The Russian Trip

Q: What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

The Bible affirms God's sovereignty, asserting His reign over all creation and the distribution of His gifts to humanity (1 Chronicles 29:10-12). God's sovereignty is a central theme in Scripture, showcasing His supreme authority and power over all creation. As expressed in 1 Chronicles 29:10-12, David acknowledges that 'Thou reignest over all; and in thy hand is power and might.' This underscores the belief that everything, including the gifts we possess and the opportunities we have, come from God. His sovereignty means that He controls all events, works in all circumstances, and ultimately has a purpose for His creation. Sovereign grace theology emphasizes that God's governance is both just and benevolent, as it leads to the ultimate good of His chosen people.

Q: How do we know God's grace is sufficient?

God's grace is sufficient as it provides peace, justification, and salvation to sinners (Haggai 2:3). The sufficiency of God's grace is evidenced through His active work in the lives of believers and the historical acts of redemption outlined in Scripture. In Haggai 2:3, the question asked about the glory of the former temple highlights God’s promise of restoration and deliverance through His grace. This sufficiency is actualized through Christ’s work on the cross, where He offers peace and justification to sinners. In recognizing our state of unworthiness, as reflected when David asks, 'Who am I that you should show such mercy?', we understand that it is only by God's grace that we are able to receive any good gifts or blessings. Thus, God's grace not only saves but empowers and sustains us throughout our Christian journey.

Q: Why is thankfulness important for Christians?

Thankfulness is vital for Christians as it cultivates humility and recognition of God's grace in our lives. In the life of a Christian, thankfulness serves as an expression of faith and trust in God's provision. The act of giving thanks acknowledges that every good thing comes from God (1 Chronicles 29:10-12). It is a reminder of our dependence on Him and the grace that has been abundantly poured into our lives, especially when compared to others, as illustrated in the preacher's reflections on his experiences abroad. Thankfulness fosters a spirit of humility that allows Christians to reflect on their blessings, prompting them to share those gifts with others. Ultimately, it is through gratitude that believers can live out the gospel message, showcasing God's grace to the world.

