S. THIS GRACE WHEREIN WE STAND
THIS GRACE WHEREIN WE STAND Dr. W. A. Criswell
09-12-54
You’re listening to the services of the First Baptist Church in downtown Dallas. And this is the Pastor, bringing the morning message from the fifth chapter of the Book of Romans. The message this morning is from the first two verses of that chapter. The message tonight, at the evening 7:30 hour, will be in the latter part of the fifth chapter of the Book of Romans. In that chapter, you have answers to some of the questions of time and eternity. And reading from the 5th chapter of Romans, we shall speak of the origin of evil: where and whence did it come. We shall speak of why God permitted the transgression of Adam, how it is that little children and babies are saved-all of that in the fifth chapter of the Book of Romans. This morning, the first two verses: Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; tribulations work patience.
Patience, experience; experience, hope; And hope never disappoints; seeing God and his love and his promise through the Holy Spirit is given without measure unto us.
If I could choose a subject: this grace, this hope, this persuasion in which we stand.
Now, by way of summary, to pick up the thread where we left off a month ago: Paul lived in a day of the judgment of Almighty God. When he wrote this epistle, he addressed it to the church at the capital city of the Roman Empire. In that letter, he begins, in the eighteenth verse of the first chapter, with this avowal: “The wrath of God-the judgment of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Then, the remainder of that chapter, he speaks of the day of wrath to come for the Graeco-Roman world, the civilized word in which he then lived. In the second chapter, the first part, he speaks of the judgment and the wrath of God against the pagan and heathen world. In the latter part of that chapter, he speaks of the revealed wrath and judgment of God against the Jew, who supposed, because he possessed the oracles of the Almighty, he was exempt from the visitation of heaven. In the third chapter, he speaks of the conclusion that all of the world is become guilty before God and all of the world stands in the judgment day of Almighty God. Then, in the fourth chapter, he turns to the precious and blessed hope that we have in Christ Jesus, taking Abraham, their father, for an example of the faithful, who against hope, believed in hope, and who staggered not at the promise of God.
Then in the fifth chapter, a little summary there, in which my text is found. In this hope, and in this grace, we stand and rejoice in the promise of Almighty God. So, the Apostle, in the book of Romans, can tell of the judgment day and then of our deliverance in Christ. He has spoken of all of these tribulations through which this world inevitably does pass and then says, out of tribulation, cometh our hope and a hope that will never disappoint.
Now, taking that as the day of Paul, could I draw a parallel between Paul’s day and ours? We, also-in our day and in our generation, we also live in an hour and a day of the judgment of Almighty God. One cannot help but stand in awe before it.
I quote from a recent conversation of the premier of Canada: “We have reached an hour,” he says, “in the history of civilization, which I believe is one of the most crucial mankind has ever faced. We are living in an age in which we see the cumulative consequences of the defects in human nature coming to their climax. Today, when you talk to men in the business world, scientific world, the field of economics, politics, we find that most thinking, serious-minded people agree that present circumstances are such that they cannot continue very much longer without precipitating a crisis on the greatest scale humanity has ever known.” And another famous author, statesman and world traveler: “We have crossed the threshold of a new era. The world is at the crossroads. We are on the verge of a titanic cataclysmic collapse, unless God intervenes.”
I say we stand in awe before the judgment of God upon the day and generation and world in which our lives have been cast. For one thing, the frightening success of the enemies who have sworn our utter annihilation and complete destruction could not but bring fear to human hearts.
We have lost on the field of battle: a new day, a new experience for the Stars and Stripes, and for the power and might and glory that once was America. Do you realize that our enemies in Korea have no navy? Do you realize that our enemies in Korea have no air force? We bomb them by day and by night. Our navies on both sides of the sea shell our enemies. And yet, without navy, without air power, they pressed us back to the sea and finally won from us an inconsistent armistice. Do you realize that one of the great defeats of all time has been our defeat in Indo-China? There are a few breadbaskets in the world: Central America, the Midwest of America and one of the few others is in Indonesia, Indo-China. The breadbasket of the Orient is in the hands of our enemies. And not only that, we have 700,000 more refugees. I heard an article in the newspaper refer to them. We are so calloused to the misery and inhumanity of these present days until 700,000 more homeless, hapless people are as nothing-not to us today. Not only have we lost on the field of battle, but the success of our enemies in this war of words, the Cold War, is frightening beyond compare. The defection of those two illustrious members of the men to East Germany is a colossal blow. The loss and the collapse of the European community has so set back the hopes of America until there’s not a statesman in the earth who know what lies ahead. The weakness of France and of Italy are like straw men by our side before an enemy. England has been isolated.
