THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD AND WHAT’S WITH IT
Dr. W. A. Criswell
Acts 14:27
08-13-78
… And when I read you my text, concluding the first missionary journey:
And when they were come back to the church in Antioch and had
gathered the assembly
together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened
the door of faith unto the Gentiles.
I could speak for hours concerning this long, long journey. But, I have
carefully prepared these things that are presented at this hour. But,
remember, these are things that come out of my heart—my persuasions. I am
not infallible, nor do I claim to have alone the wisdom of God.
But, these are things that I think. These are persuasions and impressions
that fill my heart as I look at: This Whole Wide World and What is With
It.
This is the third time that I have gone all the way around the earth. And
I have been up and down in it so many times that I can hardly count them.
Thinking the other day on the plane, I have crossed the Equator 12 times.
And the closest I got to it in this
journey was in Singapore, 80 miles away—and to the Arctic Circle was in
Leningrad, in northern Russia.
I started here in Dallas, to San Francisco, to Honolulu, to Guam—and I was glad
to see that embattled fortress—then to Manila, in the Philippines; then to
Singapore; and then into Johore and Johoraru, that capital of the southern
province of Malaysia; then to Bangkok, in Thailand; and then across the Burma
Sea and across India; and across the Persian Gulf to Dubai, one of the capitals
of the United Arab Emirates; and then across Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and the
eastern Mediterranean to Athens; then, from Athens to Bucharest, the capital of
Romania; and then to Budapest, the capital of Hungary; where we met the choir;
and then, following the choir, to Warsaw and then to Leningrad; then to
Moscow.
Then, as the choir came back to America through Rome, we went to Dresden,
Germany; then, back to Budapest to catch the plane—stopped at Prague,
Czechoslovakia; then, to the Netherlands; to New York; and so back to our
heavenly home in Dallas.
Now, how is it: the world today? It just all depends upon how you
reply.
A man was asked: “How is your wife?”
And he said: “How is my wife? Well, compared to what?”
How’s the world? Compared to what? Compared to the little tiny town
of Texline, with its 300 inhabitants, it is a big world teeming and thronging
with uncounted millions of people. Compared to a cemetery, it is
alive. Compared to the holiness of God, it is dead in trespasses and
sin. It is a lost world. And compared to the need and the rest of
God, it is filled with tears and illimitable on sorrows.
Next Sunday morning at this hour I shall preach on: “The Mingled Tears of Jews
and Gentiles.”
I have gathered together the impressions that I have of the world under three
categories: political and economic and religious. And I remind you again
that these are the impressions of my heart. And I will not be buried
carrying the wisdom of God. These are my conclusions.
First of all: Political. I entered the Communist world from Athens in
Bucharest, the capitol of Romania. I flew Romanian Airlines—the call it
Tarman Airlines—from Athens to Bucharest.
I was seated by a distinguished looking gentleman. I introduced myself to
him. He introduced himself to me. He is the Egyptian representative
on the board of the World Bank. In front of him sat a beautiful woman—his
wife and two darling girls—their two daughters.
As I talked to him, the conversation reverted to the Russians in Egypt.
And that gifted and learned man said to me, “Communism, Russians—we experienced
it 20 years.”
I did not realize it was that long the Russians were in Egypt.
He said, “It was devastating. They are atheists. They do not
believe in God. And they dehumanize their people.”
That’s the word that he used.
He said, “They drink like fish. They are drunkards. They make life
hopeless, helpless and meaningless.”
And he said, “We threw them out. And our hope lies in America.”
I stayed in that Communist world for three weeks: in Romania, in Hungary, in
Poland, in Russia and East Germany and touched it in Czechoslovakia—looking at
it, visiting it, suddenly facing it—just like that: out of the free world into
it.
I have chosen these 10 characteristics of the Communist world, out of 40 dozen
others that I also could have included.
Number one: Their dimly lighted cities—as though they were in a war. When
you come into one of those cities at night, it looks as though the world were
turning into terror.
Number two: Old women sweeping the streets—women doing heavy work. When
we landed, for example, in Leningrad, coming out of the plane, there were five
women, shoveling asphalt, loading the truck, paving the runway, dressed in
heavy boots and soiled garments. As I looked at them, I thought: “This is
what ERA is trying to bring to the American people.”
Number three: The cheap, poor clothes of the whole populace.
Number four: The stores—so many of them half empty and the sorry, shoddy
merchandise that is offered.
Number five: The glum, unsmiling faces of the people. When you look at
them, they look away, unhelpful.
Number six: Soldiers everywhere at the airports and in other areas of the
cities, armed, some with sharp bayonets. They look so fierce to me.
