OUR WITNESS TO THE WORLD

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Acts 26:15-20

4-1-79    10:50 a.m.

 

And once again welcome, the uncounted thousands of you who are sharing this hour with us over radio and over television.  This is the First Baptist Church in Dallas, and this is the pastor bringing the message entitled Our Witness to the World.  Preaching through the Book of Acts, we are in chapter 26 and the reading of text is beginning at verse 15—Paul meeting the Lord on the way to Damascus; overwhelmed by the glory of that light, he says,

Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord replied, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.

But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a servant—a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of the things at which I will yet appear unto thee.

Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 

To open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power from Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Me.

Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: 

But showed first unto them of Damascus, and then at Jerusalem, and then throughout all of the regions of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of repentance. 

Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come,  

That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should be raised from among the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

[Acts 26:15-23]

 

Three times in the Book of Acts is the story told of the conversion of the apostle Paul.  And in all three instances, his conversion is accompanied by his call as a witness to the world.  The two go together; our conversion is also our call as a witness to the world.  Acts begins with the meeting of the Lord with His apostles in the great commission in verse 8 , “and ye shall be My witnesses.” [Acts 1:8] To be saved is to be called to be a witness to the grace of our Lord.  As I read the text, there are three groups to which the Lord has called the apostle.  You have it translated “Gentiles,” which is fine.  The word refers to the “nations” of the world.  Paul is called—we are called to be witnesses to the nations of the world.  When it says in the text “the people,” he is called to be a witness to the people.  That refers to his nation—his own people.  We are called to be a witness to our nation—our own people—these who speak our language, who live in our land, who breathe our air, who share our destiny.  We are called as witnesses to the nation.  And then third, he was called as a witness to the lost everywhere—Damascus, Jerusalem, the regions of Judea, to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God.  So we are called to be witnesses, to all of the lost everywhere.  We shall follow that God-ordained and God-inspired outline for Paul and for us.

We are to be witnesses to the whole world.  That was an awesome thing for Paul; it is an awesome thing for us.  After all, he is just one man; yet God called him to confront and to face the whole pagan world.  We are one by one, saved and one by one called to witnesses to the whole world.  And it is no less awesome for us, and today terrifying.  There is no part of the whole world that does not daily affect us.  What happens in the remotest corners—across the seas, in the tiniest lands, affect us today; deeply so, increasingly so.

I say the assignment is awesome and frightening.  The awe of catastrophe seems to permeate everything we read; every headline in every newspaper and every article in every magazine.  We live as though we were under a hanging Damocles sword.  We live as though there were a gun loaded, the trigger cocked, pointed at our heads. 

These historians who write of our present modern world history will include chapters like this—“The Eclipse of Western Civilization, or “The Post Christian Era.”  It is a time of terror and frightening possibilities that daily confront our national and international life.  I sometimes think of our modern world in terms of the first three times I visited Germany.  The first time was within several months after the conclusion of the World War II, and the vast, illimitable destruction of those cities in Germany was appalling to me.  I would stand, for example, in Hamburg—a city the size of Chicago, and as far as my eye could see, from horizon to horizon, there was nothing but rubble.  Not a building standing.  And all that had been done at that time was to dig out the roads through the rubble in order that the buses might drive through.  That was my first time to visit Germany.  The second time, I went to see Orson Welles in a modern version of Faust, and over and over, repeated again and again was a line that went through that dramatic presentation.  The line was, “Damnation is contagious.”  The third time that I visited Germany I went to see Richard Wagner’s opera Götterdämmerung, the third and the last of the famous trilogy.  And it ends like this—the chief of the gods, Woden, Woden’s spear is broken; Siegfried is slain; Brunhilde falls upon the funeral pyre—casts herself upon it; and the home of the gods, Valhalla is burning; and the whole heaven and earth are on fire.  That is the way the opera ended.

As I review those first three journeys to Germany, they are a sort of outline of the present world.  And the awesome, frightening, terrible prospects that daily confront us.  We are to be witnesses to that kind of a world; a world that seemingly faces the inevitable judgment of Almighty God.  Paul was just one; but he was one.  We, each one is just one; but we are one.  And “it is better to light a small candle than to curse the darkness.”  As we have opportunity, anywhere in the earth we ought to witness for our Lord; and there ought to be in our hearts a daily prayer that God will have mercy and pity upon the nations that struggle in this modern earth.  And, as we have opportunity, we ought to share in our world mission enterprise.  When Paul was converted, he was called—one man, against the whole world—“a witness to the Gentiles”—to the nations.

Second, in his conversion he was called as a witness to his own people—to his nation.  And we also in our conversion, we also are called to be witnesses to our people, to our country, our nation.  America cannot live in drunkenness and debauchery and desecration and disobedience.  God has written large on this sacred page: The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.  If God does not judge America, He must tear up His Bible.  He must renounce the words that He has spoken and He must apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah and Assyria and Babylonia, and the rest of the empires and kingdoms and nations of the world that He has judged and destroyed. 

