Little children can't have Babies, because God in his wisdom saw to it that a little boy or a little girl, though they have all that is needed eventually in maturity for reproducing, the little organs are there, but he couldn't earn a living and she wouldn't know what to do. And when they've gotten to that age when they're able, then God makes it so.

And all through all the creation. And that's the physical picture, but there's another one. And God never meant that man should just live and die, be a... A walking corpse to be laid in the ground, and everybody on earth knows that there's something beyond the grave.

The plan is that everyone should be born again. And so when a man is born into God's family, he's born again. Born to the people of his name.

Born to Mr. and Mrs. F. Theodore F. He takes their name and goes on. And you say you have children, you're a grandparent. So your parents are great-grandparents, and theirs are great-great-grandparents, and so it goes.

We received Jesus Christ, as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons, not of our human parents, but sons of God. That's the second birth. Which were born not of blood, or flesh, or the will of man, but of God, the new birth.

And so we're little children. It's God's plan that these little new babes in Christ grow. All provision is made for their growth into maturity.

And then they are to multiply. Not the rich, not the educated, but all alike. Every single Christian that was ever born into God's family is to multiply.

And wherever you find a Christian who is not leading men and women to Christ, one of three things is wrong. Either they're still remaining a babe, and when I say a babe, I don't mean someone who doesn't know a lot of the doctrines and is well informed with preaching. I know a lot of people that can argue the pre or post or amillennial position all about dispensations, but really they're immature. They walk as babes, and they're just babes in Christ.

Paul says, brethren, I could not speak as unto you as unto spiritual or mature, but as unto carnal, even as unto babe. And because you're a babe, you're just immature and incapable of reproducing or bringing about... The fact that they're helping other people to be born again.

I fed you with milk and not with meat, for you're not able to bear it. Are ye not yet carnal or babes? Whereas there is among you divisions and envy. I know a lot of church members, Sunday school teachers, woman members.

of the missionary society. And one of them will say to the other, Did you hear about Mrs. So-and-so? And she does an abominable thing in the sight of God. Oh, how horrible it is when she hears of some of the sins she reads in the newspaper.

But the book says, These six things doth God hate, seven are abomination to him, a lying tongue. And oh, the Christians I know that let lying come in. And he that soweth discord among brethren. You walk as babes, and I believe that one of the basic reasons why people don't have people born again into God's family, through them, by them sowing the incorruptible seed of the Word of God in those hearts, is because they're sick spiritually. There's something wrong.

There's a spiritual disease in their lives, and they're immature, and there's not that union with God. But all things being right, regardless of how much you may know intellectually, you're still sick spiritually. Or from the standpoint of the world, you can be a spiritual parent.

And that can be when you're very young in the Lord, incidentally. We have right now in our audience today, I've seen him since I looked here, a young man who found Christ at Haringey. We have in our office in Los Angeles, Pat Campion. You met her at the telephone desk.

She was in the Young Communist League in Britain. a year and a half ago. She heard Billy and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. She and a couple of other girls in her school, art and drama school, were used of the Lord to win some more girls to Christ. And then we taught Patricia and some of the others, and they taught these girls, and some of these girls have led some girls to Christ.

And some of these girls have led others to Christ. Patricia is a great-grandmother already. She's about a year and... four months old in the Lord. We see it all the time.

I saw a sailor one day only four months old in the Lord and he was a great grandpa. He'd led some sailors who'd led some sailors who'd led some sailors. Only four months old.

How? God used the pure channel of this young Christian's life and its exuberance and first love for Christ that out of their hearts were sown into the hearts of other people. The incorruptible seed of the word of God, it took hold, faith came by hearing the word, and they were born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they accepted him.

And they saw this Christian that led them, and saw the joy and the peace and the thrill of it all, and in their joy they wanted someone else to know. And yet, seated in this audience today, I'm sure, are men and women, who've been Christians five, ten, twenty years. And you don't even know one person who's living for Jesus Christ today because of your lie.

And I'm not talking now about action. I'm not talking about the fact that you may work for Christ. I'm talking about the fact that you're producing. I gave out a hundred thousand tracts. I don't want to know how many tracts you gave out.

How many sheep did you bring in? I talked to 29 missionaries, candidates. They had graduated from universities and Bible schools or seminaries. I was on the board. I was interviewing them individually over a period of five days, giving a half to an hour each to these 29. Among other things that I asked them as I went along was two questions, always two questions.