Seven: Long lines before everything, anything—a fruit stand, a vegetable stand,
the stores. I don’t know how many times, I would like to have bought some
fruit—never could get up to it—cues on every corner.
It took an hour and half in a little jet from Athens to Bucharest. It
took me from three o’clock in the afternoon until twelve o’clock at midnight to
get my hotel.
Class distinctions—the opposite of their
political philosophy of a classless society.
The great basic tenet of the Communist religion is that all people are to
be the same. There are to be no classes. And in their revolutionary
propaganda, they set class against class. But, in their society, I have
never seen class distinctions more pronounced or more viciously awesome.
For example, standing in the Bucharest Airport—standing there waiting for the
plane going to Budapest; suddenly I heard the word shouting: Legotsia,
Legotsia. And a policeman shoved me out of the way and over in a certain
area of the airport and everybody else. Then, I saw six long sleek black
limousines drive up to the airport entrance. They were Mercedes Benz
sedans. In America, each one would cost more than $50,000.
And out of those six sedans came six Chinese, three of them military in their
drab olive green uniforms—the red band here, the red band around the cap and
the red star—and three Chinese civilians, and then six Romanians with the stars
on their shoulders and three civilians.
As I looked at them, and the pomp and superiority with which they disembarked
and walked in the airport, I thought of the military attaché, who stood by me
in the Red Square before the Kremlin 12 years ago, when I was in Russia.
And as we were standing there, a loud
police whistle and the crowd opening the way, and rushing by, another big,
sleek, black limousine driving through the open gate into the Kremlin.
And the military attaché turned and said to me, “And they say they have a
classless society.” The elite of the Communist government is manifest everywhere.
And the poor people are ground to death in a faceless and hopeless and helpless
and sameness society.
There is no opportunity. They have none. They are serfs of the
government. In many meaningful areas of life, they cannot own
anything. That is the Socialist Communist world.
We sat down with Lucien Kachobe, who is pastor of the Baptist church in
Dresden—one church in a city of over a half million people. The poor
place in which he lives is manifestly representative of the whole nation.
He lives in the church with his four children.
He was born in Kaleningrad, old Kerisburg in East Prussia. He wanted to
go back to the place of his birth. He is forbidden by the government to
visit the city. He cannot go.
Ben Hart, the representative of our Baptist people in East Berlin, with Rolf
Damen who came to met us in Dresden—he said, “You know, Sunday, the day you
return home is the anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall.” He
lives there inhibited, prohibited and helpless.
I said to so many of the brethren in Eastern Europe: “I will see you in
Brighton, England, next July when the general council of the Baptist World
Alliance meets in Brighton, England, preceded by a great congress—convocation
of the Baptists of Europe.
And they all replied to me: “We would love to go. But, we are not
allowed. We cannot leave the country.” That is their classless
society.
Again, look at an instance of their classless society. When I was in
Russia before—I was in five cities in Russia 12 years ago. I saw
everywhere what I called dollar stores—their foreign currency stores. And
the people of the country cannot enter them. They cannot buy in them.
Those stores are only for those who have dollars and who have West German marks
and have British pounds and like hard currencies.
They are an insult to the people who live in those nations. There are
some who are privileged and can buy. But, the great mass of the people
are interdicted by law from even entering the store, much less seeking to buy
the delights that we know in the Western world.
They won’t even take their own money at the airport. If you have any, you
leave with it. They won’t take it.
Number nine—the characteristics of the Communist world: when I came to
Bucharest, which by the way, I have to admit is one of the poorest of the
Communist countries, Romania. I had a feeling as I walked up and down the
streets—entered the stores, tried to talk to the people—I had a feeling of
hostility and dislike.
So, I sat down with myself. You know, it’s easy to have a feeling in you
which, actually, is not real. So, I thought: “You know, this is just
psychological. Surely, surely, this isn’t true: just walking up and down,
just trying to be nice—have a feeling of unwantedness, dislike and
hostility.”
So, I was standing in front of one of those typical, cheap, sorry stores: the
counters half-empty; the showcases half-empty—and what there of the poorest of
goods—I was upon standing in front of the store, just looking at it. And
the manager of the store walked to the front, took the great, big door and
slammed it in my face.
Why? That’s Communism.
Number ten: The black market. It is everywhere. They come up on
your street by your side. They will press against you as you look into a
store window. They are waiting for you at the arrival at the sightseeing
bus.
In Romania, for example, twelve lei are exchanged for one dollar. He’ll
come up by the side of you and he’ll say: “Twenty-five for a dollar? Give
you 2,500 for a $100 bill.
That’s true of the floren in Hungary. It is true of the ruble in
Russia. It is true of the solexics in Poland, and it is true of the mark
in East Germany. And it is a characteristic of the whole Communist world:
the worthlessness of their currency and the black market that seeks to trade it
for an American dollar.
