In the early days of my ministry, fifty years ago, I would go to a place to run meetings and stay for perhaps a week. The people would come, and I would preach, and it was wonderful.

Then I pastored for twenty years in a church south of London. I was so fulfilled in that church! I loved it. I used to drive a big bus with a loudspeaker on the top, and I would put tapes on and then go around the villages like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, drawing the children in. I’d pack the old bus with forty or more kids and take them to the church three times a week for children’s meetings. I loved those kids.

Then God said to me, “Go.” But I said, “No.” A second time God said, “Go.” But again I said, “No.” After my second refusal, God didn’t talk anymore; He began to deal with me.

When He did, I learned something: The God of Jonah still lives! I realized that, in the whale’s belly, Jonah was brought to a place where he would either declare, “Salvation is of the Lord,” or bewail, “Salvation is of the Lord”—one or the other. And in that place God began to deal with him.

As a result of the Lord’s “dealings,” I was a dying man at age fifty-one. I persisted in my disobedience for a time, but having my head under God’s cold-water faucet finally settled me. At two o’clock one morning, I surrendered to God.

I said, “Lord, I’m going.” He said, “Yes, you’re going.” I said, “But I had decided to stay!” God replied, “No, you’re going. You’ll either go and do what I’ve purposed you should do, or you’re going home.” So I surrendered to God, and in utter weakness, thirty-four years ago, I moved out.