I never let them by without at least these two along with others. One is, how's your devotional life? How is the time you spend with the Lord?

Are you getting sufficient time? And do you feel that your devotional life is what the Lord would have it? Out of this particular 29 that I interviewed in Oklahoma, only one person said my devotional life is what I believe it ought to be.

I said, but to each one, well, why? Well, you see, I'm here and I'm at the Summer School of Linguistics and we've got a concentrated course and it's taking us a whole, only ten weeks to do a year's work and we're so busy. I said, all right, let's back up to when you were in college. Did you have victory in your devotional life then?

Well, not exactly. And we trace back and find that never since they found the Savior had they ever had a period. That was the that that's one of the reasons for sterility, lack of communion or union with Christ.

The other question I always ask them is, George, Mary, you're going out to the foreign field. You hope to be used of the Lord in winning men and women to Christ. Right? Yes. And you want them to go on and live the victorious life, don't you?

Yes. You don't want them just to make a decision and then go back into the world, do you? No. Let me ask you something, Mary. How many girls do you know today, by name, who are living for Jesus Christ as a result of your ministry of winning and helping them on?

George, how many? The majority had to admit that they were ready to cross an ocean, learn a foreign language. But they hadn't won their first.

Who was going on with Jesus Christ? Well, a lot of them said, well, I got a lot of people to go to church. Or I got a lot of people, I even got some people to go forward.

I said, are they living for Christ now? And their eyes would drop. I said, how do you expect to cross an ocean and do in a foreign language with people that suspect you?

And you don't understand and don't understand you to do something you haven't done yet. But I'm not talking to missionaries. I'm not talking to, I'm just talking to God's people. I'm talking to ordinary lay people, every one of which ought to be a producer.

Are you producing? If not, why not? Is it lack of communion with Christ your Lord, that closeness of fellowship which is part of the great plan? Or is it some sin in the life, unconfessed, something that has stopped the flow? Or is it are you still a babe when for the time you ought to be teachers you have one need that one teach you again?

The problem of the fact that we are not getting this gospel to the ends of the earth isn't because it isn't potent enough. I'm not going to tell the story, but only refer to a fact or two. Twenty-three years ago, we took a sailor, and we spent some time with him and showed him how to reproduce after his kind. It took time. It wasn't a little hurried 30-minute challenge in a church service.

hurried goodbye, say come back next week. But we spent time together. We took care of his problems and taught him how not only to hear God's word and to read God's word, but how to study God's word. And not only how to study it, but how to fill a quiver of his heart with the arrows of God's word that the spirit of God could lift an arrow from that quiver and place it to the bow of his lips and pierce a heart for him.

And he found a number of boys on the ship. But none of them would go all out. They'd go to church. But when it came right down to doing something, they were also rams. And he came to me after a month or this, and he said, Doss, I can't get any of these guys on the ship down to business.

I said, listen, you ask God to give you one. You can't have two until you have one. Ask for one. Ask God to give you a man after your own heart.

He began to pray. One day he came and says, I think I found him. Later he brought him over.

It was three months from the time I started to work with him. And he found a man. A man of like heart. He wasn't the kind of a guy you had to push and give prizes to do something for God.

He loved the Lord and he was willing to pay a price to produce. And he worked with him. And those two fellows.

began to grow and they each produced in their own lives. And on that ship, 125 men found the Savior before it was sunk at Pearl Harbor. And men off of that first battleship through this particular line are in four continents of the world as missionaries today. And it spread to another ship and another ship, and when the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor, there was a work going forward on 50 ships of the U.S. fleet. And when the war closed, there was a work, one or more producers.

I'm not talking about Christians. I'm talking about producers. One or more men who were not sterile, fatherless.

One or more on a thousand ships of the U.S. fleet, and that many army camps and air bases. Because it had a start. It had to have a start. And the devil's great trick is to stop it.

And if he can stop it in you now, he's done the big job. If I were to take and had a blackboard here, I'll take the keys of this order. Take the first key of E, that is 10, and here's the key of C. There's the number C. Now, let's say that that represents a man.

Now, that's a Christian man who has in his heart what I'm talking about, or trying to get over to you. And so, with all the rest of the work he does, oh, he works, yes. He gets up in the morning and he goes to work. You say to him, why are you going to work?

Well, I've got to earn money. What are you earning money for? Well, I've got to buy food. Huh, what do you want food for?