I would like to read from 1 Chronicles
chapter 29. The Lord had blessed the kingdom
of Israel and David, their leader. It was a time of great mercy. and great blessings. I suppose the richest time in
all of Israel's history were the days of David. And David and the people were
gathering an offering to build a temple, to build a house, of
worship. This was a high time. And it says here in 1 Chronicles
29 verse 10, Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the
congregation. And David said, Blessed be thou,
Lord God of Israel, our Father forever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness,
and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty.
For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is yours. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord,
and Thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of
Thee. He's the giver of every good and perfect gift. What I
have, what I know, what I am, what I hope to be is by the grace
of God. Everything we have is God's gift. Both riches, we're not talking
particularly about carnal things, we're talking about all the riches
of His grace, the riches of His kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus. Those are true riches. peace
with God. Justification, salvation. Riches
and honor come of thee. Thou reignest over all. God's
sovereign. Where's the sovereignty of God
in the Bible? There it is. Thou reignest. Sovereign. The meaning of the word sovereign
is right in the middle of it. R-E-I-G-N. God reigns. God reigns. Thou reignest over all. Well,
what's this? And in your hand is power and
might, and in your it is to make great. Who maketh thee to differ? Who
maketh thee to differ? One of the results of my visits
to these depressed countries, difficult places, one of the
results of my visits is a deep conviction, a deep conviction
of my ingratitude to God for his goodness to me. I come back
saying I'll never complain again. I'll never murmur again. I will,
I know, but I say I won't. God has been so good to us. Both
riches and honor come of thee. It is in thy hand to make great
and to give strength unto all. You know when you go to another
country on a tour, you have a tour guide and you're with your group
of people, you're kind of kept in a protective cocoon or something. You get on an airplane, all of
you together, your way is planned, you buy the ticket, you go to
the country, they take you to the hotel, your meals are all
provided for and your room is provided. When you go to visit
the sites in the country, you don't see the country, you don't
see the people, you don't see the poverty, you don't see the
war, you don't see the distress, you don't see the unhappiness,
you don't see these things because you're never exposed to them.
But when you go there as a pastor, and you're not in a group, you
go there with a missionary, and you stay with the people, and
you get in their homes, and you go to their worship services,
and you sit and talk with them through a translator, and you
learn of their distress, and you learn of their unhappiness,
and you learn of their poverty, and you get to be one of them.
And that's when you realize, that's when I realized more than
ever before, God's mercy is to us, God's grace is to us. Listen to David as he goes on,
verse 13, Now therefore, our God, we thank thee. We praise
thy glorious name. But now here's the question,
who am I? That's what Mephibosheth said,
David, today King David. Who am I that you should show
such mercy, such grace to such a dead dog, such an ungrateful
creature? Who am I? Here's a dear man over there
in Russia, who's the same age as I am, talking to one man. I said, well, I got out of high
school and went in the Navy. He said, I did too. I did too. Our lives were paralleled, you
know. But he has nothing and I have all things. Who makes
a thing of this? And that's what David goes in
before the Lord and sits there and says, who am I? And what
is my people? He calls them my people. He's
their king. I say my brethren. My family. Who am I? And what is my family
and my brethren and this congregation that we, that we, we're sons
of Adam. We fell in Adam. Our roots go
back to the same father. We've sinned against God. In
thought, word, and deed. We haven't honored and glorified
God like we should. Kept the law? What is the law?
To love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. I haven't
done that. It enables yourself. So who am
I? And what is my people that we
should be able to offer so willingly of this sort to even have anything
to offer? If we offer anything, it's because
He gave it to us. He enabled us to have an offering.
If we have sufficiency, it's of God. If we have the necessities,
it's of God. If we have plenty, it's of God.
If we have something to share, it's of God. I heard somebody
say the other day about the Lord's money, about the church, well,
we won't take care of the Lord's money. It's all here. That little pittance in the church
treasury, is that the Lord's money? Everything's the Lord's. If 10% doesn't belong to Him,
100% belongs to Him. It's His. It's His. If I have
anything, He gave it to me. That's what David is saying.
Boy, listen, this is so powerful. All things come of thee. And
if I give anything, it's of thine own we have given thee. I'll just give back to Him what's
His already. But how blessed we are here at
13th Street Baptist Church. I want to remind us of that.
I want to impress upon you how blessed we are. How good on this
Lord's Day morning even to walk in here. It's where the glory
of God is preached, where the gospel is preached, just to walk
in. I was glad when they said to
me, let's go to the house of the Lord. There's no duty that
calls me or responsibility that motivates me. It's, oh, I'm so
glad to be here, aren't you? I'm so glad of where I am and
not somewhere else. I'm so glad, I'm so thankful. I want to be more thankful. To
be delivered from the fleshly religions of this, this is a
religious world. I went inside the Kremlin a week or two ago. You say, that's
an atheistic nation. Well, I suppose theoretically. But inside the Kremlin, the Kremlin
is the seat of government. This is the center of communism,