However, in days past we may have been able to count upon the support and help of Great Britain, Great Britain is now neutralized. She has no other choice. In any meeting that the going is tough, the leaders of Great Britain will always say: “But remember, within one hour-within one hour from our London, our Manchester, our Liverpool, our Glasgow-within one hour is an air force with those terrible atomic and hydrogen bombs that could destroy our Great Britain in a matter of minutes.”
Japan is fast falling out of the sphere of the friendship of America. And America herself is being stripped of her allies one by one. And death by an enemy and by a force, a people, whose leader one time said: “What does it matter, if three-fourths of the population of the world be destroyed, if only the remaining one-fourth be Communist?” And the instruments in our hands of warfare today are beyond compare. They frighten just to say them. There was a time-oh, two or three years ago, there was a time when the city of Dallas was to be taught how to take care of itself in the eventuality of an attack. And Fort Worth and all of the cities were being taught how to care for themselves in an attack.
All that is gone now. It is foolish to teach a city how to take care of itself. Our new plan of defense is this: If Louisville is attacked, then Indianapolis and Cincinnati and Nashville and St. Louis are being taught how to care for a city on whose head a hydrogen bomb has been dropped. And so all of the communities of the cities of America-if it happens to Chicago, then Detroit or St. Louis or Indianapolis and Milwaukee, and all of those cities-would go to the aid of a sickened Chicago. The frightening thing about that awful prospect is this: that the day is fast approaching when men with great scientific genius are being able to deploy guided missiles, pilotless missiles, that go through the air 70,000 and 100,000 feet up in the air, in the vast stratosphere above, and then come down at a given point. And against that attack, there is no defense-none known to us, none known to them.
I heard in this conference in which I preached in North Carolina-I heard an army officer say: “We have in our hands a little instrument no bigger than a water pistol and as simply contrived in which, if a man came into this office, and there were about 3,000 of us there, with that little water pistol, he could destroy everyone immediately in this room.” And he said, “Not only that, but we have in our possession now a little drum, not over 18 inches long, that can be dropped in this valley, in which Asheville, North Carolina is located, and in just a matter of time every green thing and every living thing in the valley would be destroyed.”
These weapons are not fantastic-in the imagination and in the scientific training of men who used to write those articles of who might come into the world and in other spheres and in other civilizations. These things are here and now. And they represent the great judgment day of Almighty God. Not only do we face that judgment day, nationally, internationally, and politically and economically, but we see a tremendous judgment day religiously. China was our greatest mission field. China is closed.
One of the great missionaries of China is here with us today. She and her illustrious husband placed their life in that great country. To what end? To what avail? It is just a prayer and a hope now that, beyond that terrible persecution, those faithful Christians will be faithful unto death.
But, it doesn’t stop there. When I was in India-when Dr. McCall and I were in India, one of the purposes of our going through the country was to ask for visas for our Baptist missionaries.
They were denied. And not only were they denied to us, but all of the missionaries are fast being closed out in the great country of India. When I was in India, I looked at those little children who used to go English schools. They’re now studying Hindu, studying the national religion of India.
Almost every Indian woman that you see on the street, she’ll have that orange dot in the middle of her forehead. She’s been to the temple, the Hindu temple, and has worshipped. It is a part of the nationalism, the new day for India.
They are already anti-British. They are becoming fast anti-American and, everywhere, anti-missionary and anti-Christ. India is fast being closed to the Christian appeal.