Well, I got to eat so I can have strength to go work and earn some more money. Well, what do you want more money for? Well, I got to buy clothes so I can be dressed to go to work and earn some more money.

What do you want more money for? Well, I got to buy a house, pay the rent, so I have a place to rest up so I'll be fit to work and earn some more money. What do you want more money for? Well, I'll be hungry again.

I got to buy some more food so I can earn some money to buy some clothes to go to work to earn some more money to pay next month's rent. And you've got a lot of Christians like that just going in big circles. Well, this fellow here is doing that.

But you say, what else are you doing? Oh, well, I find time to serve the Lord and I'm preaching here and there. But down behind all of this, he's got a one-track mind at least for one thing.

He wants to be a daddy spirit. And he's praying that God will give him a man. So he finds a man.

A man with a light heart and he begins to teach him. Maybe it takes him six months. It doesn't take that long, but maybe it takes him six months to get the guy rolling.

And taking it in and giving it out and getting a man for himself. So this man, at the end of six months, this is his man. You go after the man while I'm going after the man.

So this one takes this one and this one takes that one. And so it takes him another six months and at the end of a year there's just four of them. They're doing all this out of it. Maybe they're taking a Bible class, maybe they're down in the street meeting, and maybe they're talking to a group, but one thing he's doing besides is you see him and you say, well, how you doing? Great.

Old George is coming along great. He's getting a vision. And so at the end of the year, there's four of them. They get together, they have a prayer meeting.

He says, now listen, let's not let anything sidetrack us. Let's give the gospel out to a lot of people, but let's check up at least on one and see him through. So the four of them in the next six months go out for another man, and there's eight at the end of a year and a half.

And they all go out after another, and the end of two years is 60, and the end of three years is 64, double twice. At the end of five years, there's 1,048. The end of...

Fifteen and a half years, there's two billion, 176 million. That's the population of the world of people over three years old. But wait a minute.

C here helps D. And D, just about the time that he's to get his man, while C is going after B... When D is supposed to go after E, he gets sidetracked. And he washes out and he doesn't produce that first man.

Fifteen and a half years later, you can cut your two billion, 176 million down to one billion and half of 176 million because the devil caused that first man to be sterile. Just like as if Hitler could have been on Mount Moriah. When Abraham had a knife poised above Isaac, God had told Abraham, in Isaac thy seed shall be called.

And Abraham waited for that one son. It was a long, long time. And he wasn't going to be satisfied with a son.

It's because he had to have one son before he could be the father of a nation. as the sands of the sea and everything was wrapped up in Isaac. If Hitler could have been there and pushed the knife into Isaac, he'd have killed every Jew, every man who's a prophet, whose name is on a book of the Bible. He would have killed in that one stroke. And that is why, I believe that is why, Satan puts all of his efforts to get the Christian busy, busy, busy, busy, but not producing.

Where's your man? Women, where's your woman? Where's your girl?

Where's the one that you've led to Christ who's now going on? The story in 20th chapter of 1st Kings. The 40th verse tells about a king who left a servant. The king had a prisoner. He said to the servant, his servant, he said, Now you watch this prisoner.

Watch him with your life. There's your job. Watch this prisoner. And he went off. And he came back.

And there was the servant. He said, Where's the prisoner? Well, he said, As thy servant was busy here and there. He was gone.

The curse of the day. Busy. I'm not talking about being busy, earning money to buy food to buy.

I'm talking about Christian things. Spiritual activity with no productivity. And that comes as a result of what we call, or are pleased to call, a term, for want of a better term, the subject of follow-up. How did this first come to mind?

When Billy Graham came to me five years ago and said, Doss, you know, we'd like you to help our follow-up. He said, I've been studying the great evangelists and the great revivals. And he said, I fail to see that there was much of a follow-up program.

And he said, we need it. And he said, we're having an average of about 6,000 people come forward in our month's campaign. I feel that with the work you've done, that you could come in and help us.

I said, Billy, I can't follow up 6,000. Man, I said, my work is all with individuals and small groups. Yeah, but look, Dosti said, everywhere I go, I meet navigators.

I met him in school in Wheaton. He said, they're in my school right now. He'd become the president of this Northwest. And he says, there must be something to this.

And I said, well, I just don't have time. He tackled me again. The third time he asked me, he pled with me.