the center of the The Soviet Union is the seat of government.
That's what the Kremlin is. This lady told me it came from
a pine tree, the word Kremlin, because the first walls were
built of pine logs. But the Kremlin, it's a big area. It's got streets in the Kremlin
and all these buildings and that building you see on television
all the time where Yeltsin stands up here The Supreme Soviet Congress
sits out here and they argue back and forth. That's in the
Kremlin. And the museum's in the Kremlin with all of the czars'
gold, metals, and diamonds, and crowns, and their carriages,
and all of that, the things that they've kept through the years.
The Kremlin covers an area two or three times bigger than Central
Park with a complete wall around it. But in the criminal, it's
a good word, in the Kremlin, there's seven churches. Seven cathedrals. I'm not talking
about little buildings like this where we, I'm talking about cathedrals. I'm talking about monuments to
men of power. Each one of these czars, or these
leaders of Russia, when they took power, when they were in
power, they had a church built. They secured the best architect,
the best craftsman, the best artist, the best of everything,
and built a cathedral to them, to their memory. And when you
walk down the street of the Kremlin and pass the museum and get on
up and make a left turn, there are seven churches, seven cathedrals
with gold domes, pure gold. domes. And these domes, there's
five or six of them on each church. It's huge. You've seen them like
these domes. And it's two churches just outside
the wall. There's nine cathedrals in and
outside the Kremlin. They're religious. They're religious. The underground church is religious. They're religious people. Russian
Orthodoxy. And when you think God has delivered
us from this bondage of fleshly They have the form, but not the
power. They have the form, but not the
gospel. They have the form, but not the
freedom. These very men that built these
cathedrals were oppressing the people. Not godliness, it's a
form of godliness, but denying the power, denying the principle,
denying the truth thereof. Would be better if they acted
on the principle of faith and left off the cathedral. Right? That is the key. It's not your
building or the size of it or the impressiveness of your building.
It's the condition of your heart toward others and toward God.
And I believe the Lord has given us that grace. And thank God! Thank God! He has brought us
out of the kingdom of darkness. What's the kingdom of darkness?
Well, it's Kingdom of darkness is spiritual. It's a spiritual
kingdom. It's the kingdom of Satan. Kingdom of Satan. God has delivered
us out of this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear
Son. And to have this congregation, to know God, to know the gospel, to have this congregation, this
church where you meet on the Lord's Day. I preached last Sunday
in England, and England with all of its rich
heritage and ancestry, books, and great men like Calper and
Newton and Watts and Whitfield and Wesley and Spurgeon and Gill
and Knox and all these men. There are very few places in
England where you can go this morning and hear the gospel.
That's all. I preached in a school building
last Sunday. Churches all over. John Newton's
church, I visited it. It's there, but they wouldn't
let me in John Newton's church. I preached what Newton preached.
Spurgeon's Tabernacle is there, what's left of it, but they won't
let the grace of God in that tabernacle. William Cowper, all of these
men, Isaac Watts, their churches, their buildings are there, but
the gospels that they preached is not there. What use is the
building without the gospel? I'd rather have the gospel and
no building. They take you around and show you their pride, these
beautiful church buildings. But there's no water. It's like
having a tantalizing well without water. You're taking a thirsty
man around showing him clouds with no water, wells with no
water, buildings with no gospel. how blessed we are in this country. This country, I tell you, with
all of its faults, we have plenty. And with all of its difficulties, my dear friends,
we have freedom. I mean freedom to do. Freedom to do. When I came in the hotel, in
Moscow, 12 miles from Red Square is where we stayed. They took
my passport away. That's my property. I'm a U.S.
citizen. That's my passport. That's my
identification. But when we went in, they took
it away, took away the passport and the visa and kept it overnight
and put their stamp on it. And one of the men with me had
been there a week And he had not been at the hotel. He had
been out staying with one of the families out in the country. And when he came in, they wouldn't
let him check in the hotel because the police didn't know where
he was for that week. He didn't have a stamp so they
took him down to the police station to find him. Because he wasn't
where he was supposed to be. Freedom. When you leave the hotel,
turn your key in. They may be starting towards
democracy over there, but they don't have democracy. We have
freedom here, freedom to do, freedom to be, freedom to have,
freedom to go. We don't realize how free we
are in this country, how blessed we are. I just want to say it
over and over and over again in order that we might cherish
these freedoms. and be grateful for them and
be grateful to the right source. It's God that gave it to us.
Who maketh thee the different? God made the difference. You
dear lady, you don't want to be a Russian housewife. You're
so blessed. You're so blessed. You don't
want to be a Russian. You don't want to go down to
the market and not be able to buy to feed your family. You're
so blessed. walk in this Kroger's store down
here, it's like overwhelming. You go in one of their little
shops and here's a quarter of a piece of bread and a half a
piece of bread and a few salamis and a few sausages and there's
nothing to buy. If you had money, which they
don't have, you couldn't buy anything in their shop. Oh, they've got some black market
stores, you know, where a piece of Little cookies cost $5, you
know, something like that. They're minimum wage. You know,
what is our minimum wage here in America? What is our minimum