These are some of the political impressions that I have of that darkening
world.
Second: my economic impressions. I was talking with a man in Singapore, a
very knowledgeable man. And I said to him, “You know, it’s just wonderful
for us—wherever we go, there are signs in English, announcements made in
English, explanations made in English. It is just wonderful for us.”
For example, at 2:00 in the morning, in Dubai, I watched an Arab with a little
portable TV, he was looking at an American movie and underneath those bylines
in Arabic. It is everywhere in English.
The man, when I pointed that out and told him how happy I was traveling around
the world to see that, he replied to me, “Yes, you see this world was mostly
under the British for 200 years. Then, for the last half century,” he
said, “it has been under the economic dynamism of the American dollar.”
But, he said, “Now, all of that is passing away. The British no longer
have the tremendous influence they once exercised in the world. And,” he
says, “the dollar is losing its value.”
The decline of the dollar—the economic strength of America—is manifest
everywhere in the world. Even against the worthless currencies of Eastern
Communist Europe, they are careful to explain to me on every corner that the
dollar is down and down and down.
The tragedy of the fiscal economic policies of America are manifest to the
remotest corners of the earth. You don’t realize it until you go outside
this country and let those people talk to you in terms of their trading, their
selling, and your dollar.
The taxpayers in the United States—now, we’re counting taxes that are taken for
local and national levels. The ordinary workman in America now works four
months out of the year for the government. And the day is soon coming
when every American who works will be working six months of the year for
government.
The federal budget for 1979 is proposed at $500,000,000,000, an increase of 150
percent since 1970. The vast deficits of the government are made up by
printing money, a cruel way to rob the poor people.
Your money, whatever it is, is in a bank. It’s in savings. Daily,
its value goes down and down and down because the government prints
money. And when you go abroad everywhere people are conscious of the
increasing worthlessness of the American dollar.
What is the money spent for? A half of it goes for social programs—most
of which are needless, subsidizing drones and parasites. Three and one
half billion and spent to regulate business, an increase of 21 percent over the
last year. And business compliance with government bureaucracy costs 150
billion dollars a year. There is one government employee for five of us
who work out in the private sector of our free enterprise system.
Ever-growing government, increasing rates of taxation and inflation, costly
bureaucracy regulations are destroying the economic life and strength of
America and its influence in the world.
We also are becoming serfs of the government, just as in other socialist
countries. And we also are losing our standard of living, as in other
socialist countries. The same debacle and catastrophe that has
overwhelmed them in those Socialist nations is gradually overwhelming us.
I stagger at it when I think of the background and the foundation of the
freedoms that we have known in America gradually eroding away. And
whether you are a slave in a Communist state or a serf in America, finally, it
is just the same.
Now, we come to a far different plane—an elevation, a light, a glory: my
impressions of the religious world. The sweet precious people who love
God and praise him in every language, in every tongue—in every nation, of the
earth, God has His own.
As I look at them, I think of the truth of the Revelation: They were there
singing “Worthy is the Lamb, out of every language, and tribe and people under
the sun.”
And every pastor without exception said to me over and over again: “Be sure to
give our love and greeting to your dear church.”
They have in their minds pictures of us that are almost immeasurably sweet,
tender and precious. Their appeals to us for help move our hearts.
I have listed about three. Number one: At the world council of the
BWA—the Baptist World Alliance—in Manila, the contingent from Brazil—about half
a dozen men—they sat down with me several times. We ate dinner
together.
They have it in their hearts that we send a choir down there next year, next
summer, to help them celebrate their one hundredth anniversary. They want
us to come to Recife and to Belo Horizonte and to Rio and to Sao Paulo, and
then, to stop by Buenos Aires on our way back home.
They have their heart set on that. They have heard of the tours of our
Chapel Choir. And, of course, those Brazilians would have people there by
the thousands and by the thousands. It is nothing for the Brazilians to
have 100,000 people in a great convocation.
They so want us to come. I don’t know how to reply. I asked Gary
about it. And he said maybe our sanctuary choir could go or some group
selected.
In any event, the Brazilian Baptist Convention is framing an official invitation
to the First Baptist Church in Dallas to send a great choir to help them
celebrate their centennial.
Again, the brethren from Australia met with me several times. The thing
they laid before them—before me was this: that they have no Baptist witness in
the media and especially on television in Australia. There are three
programs they say that come over television to Australia. And all three
of them, the brethren say to me, are things that are diametrically opposite
that what we believe is the truth of God.
One of them, for example, is Herbert W. Armstrong, who is a boiled-down
quintessence of unadulterated heresy. The far-out screwball things that
that guy teaches is beyond anything that an intelligent man who reads the Bible
could ever think for.