And he said, Doss, he said, I'm not even sleeping now. And I was on my way at that time to Formosa. And I said, well, while I'm there, I'll pray about it, Billy.

And on the sands of Wallian Beach, I paced up and down two and three hours a day. With a little raincoat on and the drizzle of the rain in my face, praying, Lord, how can I do this? I'm not even getting the work you've given me done.

How can I take six months of the year to give to Billy? But he laid it on my heart. Why? Why should Billy ask me to do it? I said to him that day, that third day, I said, Billy, you'll have to get somebody else.

And he took me by the shoulders and he says, Who else? Who's majoring in this thing? I had been majoring in it. What's the history of that? I think it takes something to jolt us and jolt our hearts into the reality of this thing.

I talked to a group of students at a seminary last week and I talked to the president later and he says every student in this school, 250 he said, has been loosened and jarred. And he said the faculty, my own heart, and he said, Doss, what do we do? So that we don't get hardening of the arteries. Because that's what happens after a conference like this. What is there that can jar us out of this thing and send us back to our home with a one-track mind, if you please?

God, give me a girl that I can win. Or maybe if you can't let me win one, let me take someone that's already won and it's an infant and let me train them so that they're at least a producer. God, give me a man. I've talked to preachers. I talked to a young preacher that I knew when the Navigator work started, and he's been the pastor of eight churches.

And he told me about a year ago, he said, Doss, he said, I don't know one man in my church today or any one of the other six or seven churches that I've been the minister of who's down to business for Jesus Christ today and producing as a result of my ministry. 23 years, 22 years. Oh, how we get stirred about the masses filling up the seats. Oh, the room was filled.

Where's your man? It was years ago when I was driving along in my little model T-Ford and I saw a kid walking down the street like this and I picked him up. And as he got in the car, he said, Jesus Christ, this was tough to get a job, a ride. And I never hear a man take my Savior's name in vain, but when my heart aches.

And I reached in my pocket and I said, I'd read this. He looked up at me and he said, haven't I seen you someplace before? And I looked around and he looked familiar. And we figured out that it was a year ago on the same road, when he was on the way to the same golf course to get caddy, as he was now doing, that I'd picked him up.

And he'd gotten in my car and he'd started out with the name Jesus Christ. And I'd plowed into him, and I'd opened up the New Testament, and I'd showed him the way of salvation, and he'd accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. And I gave him Philippians 1, 6, and spit on my merry way, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God bless you, son. Read this, and boom, off I go.

And now I see him a year later, and there's no more evidence of the new birth of the new creature than if he'd never heard the name of God. Jesus Christ and I was one of those guys that wanted that I never let a day go by without I'd learned this in my youth and I'd been brought up around people pressing you to win souls all the time and boy that was my one big main gun I had a plan whereby I wouldn't go to bed at night until I had at least talked to one unsafe soul every day remember one night I went to bed about 11 30 and as I knelt down I remembered I hadn't talked I said Lord I didn't talk to any of the the buddy today, but I'll talk to two tomorrow. I got in bed, you know, but I didn't sleep.

If you let this go by tonight, Dosh, you'll do it again, says me to, I to me. I knew that, too, because I know, boy, you give the devil an inch and you'll take a mile. So I got up and dressed and I started out in my car. I said, Lord, you've got to give me somebody tonight. And I drove one mile, two miles, three, four, five.

Suddenly I saw a man running. I saw a wigwag of a trade. He just missed the trade. I picked him up. He said to me, how far are you going?

I said, I'm going exactly as far as you're going. Well, that scared him. He said, what do you mean?

I said, look, man, I'll get right down to business. I've been in bed already tonight. I want to get back.

And I just make it a rule in my life to tell the goods. A wonderful story about Christ, at least once a day, and you're my chance. Can I start now so I can go home? He left and said, you bet. An hour later, a man by the name of Mr. Ford said to me, he said, son, you don't know what you've said.

Twenty years ago, I began to search for God. I've been in a church nearly every Sunday for twenty years. I've been in big ones, little ones, he says, but this is the first time I've heard the answer to my problem.

And he received the Lord. God blessed that. I had a great passion for souls, but then when I met this boy on the way to the golf course, I began to go back and find some of my converts.

And I want to tell you, I was a sick boy. Philippians 1, 6 wasn't working. A boy came into my office one day and told me about all the souls he'd won, and he said, they're all Armenians.