wage? Anybody know? Is it $5 an hour, approximately? An hour, $5 an hour. Minimum
wage in Russia is $6 a week, seven days. $6 a week, 6,000
rubles. won't buy much. There were six of us, our breakfast
cost that one morning, an entire week's wages for a Russian household. Six thousand roubles, six dollars. I tell you, we just, when we
sit down at our table, you know, I know we give thanks, but do
we? When I challenge you, when you
sit down at noon today, some of you, we'll have our family
together, some of you, and there's plenty on the table. When you
sit down there, in your heart, you don't have to say anything
out loud. Public prayer is always difficult, but I'll tell you
this, lift your soul to God and say thank you. Thank you. Let me show you another scripture.
I'm taking too long here, but I want to talk to you a little
bit. What I'll preach to you is talk to you. Turn to the book
of Haggai. That's the little book over there
towards the end of the Old Testament. They're always hard to find.
Haggai is about the third from the end of the Old Testament.
Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Haggai 2. You know, what brought about
this trip to Russia anyway. I'm just a country preacher in
Ashland, Kentucky and I don't have any credentials
or anything like that. What was I doing in Russia anyway?
How did I get there and what was I doing there? Why did I
go there? I want to start that off by showing
you a scripture over in Haggai chapter 2 verse 3. Who is left among you that saw
this house in her first glory? I just read about that temple
David was getting the money for and Solomon built. Who is among
you that saw this house in her first glory and how do you see
it now? Is it not in your eyes in comparison
of it as nothing? In other words, what was in Israel
and what is now. What is now seems nothing. Nothing. And what is this all beginning,
this trip to Russia. Turn to Zechariah now, let me
show you another scripture. Zechariah 4. Zechariah 4 verse
8. It's like the Lord said to Moses,
what's that in your hand? That's a rod, a shepherd's rod. But I'll tell you, with that
shepherd's rod, Moses delivered a nation out of bondage. David
went out to meet Goliath. Nothing in Moses' hand but a
rod. David went to meet Goliath. And
he stopped and picked up five stones and he had that sling.
What's that in your hand, David? Nothing, really. Compared to
Goliath's sword, compared to Goliath's armor, compared to
Goliath's army, nothing. But that sling and that
stone delivered Israel. And that's what What I'm saying
here, look at Zechariah 4, verse 8, "...moreover the word of the
Lord came to me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid
the foundation of this house. His hand shall also finish it,
and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto
you, for who hath despised the day of small things?" This is
what I'm saying, God is able to use whom he will. And like somebody asked me, well
how was your trip? I really don't know yet. I really
don't know. I really don't know. What did you accomplish? I really
don't know. What's going to come of it? I really don't know. It's
like that, it's nothing. It almost seems like nothing,
the small things. Don't despise the day of small
things. Let me tell you how this trip,
how this whole thing materialized and bring you to what I believe
will be the results of it. Back about 14 years ago or 15
years ago, out of a need, I started writing Sunday school literature
for this congregation. That was, I had nothing in mind
but this congregation. I tried to find literature that
would honor God and be true to the word and be a help to you
to learn the gospel and to know God, and I couldn't find any.
So I sat down with the Bible, started Romans chapter 1, verse
1, and started writing these letters, lessons, one lesson
a week. I'd cover about seven or eight
verses, and I took all of the commentaries, Gill and Calvin
and Haldane and Poole and Matthew, Henry, I read every one of them,
every verse, every single verse I'd read, every commentary. And
then try to bring it down and put it in my words, in your words,
in a simple fashion. Just simple fashion. What is
this scripture saying? What is this verse saying? And
that's what I did for months and months and months and months
and months and months. And finished. Went all the way
through to Jude. or 21 epistles, every word, verse
by verse. And over in England, evangelical
press got a hold of these lessons and called us on the phone. They
called first, didn't they Bob? Called around and said, we want
to print those, just like they are, and wanted our permission
to print them and to own them, copyright them. and distribute
them. I said, that's fine. And they
printed them in four languages, in English, Portuguese, in French,
and in Spanish. And those commentaries are in
their second printing. They've gone all over this world.
They're being used in Africa for the preacher school. They're
in the Philippines. They're in Brazil. They're in
Portugal. They're in France. I met Jean, Jean-Claude who's
in charge of the distribution of those books in France. And
they're literally all over this world because they're in the
language of the people. Everyday people can pick up those
little commandeers and read them and at least in their heads understand
what the scriptures say. And of course these commandeers
in Australia, there's a friend of mine in Australia, pastor
of a church who invited me over there in 1980 and again in 1990,
Bruce Boots, and he has a large book distributorship, four, he
has four book distributorships, one in Melbourne, one in Sydney,
one in Newcastle, and one in Perth, and they're big operations,
and he sells his commentary. In the meantime, the Gospel of
John was put in four languages, in English, And then the Old
Testament studies, they've put those, they've printed those.
Well, Mr. Boots wrote me a letter and he
said, I'd like to see these commentaries translated into Russian. And I wrote him back and I said,
this church will help. It'll cost $25,000 to translate
these commentaries into Russian. And there was a missionary, a
man, Andrei Volokh, who was born in Russia. His daddy was a Baptist
preacher. His father was put in jail for