But, that’s what they have down there in Australia. So, he says: “Please,
please, he says, would you videotape our service and mail it down to us?
Our Baptist headquarters are in Sydney. Most of the Australians live in
an area around Sydney.”
He says: “We will take that videotape and we will play it on Sunday at a prime
time. And it will be a message from the Baptist world to the people of
Australia.”
Then, he said: After we have succeeded in Sydney, we will take it to Melbourne,
then to Perth and then to Brisbane and then to Darwin. We will cover all
Australia with the message of Christ, as we Baptists believe that God has
revealed it in the Book.”
He said to me: “All it will take is for you to subsidize it for two years, or
three at the most.”
And then, he says: “By that time, we shall have developed a Baptist response
that will take care of it. Please,” he said, “take care of it.”
So, the Baptists of Australia are framing an official letter to the First
Baptist Church in Dallas, pleading with us for that television program to begin
in Sydney.
Again, appeal is made to us—and we shall respond to it—to rebuild the Bethel
Baptist Church in East Berlin. They are only allowed to rebuild it if
they will do it with foreign currency.
The First Baptist Church escaped—those members who would, or could—to West
Berlin. And this is our Baptist witness in East Berlin. The church lies
in ruins and they are seeking to rebuild it. And the twentieth day of
August—is that Sunday? Twenty? The twentieth day of August, they
are going to begin. They are going by faith and we’re going to help them
somehow, some way.
Then, last among many, the Warsaw brethren made appeal to us that we help them
broadcast the message of Christ. They cannot do it in Poland. But,
in Monte Carlo is a great, tremendous station that reaches clear to
Siberia. And they make the program in a cassette, send it to Monte Carlo,
and it is beamed all over Europe and, especially, of course, to the Polish
people.
And they told of an instance in Siberia—couldn’t mail it, a man brought the
letter, gave it to them every Sunday in Siberia. That little group of
Poles gathers around a radio and they worship God, listening to the broadcast
out of Monte Carlo.
Oh, dear, dear, dear. I must hasten—coming to the last: the cutting edge
of the faith. As in a war, you have a plant and an assembly line and a
training center. But, the cutting edge of it, the contact in the war is
the infantry and the artillery and the air force.
What the cutting edge of the Christian faith? Where is it? I found
it in this trip, among the oppressed and the prohibited and those who are lost
in the indifference of paganism.
It is found in the church in your house. It is found in the home.
The leader of the Philippines, the Baptist denomination in the Philippines is a
layman. With six pesos—that would be fifty cents, he now is a
multi-millionaire.
And he says: We have 80,000 Baptists in the Philippines. In 10 years, we
shall have 8,000,000.
I asked him: “How?”
He says: “By the Bible teaching in the home.”
In the report from Africa, the BWA, at a meeting of our Baptist for all Eastern
Africa in Kenya, there came two strangers. They were from Uganda.
They had followed the trail of the forest and had so come to the meeting.
Their report had so interdicted the Baptist faith that you could not
meet. You could not meet.
They asked if I would meet with them. The Baptist work in Uganda—we have
a tremendous work in Uganda—Jimmy Hooten, our Minister of Missions, cannot
return and he is with us—the leadership of the Baptist Church in Uganda met and
asked, “Shall we go in with the Anglicans?” And after long prayer, they
said, “No. We shall go on in the faith.”
And they are carrying on—how? In the home—in the thousands of homes of
our Baptist people in Uganda.
In Singapore, I talked to a man named Chow. He lives on the eleventh
floor of an eighteen-story apartment building. Every day, there are
people in his apartment, studying the Word of God—sometimes 50 of them crowded
into his little flat.
In Russia, the church in Leningrad—just one in a city as big as Chicago—they
have 3,000 members and such a small structure. Or, the church in Moscow—what
do you do? They carry on their work in the home, teaching the Bible, the
Word of God, in their houses.
Dear people, in conclusion, there is revival in the earth. Always,
somewhere, there is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God in the world.
In 1975, when I was in Seoul, Korea, they said, “Stay over one day.
Tomorrow—Sunday, we are baptizing 1,400 South Korean soldiers. Would you
speak to them?”
I was beginning a crusade in Hong Kong the next day—Sunday, and I couldn’t
stay. I wanted to. There is great revival in Korea.
David Wong, the President of the Baptist World Alliance, in his speech said
that there is one Baptist church that he visited last year in old Mexico that,
in one day—on a Sunday, baptized 268. And the Tuleucus, in India,
celebrated their centennial, in 1978, and baptized over 3,000. In
Burma—no one is ever allowed to leave Burma. I have never seen a citizen
of Burma at one of our meetings… .
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