He was an Armenian. He had the list. I said, well, what's this one doing? Well, he said, that one isn't doing so good.

He sort of backslid. Well, what about this one? And we went all down the list.

And there wasn't one living the victorious life. And I said, give me your Bible. I turned to Philippians.

I put a cardboard right under the sixth verse. And I took a razor blade out of my pocket. And I started to come down on it. And he grabbed my hand.

He said, what are you going to do? I'm going to cut this verse out. It isn't working.

You know what was wrong, friends? I'd been taking the 6th verse away from the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th verses. Paul didn't just flop that at the phone and said, All right, now the Lord started something, He'll finish it.

You know, that's what people tell me when they want a soul. They say, Well, I just committed Him to God. I see Norm Lewis here.

He's the father of seven. If I went up to Norm and said, Who's taking care of your children, Norm? Oh, I left them with the Lord. I got a verse for you, Norm, if you say that. If any man provide not for his own household, he's worse than an infidel.

Paul said to the elders of the church at Ephesus. Take heed to the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made you the overseer. You don't make God the overseer, He makes you the overseer. We began to work on...

And this went on for a couple of three years before the NAV work started, actually. This running down some of these converts, and then it was less converts and more time with the converts. And pretty soon I could say like Paul did to the Philippians, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making request with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. He followed up his converts with prayer daily and fellowship.

Then he could say the sixth verse, because I just quoted the third, fourth, and fifth, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ, even in the seventh verse, even as it is right or proper for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart. I forgot my convert. God's converts threw me. And there began to be this time spent.

And that's why when this sailor came to me, I saw the value of spending three months with one boy. I'd rather have one Isaac alive than a hundred dead, or sterile, or immature. Because Isaac had Jacob, and Jacob had the twelve, and all the rest came down through there.

Follow up. You can lead a soul to Christ in twenty minutes to a couple of hours, but it takes twenty weeks to a couple of years to get him on the road into maturity, victorious over the sins and reoccurring problems that come along, wisdom in how to make right decisions. Warning him of the various isms that are likely to reach out with their octopus arms and pull him in and sidetrack him. But you've got yourself a man.

And what you've done is doubled your ministry. You've more than doubled your ministry. You know why? Because when you help your man, he sees how it's done. And then he mimics you.

I talked to evangelists for a long time. Oh, they said, well, now I hold my little meeting and I go on. Sometimes I come back three years later and a lady will come up and say, I accepted the Lord in your meeting. And someone else will come up and say, well, I accepted you.

Well, some of them are going on. I said, OK, sure. Five, ten going on out of a hundred. But the Lord said this. There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, and only one wandered off, and he wasn't satisfied.

You're satisfied to let the ninety-five wander off. But we won't worry about the ninety-five, we're going to worry about the one right now. Because I'm talking to you, and to you, and to you.

I'm talking to you. You're a trumpet. That's beautiful, and your voice is better. They're both tops, the first time I ever heard them, but I could sure use that. But it's no substitute for your big job.

If I was a minister of a church and I had deacons or elders to pass the plates and choir members to sing, I'd say, thank God for your help. We need you. Praise the Lord for these extra things you do, but I'd keep pressing home for the big job. Be fruitful and multiply.

That's the thing. All these other things are incidental to the one big job of winning a man or woman to Jesus Christ and helping them go on. Where's your man?

Where's your woman? You got one? You can ask God for one.

Search your hearts. Ask the Lord, am I sterile? If I am, why am I? You say, oh, but I'm so, I don't know much.

My little daughter, three years old, sat in a high chair around the table. Used to be the plan of the Navigators in the early days that... Whenever the boys were there at supper, as we closed the meal, each fellow would quote a verse. We were kind of hard on them in those days. And they had to learn a quote of verse they'd learned in the last 48 hours.

And I'd say it this way, quote a verse you've learned in the last 48 hours. If you have one, otherwise, give us a verse. And we were going around the table and...

We came to my little daughter, three, and there was a new sailor next to her, Dale Heim. And when he saw it was coming, he never thought about her quoting a verse, so he started to quote a verse. And the word came out and she looked up at him as much as if to say, I'm a human being. And when she got her composure again, she looked back and she said, for God so loved the world. that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now she put the emphasis on the whosoever because when she was first trying to say that word, when she was learning it earlier, she couldn't say it. And we'd say, now we'd say, whosoever. And so she got so, she, whosoever.