preaching the gospel, or preaching the Bible, two or three times.
This boy grew up in Russia. He's 34 now. When he was 18,
he went in the Russian army and served in the Russian army. His
father got out of jail. He came out of the army. His
father got out of jail, and because they were of German descent,
they were allowed to leave the country, and they went to Germany,
where his father is pastored in Cologne, Germany now. This
young man is now an Australian. He's a friend of Mr. Booth's.
And they collaborated and got together and said, we'll get
this commentary printed, translated into the Russian language and
printed. And our church sent $11,000 and they put up $14,000
over there, $25,000. And this Andrew Bott knows a
publisher in Russia called Protestant Publications. And they agreed
to do the work, to translate it and to print it. 25,000 sets
of this commentary. That's 50,000. They put it in
two volumes. We have it in six. The Russians put it in two volumes.
And they translated and they're printing 50,000 books, 25,000
sets of this commentary for distribution. I visited with this publisher
while I was there. I spent two hours with him. He
has 70 points of distribution. He employs 300 people. 300 people
in the book business. They have 70 outlets, and they're
going to get this book out. He told me. They would sell this
book. He said, we're going to sell
it. I said, well, could you give
it to the preachers? Give the preachers a copy. He
said, no, I don't suggest you do that. He spoke a good bit
of English. We had a translator, too. He
said, people, if they buy something, they'll treasure it, and they'll
read it. If you give it to them, they won't treasure it like they
will if they pay for it. But he said it's only going to
cost him a dollar. He said, we're going to sell the book for one
dollar, both of them for one dollar. The whole commentary
costs one dollar. And he said, when this book is
sold, he said, I think I can sell it in nine months, $25,000. Bill Clark put a question mark
on that, $25,000 books in nine months. But he says the people,
he told me, he said, the people of Russia, Christians of Russia,
and this man's not a He knows very little about the grace of
God, the gospel of grace. Russian religion is either the
Russian Orthodox, form, ceremony, ritualism like Catholicism, or
charismatic. That's right. What you see going on here is
what we've taken over there. And this man sat across from
me, and he looked at me and said, your commandeer is going to stir
up controversy. And he said, I'll send you the
comments when I get them. But he said, any verse-by-verse
commentary will. But he said, I'll tell you this,
they'll read it and they'll buy it because the Russian people
and churches have no commentary. They have no books verse-by-verse
except William Barclay. That's the only commentary they
have in Russia. You realize for 70 years they
haven't had any books. Darcy and I were walking down
the street, just out walking one day, and we saw a crowd of
people going into this building, the building about the size of,
not quite as big as this auditorium. And people going in, coming out
with packages, going in, coming out, going in. So we went in
to see what was going on. It was a library. They were in there getting books.
I mean, they were just Everybody in there getting books, carrying
books out. They haven't had books. They're
free to pick up books. And this Protestant publisher
is publishing books. Religious books. Nothing but
religious books. And I'm telling you, weak ones.
Weak ones. Sad ones. Pitiful ones. Picture
books. But we have a commentary that
is being printed. and going to be distributed.
It was supposed to be ready last Wednesday, a week ago. And they
went down to the shop and it was closed for holiday. But we
have a... And what I was doing there, I
was invited to come and be there when the commentaries were presented.
Mr. Bruce came, and Mr. Andrew Both, the missionary,
came, and Bill Clark and I went, and we were to be there when
the books were ready. Well, what happened? I don't
know. The providence of God, the books weren't ready. And
what did you do? All right, let me give you a
few things. We, Sunday morning, July the 11th, we got to Moscow
on Friday, the 9th, and on, spent Saturday there, and on the 11th,
I went to church Sunday morning. I was assigned to preach in this
church. It was about 70 people there,
meeting in a school building. The church has just been organized
since January. There's a man pastor and his
three sons are elders. They had good music. The Russian people are a people
of order and quietness and have beautiful music. They have ballets
and music and they have first class music. And this was their
worship for one another. They sang Amazing Grace in Russian. They sang two or three others.
And a man sang a special like Mike did, this more beautiful
tune. But then there were two ministers there from England,
two young men going to Spurgeon's College of all places studying
to be preachers. And they were called upon to
give their testimonies. And it took endurance to sit
down. It was so sad. It was so weak. It was so sad. There was nothing,
nothing, nothing. And they gave me the preaching
time. I had the preaching hour. And I stood up to preach. There
were about 70 people there. These were people. These were
off the streets. All the ladies wore those. You've seen them. And the men looked like farmers. And their clothes were so worn. Just precious people. I went
and shook hands with as many as I could and hugged them and
couldn't talk to them, but I stood up and preached to them. And
some of you said, preach that sermon you preached the other
last Sunday you were home. Well, I did. I preached on how can
God be just and justify us. God's holiness, man's sinfulness,
and Christ's sufficiency. And the young lady translator,
first time I ever preached with a woman translator, but she was
a charming lady. She knew English so beautifully.
She's as good as Milton, almost. She never missed a beat. She
never missed a beat. She didn't know what I was talking
about, but she said it. She could quote scripture with
me, she never missed a beat. And we prayed, but no response. Just no response. Just like hearing