I don’t know whether you noticed it or not, but a few days ago, there met in Mecca, the sacred place of the Muslim world-there met in Mecca three heads of governments: Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. And those three heads of government pledged a new and tremendous Muslim and missionary march through the vast continent of Africa. When we were in Africa, for every one convert that Christianity won, the Muslim wins many more. It is a new day and the march of Mohammedanism is beyond compare. In the interview he gave on his return from Mecca, Kareem Fernaste of Egypt said: “I hope the western powers won’t take any untoward steps against us in this missionary campaign, because the establishment of Islam in Africa will be a shield against Communism.”
Maybe so. Maybe so. But, who rejoices in seeing a great vast part of the world turn to the worship of Allah and Mohammed the prophet?
I haven’t time to speak of the future that lies ahead in America. America is becoming urbanized. We are no longer a rural people, a country people. We’re city people. What happens in the cities of America?
I was speaking two weeks ago with a friend of mine who is pastor, not of a Baptist church, but of a great Evangelical church, in one of the vast northeastern cities of the United States, in New England. That man has the only evangelical pulpit in that vast city that at all commands attention and respect. Our evangelical evangelistic witness has died in that great city. His pulpit alone remains. And to my amazement, as I talked to him, I found that he is preparing to resign and to leave. He is preparing to accept another work in another section of America. And when he goes-when he goes, there will not be left one great, tremendous, outstanding evangelistic New Testament evangelical witness in that vast city of the north and of the east. And what is happening there is gradually happening in most of the great cities of America.
Well, what do you do? Where do you turn? How are you to feel?
Against the day of Christ’s coming, and in the first chapter of the Book of Acts, the Lord Jesus said: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the father placed in his own hands.”
Against the day of the personal intervention of the Almighty God, there are two ways that we can do. One: We can live in an escapist world of defeat and despair, giving up, giving up-no heart to try, no strength or will to resist. If it goes Communist, it goes Communist. If it goes Romanist, it goes Romanist. If it goes Islam, it goes Islam. However it turns, let it turn. And as for us, we shall live in an escapist world and foretell it and let it go-can’t do anything about it, anyway-helpless, forget it. Or, we can rise from beneath the storm, by God’s grace, and try to measure up in this awful and awesome day and hour. Could I talk of it fatuously? To an oyster and an eagle-you know, that little oyster is an unusual little creation. God gave him a wonderful house in which to live. All he has to do is to open his house and take in his food and close his house and shut out his enemies. And there, he is so perfectly secure in his escapist world on the inside of the little shell-right there he is. And I don’t know of any fish more easily caught and crushed and cooked than an oyster. If I could facetiously remark about him: He always ends up in the soup. The eagle is an unusual creation of Almighty God. When the storm comes, like the tremendous hurricanes-isn’t that strange they name them for women, the hurricanes? I wonder why? That eagle is an unusual creation of Almighty God. When the hurricane comes, and the fierce storms blow, the eagle sets his talons against the blow and he rises with it and after that he is carried until finally he soars in God’s blue sky above the hurricane and the storm.
We can live like an oyster in our little house-in an escapist world. Or, we can rise to meet the storm. And it is this last at which now for a moment I want to speak: rising to meet the storm. The ultimate issue of this matter that we so solemnly and terribly face-the ultimate issue will never be decided by its guns or by planes or by tanks.
There was a day when whole civilizations and whole nations were taken captive by a force of arms. But, that day is gone forever. Men now are taken captive by ideals: by dreams, by visions, by devotions, by commitments, by persuasions.
I can illustrate that endlessly. England conquered India by force of arms. Mahatma Gandhi preached the gospel of non-violence. Without the shooting of a shell, without the bursting of a bomb, Mahatma Gandhi wrested from England the liberty of India. How? By force of a great ideal and a vast commitment. A few days ago, England gave up the Suez Canal. What they say in the newspapers is unbelievable. The Suez Canal, the lifeline of the British Empire-they gave it up, gave it away. How? Against the powerful ideas, commitments, spirits of the people. She had no opportunity not to acquiesce.
These people who fight on those fields in Korea, who rang that war to a successful conclusion in Indo-China, and who stand like birds of prey over Europe today and finally over us-they are people who are given to a vast ideal.