It is vanity and presumption for us to say to ourselves that God will judge and has judged other nations because of their wickedness and iniquity, but God will not judge us.  That was the thought and the persuasion of Judah in the days of Jeremiah the prophet.  The people said to themselves: We are the chosen family of God.  The holy temple is located in our beautiful city.  And God would not destroy His chosen people.  He would not let enemies ravage His holy city, nor would God allow the destruction of His holy temple.  The people said that in the days of Jeremiah.  But they had forsaken God.  And Jeremiah lifted up his voice and cried saying, “Repent, repent, get right with God”; and the Chaldeans came in 605 BC, and carried away captive Daniel and other of the seed royal.  Jeremiah lifted up his voice and cried again: “Repent, get right with God”; and the Chaldeans came in 598 BC, and carried away Ezekiel and the flower of the priesthood.  Jeremiah lifted up his voice and cried saying, “Repent, get right with God.  And the Chaldeans came the third time in 587 BC, and they had no need to return again.  They destroyed the city.  They burned the temple with fire.  And they carried away the nation captive.  And Jeremiah cried, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” [Jeremiah 9:1].  And in captivity, the Jewish prisoners, slaves, cried,

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, we wept when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps on the willow trees in the midst thereof.

For they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

[Psalm 137:1-3]

 

But how do you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?  In slavery and in captivity?

This is the imponderable judgment that awaits America.  God does not countenance iniquity and desecration and disobedience in any people; whether they are in His church, or in His synagogue or in His holy city or in His Solomonic temple, in New York, or Dallas, or Paris, or Peking, or Moscow.  There is an inevitable judgment from Almighty God that faces the iniquitous and departing nations of the world.  And to those people, we are sent as witnesses.  We are to lift up our voices in our own nation, among our own people. 

There ought to be built here in the city of Dallas, in the downtown heart of this city, a great lighthouse for Christ.  Dallas is becoming increasingly a crossroad center of our America.  The influence of our city is expanding and permeating and if that influence can be Christian; if people thinking of us, think of the Lord; if we can shine for Christ, God will bless us and work with us and give us power and might and glory and presence from above.  In Romans chapter 13, in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, in 1 Peter chapter 2—at great length does the Lord by inspiration write to us saying that we are to be Christian citizens.  We are to pray for the government.  We are take part in the obedient citizenship of the land.  We are to be Christian witnesses to our nation.

The third category that Paul quotes the Lord as saying to whom he is to be a witness.  And as he speaks to King Agrippa II about his obedience to that heavenly mandate; the third category is to the lost everywhere.  We are to be witnesses to the lost everywhere.  The tragedy of human life is apparent everywhere.  Any way you want to say it, choose any category or any nomenclature that you would like to use, whether you say it philosophically or sociologically or psychologically or domestically or martially or whether you say it scientifically or theologically or nationally or personally—any way you wish to say it, the everlasting truth of history is this that men are lost without God.

In our Christian preaching, men are lost without Christ—Acts 4:12: “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”  Men are lost in this life—now.  They are lost in death.  They lost at the great judgment bar of Almighty God and they are lost in eternity.  Men are lost without Christ.  What is needed above everything else—what is needed is a compassionate heart to witness to the lost all around us of the hope and the forgiveness and the life and the destiny and the preciousness and the blessing that we have in our dear Lord.  The compassionate heart is the first of all of the overtures of God to men and women and families who are lost—a caring, sharing, loving, praying concerned people, witnessing to the lost.

I one time read in a book—there was a character named Marius the Epicurean.  He was a philosopher.  And in this Book written about the first century; written concerning the first century AD.  This Marius the Epicurean philosopher is seated high up the Roman coliseum, and he is watching gladiatorial combats in the arena.  As you know, the arena of the coliseum was covered with sand so that when the gladiators slew each other and the blood poured out, they could rake away the sand or rake over the sand and bring in fresh sand, and then the bloody combats could continue.  As Marius the Epicurean philosopher sits there in the height of the Roman coliseum watching those bloody combats, he turns to his companion and he says, “What is needed is the heart that would make it impossible to look upon such blood-thirsty combat, and the future would belong to the power that could create such a heart.”

Following the course of history, as you so well know, it was the preaching of the gospel that closed for ever that coliseum.  It was the preaching of the gospel that for ever did away with those bloody gladiatorial confrontations.  It was the preaching of the gospel that for ever did away with the execution by crucifixion of a malefactor.  It was the preaching of the gospel that for ever did away with human slavery.  It was the preaching of the gospel that for ever did away with the exposing of children.  It was the preaching of the gospel that elevated and raised womanhood and family life.  It was the preaching of the gospel that brought ministries to the poor, to the suffering.  There was not a hospital in the entire Roman Empire.  There was not an orphan’s home in all of the history of the Greco-Roman people.  It was the compassionate love—it was the caring heart of the Christian witness that elevated the world into another sphere, another life, another devotion.  It is that same compassionate concern on the part of God’s people that is so desperately needed today.  And our conversion is our call into that compassionate concern.  We are to be witnesses to the lost.