something like this for the first time. But I had unusual liberty. Unusual liberty. And so after
I finished preaching, we went to the home of one of the elders
to eat lunch. We got to be in one of the homes.
Now, I've traveled all over Moscow. Moscow is a town, a city of 9
million people. Metropolitan area is 17 million. 17 million people. And we stayed
in Moscow in the suburbs in a hotel. And we were just 12 miles from
the Kremlin. We went in there on the subway
one day and then drove in one day. But I drove all over Moscow,
to the airport, all the way on the other side, and over this
place and that place. I never saw, you think I'm exaggerating,
but I never saw, it was not there, one private individual house,
home. They don't have homes. In that
entire radius of 20 some odd miles. Everybody lives in a high-rise,
owned by the government. They'll go anywhere from 8 or
10 stories to 20 stories. They'll be big as the, much, much, much,
much bigger than this Ashton Plaza Hotel, much bigger than
this White Ashton Oil Building. There'll be 40 or 50 or 100 families
in every high-rise. That's the only way people live in that
musky area. Nobody has a home. Nobody has
a yard. Nobody has a garden. I saw no flowers anywhere I went. Not one flower. The grass wasn't
even cut. I wonder, don't they have lawn
mowers here around the condominiums, the high rise? They just, it
just, it's run down. When people are in oppression
and slavery, they don't have any initiative. Now there were
flowers around the Kremlin, beautiful lawns and flowers and trees and
shrubbery trimmed, but around the condominiums and out where
the people live, and I didn't go out in the country, they may
have flowers out in the farms, but not even in Moscow, not even. Sad, sad depressing place. Slavery. Communism. One woman said this, why are
we last in everything but military? Our country is last in everything
but military. It's sad. They're people. They're lovely
people. They're people like you and me. And I preached to them,
and then they said, and then we ate in the home, and we had
good meals. It's nothing like you all have
and we have here. Their selection is six dollars
a week. I asked some of them, I said,
what do they eat? He said, well, potatoes and bread and some cheese
and onions, and they just serve it different ways. And they have
some meat, they just serve it different ways. That's what we
had. Our meals was beef and rice, or beef and potatoes, or beef
and cucumbers, or a little bit of beef, not much, cut up on
a plate. Gosh, one day we had English
peas. She counted ten on her plate.
Ten English peas. You know, we liked it, but honestly,
it would break your heart. It would really break your heart. It would really depress you.
And so after lunch was over, they wanted us to attend a tent
meeting. Now I want you to listen to this
now. This is religion over there. This is what Americans have taken
over there. They say we're having a big tent
meeting sponsored by this church and several others. They even
suggested, the missionary did, that Bill and I might speak.
But Bill was priest in another church, and I was priest in this
church, and the missionary was over in the original underground
church. And he told me the message that morning in the underground
church, the original underground church was nothing but pure works. No grace whatsoever. So we were going to this tent
meeting, and after lunch was over, we drove over to the tent,
and there it was, a tent as big as this auditorium. It seated
500 people. The big tent had metal poles. They had a stage. They had four or five microphones. It looked like Nashville. They had these microphones up
there. They had these mixers. They had these huge mixers where
the sound, a lot of money involved in these mixers and the sound
and all that. And I sat down on a bench back midways with
the missionary and his wife and Doris and myself and Bill Clark.
We sat on this bench here and people started coming in, the
Russian people. It looked like a circus. That's
what it was. Blue and white tent. So we sat
there and waited the minute the program started. And they had
a Russian choir dressed in black with bow ties and the ladies
evening dresses and they sang beautiful Russian music. It's
beautiful. The conductor had on tables.
He had on tuxedos. And he led them and the missionary
told us the next song was a Christmas song. And so they sang and it
was beautiful, the people coming in. Then, some fella got up and
said something. And they had four people come
up, three men and a lady. The men had on cowboy hats, and
they had long hair and a ponytail, and they had on these Texas uniforms
that they wear in Nashville, you know, Buck Owens and those
fellows with the decals and things, you know, and their guitars and
the banjo. And I thought, what on earth?
And they announced that this is Russia's answer to country
music from America. And they got it, and one fellow
took his hat off and hung it on his guitar, on the end over
here. And they played a bluegrass hoedown. I mean, hoedown. And I sat through
that. And then they started singing
Hank Williams, I Saw the Light, in Russian. And they ran those speakers up loud as they'd go.
The neighbors started coming over complaining about the noise.
They ran the speakers up high as they'd go. And that whole
community was rocking with I Saw the Light. And I couldn't take
it. I got up And out I went. That's
not worship. That's not what I was over there
for. And I got left, and Bill followed me, and Darce followed
Bill, and I walked down the road, you know, just sad. So sad. That what, you know,
what they're taking from American religion is the bad. We've got
some good preachers and good message and good gospel and good
books, but you know what they're getting over there? The bad.
And that's the reason this law was passed Wednesday a week ago.
It hadn't been signed yet, but it's been passed. And one of
the Russians wrote this. He said, that road has taken
a hard right turn with the parliamentary vote in Moscow this month to
restrict proselytizing by foreign religious organizations on Russian
soil. This measure would require all
foreign religious groups to register and be accredited by the government.