Jesus said: “The field is the world. The field is the world.” No man liveth unto himself, no man buyeth unto himself. The field is the world. Across it moves Communism with its gospel, the rationalist and the materialist with his philosophy. Across it moves the marching millions of modern Mohammedanism. Across it moves the Roman church. Across it moves all of those words and messages and appeals and statements that are striving for the allegiance of mankind.
Alexander the Great-he had no heirs, no child. His generals gathered around him and said: “Alexander, whose is the kingdom? Whose is the kingdom?” And Alexander the Great replied: “It is for him who can take it.”
So, in this vast world in which we live today, who shall ultimately win it? Barring the intervention of Almighty God, barring the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, against the day of his personal appearing, who shall possess it? Who shall possess it? Who has the devotion and the commitment to take it? Will it be us? We, or our enemies? Whether it be our faith or someone else’s faith, it is for him who will dare to take it. Not by bombs, you can’t. Not by guns, you can’t. Not by striking with bullets, you can’t. He will take it, today-if he seizes it, he’ll take it by the appeal of a tremendous idea and a vast and illimitable commitment.
What does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? It means two things. It means, first-it means first, a missionary program, a preaching program, a gospelizing program beyond anything the Christian church has ever undertaken in its history. It means missions, missions, missions. It means missions at home. It means missions in the city of Dallas. It means missions across the Southland. It means missions in continental America. It means missions across the sea.
It means preaching the message and the hope and the blessing we have in this book and in Christ Jesus. The man who believes in its faith and who believes in its message and who is willing to die for it, to him, alone, the kingdom. It means missions. It means missions.
It means one other thing. It means one other thing. It means a vast and illimitable and personal commitment to this task-serious, serious, in earnest, in dead earnestness, beyond any seriousness or any earnestness by which any people assumed a task since Jesus faced the cross on Calvary. It means that today.
I do not know of a more emphatic transformation point to add to that word than this newspaper report of the suicide and death of the president of Brazil, President Bargas. There is something strange about that man’s death. And I suppose we’ll never know all of the background. But, this much I read in the paper.
Suicide usually means that the man has lost his balance-like he got sick in his body, the man is sick in his mind and he’s not responsible and he takes his life. That’s suicide. Driven by a great fear, driven by an illimitable and unhealable illness, driven by some great disaster or sorrow that breaks the reason of his mind, he takes his life. That’s usually the suicide. When President Bargas died, somehow, he gave to his death a New Testament interpretation. He died for the sake of a great ideal. He wrote a letter. He closed that letter with these words: “I gave you, my people, my life. Now, I offer my death. Nothing remains.” That they might know of the vast commitment of his life in behalf of the people that he said he was trying to help-a poor and dictatorship ridden country, Bargus says: “I gave you the best of my life. I give you now my death. I have nothing else beside.” When I read that, I thought of an illustration again, of the awful spuriousness of these days and in these hours in which you and I, under God, have cast our lives, our destiny and our fortune.
How do we do? How do we do? How does God want us to do? If he lives in heaven, if there’s a God above, I believe he’s on our side. Or, could I say better: if there is a God that lives, we are on his side. With this open Book, with this message of hope-and he’s a God that answers prayer, that blesses his people, that gives us final and certain and assured victory, that it could never fail in his hands.
He looks to us, God’s grace And the Lord God whispers And said to me:
These things shall be.
These things shall be. No help shall come From the scarlet sky Until my people rise.
Until my people rise, My arm is weak.
I cannot speak Until my people speak. When men are down, My voice is down.
I cannot come Until my people come.
Some on the planet
Earth and sea, The cry of my people Must come to me. Not till death occurs. But the curse, May I claim my own In the universe. But if my people rise, If my people rise, I will answer them From the swarming skies.
Out of judgment, our salvation. Out of tribulation, our hope. This is the grace wherein we stand.
All right, let’s sing our song. And while we sing it, while we sing it, somebody-you, somebody-you give his heart to the Lord. Give your life to the Lord. Come into the fellowship of this church, stand by our side in this witness and this testimony. While we sing the song, today, make it now, make it now and come. In that balcony, to the farthest row, in this vast group, in this press of people below, somebody-you, a family-you: “Here we are, Pastor, and here we come.”