And that brings me to a new departure for our church.  As you know, we have begun our knocking at the doors of the people who live in the city of Dallas.  It is our proposal to ask God for our city; and we have dedicated ourselves to this first step.  We are going to knock at the door of every home, every house in the city of Dallas; and we have begun doing it in two measures.  On Saturday, at 10:00 o’clock, we meet here at our church and we go out with our packets and we knock at the doors of the people who live up and down the streets.  Yesterday, there were seventy of us who visited two thousand one hundred eighty-nine homes, found three hundred thirty-five people who need the Lord.  Thus far, in our just beginning, we have visited thirteen thousand, eight hundred eighty-nine homes.  We have found one thousand, two hundred eighty-six people who need the Lord.  And at 11:00 o’clock today, another group went out.  These teenagers in our youth division who come to the 8:15 service, after their Sunday school, they go out at 11:00 o’clock with their leaders and others who work with them. 

We have begun, but there remains this tremendously, significant and meaningful next step.  What are you going to do now with these one thousand two hundred eighty-six people who need the Lord?  And this is just the beginning.  The time will soon come when we will have more than ten thousand names and addresses and telephone numbers and names and ages of people in our city who need the Lord.  Now, what are you going to do?  Here they are. They live on our streets. They walk up and down in our city.  They speak our language.  They work and live with us.  What are you going to do to reach those people for the Lord?

The second step.  There is no such persuasion on the part of any child of God who reads the Book—no such persuasion as that we convert anybody.  That is the power and the prerogative of God alone.  When they bring to me the humblest child, and they say to me, “This child is seeking the Lord; wants to be saved.”  I am bowed to my lowest knees.  How can I save the humblest child?  I cannot.  The power of regeneration, of conversion lies in the hands of God. 

If I could take that as an overshadowing truth for all that we do, I could frame it like this—what we do outside of the power of the Lord is of the flesh.  It is carnal.  It is temporary.  It is ephemeral.  It is passing like a watch in the night.  What we do in the church that has the blessing and the enduring favor of God is without exception done, not in human strength but always in God’s power. 

And that is why I come to the second great commitment of our church.  We are now going to see if we can turn a mighty church into a mighty band of intercessors—people who pray.  And this is the way that I want to begin it.  I would like to have a leader of intercessors in every division of the church.  Under that leader, I would like to have a leader of intercessors in every department in the church.  And under his tutelage and guidance and direction, I would like to have a leader of intercession in every class in the church.  I would like for us to begin with a goal of three thousand prayer intercessors.

And I would like for all of it to be headed up in our department of Outreach Ministries.  Jimmy Hooten, God’s missionary from Uganda who has returned to be with us will head it up in his office.  In that office is WMU and I have already asked the leadership of the WMU if they would take care of all of the records that are necessary to further a tremendous prayer effort like that.  Then the appeal would be made.  Everyone in the church, in the Sunday school, who would dedicate themselves to pray fifteen minutes a day—every day we pray fifteen minutes.  We will pray for the lost.  We will pray for these who are seeking to win the lost.  We will pray for the church.  We will pray for its teaching outreach.  We will pray for all of its multi-faceted ministries and outreach.  And we will pray for the pastor and for the services and for the appeal that is made for the lost fifteen minutes a day.  Three thousand of us to begin with—and then maybe as we grow in grace, there might be four thousand intercessors, five thousand intercessors, six thousand intercessors.  I just cannot conceive of the Holy Ghost power that God would pour out upon us if our people were a praying, intercessory people.

This is not something that arises out of my heart.  This is not a scheme or a gimmick of someone who thinks through a fine organizational process as a businessman would do in trying to further his corporation.  This is but a reflection of the Word of God.  We are encouraged to “pray without ceasing” [1 Thessalonians 5:17]; “without Me ye can do nothing” [John 15:5].  The strength, the power that comes to us in this work lies in the bearing of the strong arm of Almighty God.  If we were doing a human work, we would use human means. 

The way a man puts over his insurance company, or puts over his merchandising establishment, or the way he farms out there on the land, these are according to certain things that you learn.  But our power and our ableness does not lie in what we are able ingenuously to organize; or ingeniously, in carnal human strength, to achieve.  What we are doing is something only God can do; namely, the regeneration of the soul; the conversion of the life; the creation of a new man and a new woman.  That is the prerogative of the Almighty God, and we are shut up to the Lord.  It is one of appeal and intercession—Lord bless.