Mr. Yeltsin hadn't signed it, but
I bet you will. And this is what this Russian
said. He blames the Protestants. They brought this vote on themselves. by their blatant proselytizing
of people to their religious sects and ignoring the indigenous
culture of the Russian people. And trampling Russian traditions
under their feet in the process. And my friends, that's what they
were doing, that technique. That's not Russian. Their culture
is beautiful. Their culture is music and ballets
and the form of art. And here are these rock and roll
religionists. One, I was standing in the hotel
and in came this charismatic preacher from Detroit and had
his entourage with him. They put up $1,000, Protestant
publishers had put up $1,000 for him to stay in that hotel
and preach. And he said he wasn't staying
there. It wasn't good enough for him. He said, I'll stay tonight,
but I'm going to sleep tonight and God will give me a vision,
tell me where I'm going to stay the rest of the time I'm here. We were in this preacher's meeting
over at Protestant Publishers and some big Texan came in and
and the President of the Protestant Publishers introduced, there
were 12 of us preachers, and sitting around having a discussion,
and he came in and said, My name is Mike Evans, I'm from Houston,
Texas, I just preached in the Kremlin, and we're going to print
the Gospel of John in Russian. God bless you. And out the door
he went. I mean, uncouth. That's what's brought this on.
That's what's brought it on. And I tell you, so how do you
feel about it? Well, if they'll keep some of those
characters out of there with their rock and roll religion
and their healings and their self-glory, it'll be good. But here's the problem. When
you start looking to the government, they're going right back where
they came from. right back where they came from. But on Monday, let me tell you
this, I'm taking too long, but on Sunday, so that Sunday was,
that was it. Monday went over to the publishers,
and he did say this, he said, we'll publish this commentary,
we'll get it out, we'll distribute it, and we'll take the money
and print your Old Testament studies. Won't need any more
money. We'll use what we make from this
book and print that and distribute it. So the next, they're going
to start, I believe, I hope. So Tuesday, we had a meeting
with the preachers. This was profitable. Tuesday,
we went over to the publishers and they had set up a luncheon.
And there were six Russian preachers there. I don't know their names,
I couldn't pronounce their names. I have their names, I'm going
to write to them. But there were six Russian preachers there and
they gave me about 40 minutes to talk to them about what I'm
preaching, our gospel. And I spent that time telling
them what I preach from this pulpit, what way we differ. And when I got to the end, I
told them, I said, now what I'm talking to you about, It's being
published in a commentary by these people. Two of the men
representing the company were there, and the president had
just come and left. But I said, this commentary will
be available to you. And they got excited. Old Bresnith
sitting across from me, he got real excited. That old Russian
whale of his, he wanted it right now. I said, well, it's not ready
yet. Well, how do we know we're going
to get it? And that's when the publisher stood up and he said,
you'll get it. He said, you'll get it, you'll
get it. He said, we're going to have
a conference here, and all of you come to the conference, we'll
give you a setup. But they're looking forward to that commentary. And I'll tell
you this, in the light of this law, you say, you know, I read
that in Zechariah. the day of small things. And
compared to some of the things the Lord's been pleased to do,
it's really nothing. But if those books get into the
hands of some of these Russian preachers, it's hard to tell what might
happen if they preach the gospel of grace. But I never met anybody,
I'm sure the Lord's got preachers there preaching grace, but I
didn't meet any. I didn't meet it. The missionaries with, he
didn't know the message. He didn't know the message. But
we came back to England and I preached there for Bill Clark and that
group, Sunday morning, Sunday night. We had unusual services. Anna met a Russian. This young
man who grew up in Russia, he and his wife, they're in England
for seven months of study. He's 27 years old, got a wife
and baby. He and his wife speak fluent,
of course, Russian, that's their native language, and English.
They teach English in a school in Russia. He's going back to
Russia as a missionary. Since he's been in England, he's
learned the gospel of grace. He didn't know it when he came,
but he learned it. And he went to Bill. Bill didn't
seek him out. He went to find Bill. He heard
about Bill, and he went to his office, and Bill brought him
over to the house. And we sat and talked for two hours or more
with this young man and his wife. Wednesday night I preached again,
he came to hear me. And we talked some more. He's
going back to Russia. Who knows, that may be one of
the most blessed contacts we've made. But that's the way it is.
Let me tell you this. Many of you have heard of Swan
Lake, I know, Tarkovsky, I don't know anything about this, but
you've heard of Tarkovsky. I stood by Swan Lake, beautiful,
taking pictures of it in the bell tower. Across the street,
don't you listen, across the street from Swan Lake were two
little Russian shops, a bread shop and a meat shop, where the
people traded. Darce was in there and she called
me, wanted me to come go in the shop. I went in the bread shop
and there wasn't much there. Little pieces of bread, you know,
on the counter. What you do when you go in the
store, you get in line and pick out what you want. Then you get
in line and pay for it and they give you a slip. Then you get
in line and pick it up. You don't pick anything up and go pay for
it. All shop. You get in line, pay
for it. That is Russian people. Get in line, choose it. In line to pay for it, then in
line to get it. There were a few things. Then we went in the meat
shop and it was just as pitiful. And there was six or eight Russian
people in there, Doris and I and our translator and the lady behind