Well, Dale Heim today is a missionary in South America. Two days after this, Dale Heim came over and he came up to me and said, you know, I was going to quote that verse of scripture. He said, that's the only verse I knew, but I didn't know it. Not until little Ruthie quoted it.

And when she said, whosoever, I thought that means me. And he said, right there, I accepted the Lord. Grandpa and Grandma Clayton didn't know the Lord.

Grandpa Clayton didn't like it when his daughter married me. I'm not an ordained minister, but he thought I acted like one. And he didn't want his daughter to be married to a preacher. He'd been married, his father had been a preacher, a circuit preacher, and they'd lived in want. And he had a good job.

He shipped all the oil for Texaco. And he wanted his daughter to marry a man with some money, and he was just afraid that I wouldn't have any. I've carried out his fears, of course, but... He's sort of false, but I tried to act like a gentleman, and the wedding day, he gave her away.

But he still shunned the gospel. When Ruthie was three and Bruce was five, when Bruce was three, he could quote 18 verses correctly with the references for and after. He started on his third birthday learning three a week for six weeks. I just did that to prove to some of these grown-ups it could be done, you see. Well, they'd go up to Grandpa and Grandma's, and Grandpa'd put little Ruthie there and little Bruce there.

He'd say, now, Mary had a little lamb. They'd look at him kind of funny. Or he'd say, little boy blue, and they'd look at him, well, who's little boy blue? And he thought they were kind of dumb.

So the mother said, they know some things. Give them Romans 3.23, Bruce. Ah, and he quoted Romans 3.23.

And she said, I quote another one, Grandpa. Sure. And he started quoting and he quoted 5, 10, 15 and Ruth had quoted some in between and boy he thought, I am the grandpa. And he took them over to the neighbors and over to the aunts and over to the uncles and showed them how great these young kids were.

But the word of God was doing its work. And it wasn't very many weeks until the Holy Spirit through the voices of babes planted the seed. in their hearts. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou our ordained strength. Soul winners are not soul winners because of what they know.

It's because of whom they know and how well they know him and how much they long for others to know him. Those are your soul winners. Oh, but I'm afraid.

The fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be saved. There is no reason under God's heaven but sin and immaturity and lack of communion. That'll put you in a position where you can't produce. And there isn't anything under God's heaven that's going to keep that new born-again one from growing on with the Lord. If he has a mammy or a pappy or someone to take care of him.

And to give him that which God has provided for the new babe for his normal natural growth. Effects obey their causes by irresistible laws. seed and you'll get results not in every heart not every time the seed is sown is there a soul born but there'll be a soul born these other things being right and when it's born you give it the care that paul gave paul believed in it he was a great evangelist but he had time for follow-up the new testament is largely made up of the letters of paul which were the follow-up letters to the convent james believed in it Be doers of the word and not hearers only.

Peter believed in it, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word. John believed in it. He said, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the faith.

And all the writings of Peter and Paul and James and most of the writings of John, 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, are food for the new Christian. The gospel spread to the... then known world in the first century without radio, television, printing, press and all because each produced one was a reproducer. But no, today we got a lot of pew sitters. We got a lot of people who think if they're faithful in church and put good sized gifts in the collection plate and get other people to come, they've done their deeds.

Where's your man? Where's your woman? Where's your boy?

Where's your girl? Every one of you. I don't care how old you are.

We've had people 80 years old finish our memory card. In one Sunday school class, a woman 72 and one 78 did. They had something to give. Load your heart with this precious seed.

You'll find that God will find plenty of hearts ready for it. Shall we pray? Holy Father, we cannot do the work of the Holy Spirit, and part of his work is to bring to our remembrance the things he has said.

Whatever he has said through our lips today to the hearts of people, bring to their remembrance. Give them the courage to believe, to obey. Lord, I pray that even as we close this meeting, many of these will be thinking of someone left by their wayside that needs to be followed up. Be thinking of others to hear the word, the precious word, who may be unto them as Isaac was to Abraham. Lord, seal the work that you've done in our hearts today.

We ask in Christ's holy name. Amen. We have just listened to Dawson Trotman continuing to relate his personal testimony, and he has talked about the early development of the Navigators. He has emphasized that God's intention is that every Christian be fruitful in evangelism and multiplication of disciples.

Transcript for:Dawson Trotman and Spiritual Growth

Transcript for:
Dawson Trotman and Spiritual Growth