Now, a third step in that which is to come is who is going to speak to these ten thousand that we soon will have.  Who ought to be won to the Lord?  Who are they?  Who are these soul-winners?  It is we.  In our conversion we were also called to witness.  The two go together.  It did with Paul.  It does with us.  When I was saved, I was called as a witness.  How do I witness?  So many times we are all thumbs and big toes.  We are awkward.  We are timid.  We are fearful.  We do not even know how to introduce the question, much less to carry it through to an ultimate verdict.  We have to be taught.  We have to be trained.  And the way for us to do that is to take a cadre, and with somebody who is trained in that placed by the side of that somebody, someone who is not trained, and soon they learn—and then these learn, and those learn, and others learn.  And all of us finally can be encouraged to be witnesses for Christ to the lost.  This is the way, walk ye in it.  This is life, abounding, abundant and everlasting.  This is joy and peace in this world and in the world to come. 

You see, when we work for God, and do God’s work, God prepares for our coming.  The Lord works with us.  We are not alone when we commit ourselves to this tremendous soul-saving commitment.  There is a great Almightiness above us who is watching and who is working with us.  And when God sees us with a compassionate heart, a caring loving spirit.; when God hears us pray and intercede, God does something.  God works.  It is almost a marvelous and miraculous thing how God prepares for our witnessing.  You see, there are providences that we do not know about that work in a man’s life—getting ready for that appeal that we make to his soul.  Things we never guessed for, but God is working.  And He is opening wide the door.  It is the providences of God that plows the fallow ground, readies for the sowing of the seed of the word.  God works with us.

There was a man in the place where I was preaching who was very, very obstinate—indifferent.  You could almost say hostile to the preacher and to religion and to the church and to the gospel message and to Christ.  You have seen them all of your lives, men who are just obstreperous and incorrigible.  And I was told do not waste any time on him.  Do not spend any moments there.  Do not waste your breath on him. 

And I went by his office and introduced myself.  I am the preacher, and I am just happy to see you.  And I did not give him time to cuss me out—just, you know, just speak to him.  I came by a second time.  I am that preacher, and I am just glad to see you, and if God ever puts it in your heart, we would love for you to come to our services.  And I left and went by another time.  Then, going by the office—going by the office, I looked at that man at his desk.  He had his face buried in his hands.  He was weeping like a child.  Seated there at his desk, crying.  Well, I walked over by his side and put my arm around him, and I said, “What are you crying for?  What are you crying for?”  And he replied, “I have a niece that I helped raise whom I loved as I would my own daughter.  I have just received a telephone call.  She has been viciously raped, violently attacked, and brutally murdered.”  Just as I walked by, he had just received that call.  And he was there at his desk, with his face buried in his hands, weeping like a little child. 

I said to him, as I drew up a chair, I said to him, “Did you ever hear this?”  And I read the beautiful precious invitation in Matthew 11:28, 29 and 30: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”  Jesus says, “Come unto Me.”  Out there, there is terror and violence and murder.  But here, is peace, and rest and hope and strength and comfort.  And I asked him, “Come and be with us who love the Lord, and find hope and strength and comfort for our weary hearts in Him.” 

And I said, “Would you bow your head and pray with me?”  He bowed his head.  I prayed for him and for the stricken family.

And then I extended my hand.  “If you will come over the line, out from the world, and into the hope and promise of Jesus, will you take my hand?” 

He said, “I will.”  And he grasped my hand.  He came down the aisle; made a beautiful confession of faith.  I baptized him, and he became the leader in that church.  Who would ever have thought in a thousand years that the heart of a hard indifferent man like that would have been so broken?  You do not know ever the providences that lie back of a man’s life; God plowing up the fallow ground, preparing for the sowing of the seed. 

I do not convert anybody.  We do not regenerate any soul.  God does that but if I am a concerned and compassionate and willing and yielded and prayerful witness.  God somehow blesses and sanctifies and uses our efforts to the saving of the lost and to the blessing of the heart and the home.  It is for us to answer our heavenly call.  “I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but showed myself first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to all of the people that they should repent and turn and find their hope and life in God” [Acts 26:19, 20].  That is our commitment and in wisdom and in blessing may the Lord work with us in saving grace.  May our eyes behold it—saving our souls; saving our nation; saving our world.

In a moment we stand now to sing our hymn of appeal and somebody you today to take the Lord Jesus as your Savior; would you come and stand by me?  A family you, putting your life in the circle and circumference of this dear church; a couple you, as God shall press the appeal to your heart, would you make the decision now?  And in a moment when we stand to sing, stand coming down that stairway, walking down this aisle.  “Pastor, I give you my hand, I give my heart to God.  I am stepping over the line.  I am coming to Jesus.”  Do it.  May God bless you.  May angels attend you as you come, while we stand and while we sing.