the cash register. And I said, could I, I had my
camera, I said, could I take a picture in here? She said,
no. And one of the Russian ladies
spoke up. And this is what she said. The
translator told us after we left, she said, don't take our picture. We're ashamed of our poverty.
We know you're doing well, and we're glad you're doing well,
but we're ashamed of our poverty. That's the sum and substance
of it. Poverty. Poverty. Food is so scarce. And
when you ride the subway, I was so glad I got to ride the buses
with the people. They have cars, but most people
ride the buses and subways. And we caught a bus and transferred
and caught another one. Then we caught a subway and went
into Moscow. But you know how we laugh and
talk. And Darcy and I got on the subway
and Bill, you know Bill's a happy person, Bill Clark, he's a happy
Irishman. and then the two missionaries,
the Russian missionaries. And we were laughing and talking
and talking about where we were going. Our voices were the only
voices in there. And the missionary called our
attention to the fact that nobody else laughed or talked or smiled
on that whole ride in, that whole ride out. And she said, this
is a carryover For years and years and years, you didn't talk
because you don't trust anybody. You dare not talk. You dare not
express yourself. You dare not say anything. I
asked him, I said, why was your father in prison? He said, I
don't know. They don't have to tell you. They just arrest you
and take you to prison. And that missionary's wife was
afraid the whole time we were there. She'd been out of Russia
for 10 years. She still had that fear. And
she was so uneasy. We were at Red Square and we
left there about 9.30 at night and caught the subway back to
the hotel and she was unhappy and uneasy. Crime is high up
there. Our missionary had his room broken
into at the hotel. He stole his camera and his tape
recorder and the money he had in the room and he went down
to the police department to report it and they said there's a robbery
in that hotel every night. But he said most of the time
they don't kick the door in, they use a key. There's a conspiracy between
the people that work there, the maids. We were in the dining
hall when they broke in his room. I'm saying those things, I'm
not complaining, I'm rejoicing that we have said. We got a call
every night on telephone in our room between 12 and 2 o'clock
in the morning, every single night somebody called. talking
Russian. Bill Clark, they called him every
night. It's a land of suspicion and
it's a beautiful, you know, it's a beautiful building. It's Kremlin
and all this, but, you know, I hate to say things like that. I hate to tell you things like
that because it sounds like I'm, it doesn't sound good. But, yes,
that's facts. I told Iris, I said, let's don't
paint too gloomy a picture. She said, but it's gloomy. You
got to tell the truth. You have to tell the truth. And
if I've accomplished anything in this morning in talking to
you about this, it's to make us thankful, to make us grateful
to our God, to make us interested in those people and pray for
them. And we make contact tonight.
I'm writing a letter to all these Russian pastors, there's five
of them, and I've got their names and addresses. Six of them, counting
Valerie. But I'm going to write to them.
And I'm going to tell them what we believe, what we preach here.
And tonight my message is going to be what I'm going to tell
them, if you want to come hear it. I've worked on it on the
airplane, I worked on it again last night, and I'm going to
set forth some questions, divide them into five sets. These are
questions I think preachers are going to have to come to grips
with, and they're going to have to come to grips with. And let
me tell you this, some of those people over there
have suffered for their religion. I don't know exactly how to word
this, and my heart breaks for them, but you can suffer for
a false religion. The people over there who soaked
themselves in gasoline and set themselves on fire, they suffered,
but that wasn't for a good cause. I mean, that's not, Christ is
not in that. God's not in that. You understand what I'm saying? doesn't know God and doesn't
know Christ, doesn't know the gospel, no matter how much he
suffers or goes to prison, it's useless. If I give my body
to be burned and have not Christ, it profits me nothing. You understand
what I'm saying? If, you know, though I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, though I have faith,
but I have not Christ, I'm nothing. And let's pray for them, let's
pray that God may, it's such a small thing, but don't despise
a day of little things. This church has a commentary,
the Russians don't have one. We've got one over there, in
Russian. More books the Lord willing to
follow. Pray God will make it effectual. And it's alright if
they pass this law and preachers are not allowed to
go back. Their preachers will preach it. And that's better
anyway. That's better if old Brezhnev
will preach it. And I told my Sunday school class
this morning, Russian fellas don't shake hands, they grab
you and hug you and kiss you on both cheeks. I got kissed
good and proper. But you know, when he did that,
I was thankful. He loved me. I think he loved what I said,
too. I think he loved what I said, because he hugged me two or three
times, didn't he? And old Mac Hale did, too. I
liked him. Well, we're there and we're back, and
that's what happened, and I'm grateful. Maybe God will use
it for his glory. All right, let's sing a hymn,
if you will, number 527. I think appropriate hymn, Thanks
to God. I think we can sing it with a little
more meaning, maybe, a little more gratitude. Thanks to God,
527.

The Russian Trip

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

How do we know God's grace is sufficient?

Why is thankfulness important for Christians?

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The Russian Trip

What does the Bible say about God's sovereignty?

How do we know God's grace is sufficient?

Why is thankfulness important for Christians?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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