We regret that there are some very bad
speed variations in the original recording of this
talk, and we trust that you will determine
not to be distracted by the slurring of
speech which results from it.
On the other side of this cassette, we
have presented a brief account of what God
did in the Soviet Union in the summer
of 1961.
We have also heard a little bit of
a description of Communism and how Communists think
and believe.
And I'm sure that you have come to
the conclusion that, truly, Communism is a mighty
force that is sweeping across the world.
And now we are challenged with the question
of the answer to Communism, the Christian answer
to Communism.
What is Christ's answer to this deadly enemy?
And of course, the place we need to
turn to is always, is always the word
of God.
No matter what our situation is, God has
the answer.
And the answer to Communism is found in
the verse that I already repeated on the
other side of this tape.
You shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free.
And so in simple terms, the answer to
the onslaught of this enemy is the distribution,
is the propagation of the truth.
And of course, the greatest truth we have
is the truth of God's word.
And I believe with all my heart that
the distribution of the scriptures by dedicated and
Christ-centered men is the answer to the
onslaught of any enemy, be it Communism or
even a worse enemy, Materialism.
I praised God that it was about six
years ago when I encountered the truth in
Jesus Christ, and he changed me.
And now I'm a Christian, and I can
say that I know I'm going to heaven.
I can say that I know in whom
I believe.
I can say that I know that my
sins have been forgiven.
I can say that I have found reality,
for I have found Christ.
I trust that most of you who are
listening to this tape can also say the
same.
You too have found the truth.
You too have found Jesus Christ to be
real, and you can rejoice in the salvation
that you have in him.
And yet isn't it strange that those of
us who say we have the truth, those
of us who believe we have the truth
live so wishy-washy, and give so little
to the cause of truth, and do so
little to see the gospel extended, when at
the same time the people who believe a
lie are doing so much to advance their
cause.
Yes, the answer to Communism is the propagation,
is the distribution of the truth by dedicated
men and women.
But the problem is where are these men
and women?
The problem is where are our young people
of America?
The problem is where are the adults who
say they believe in the cause of Christ?
Oh, we're doing many things in America.
We're doing many wonderful things.
We're building more schools, and we're constructing more
churches, and we're having bigger and better Sunday
schools, and more Christian films, and more books
for our own nation, and more Bible schools,
and just, oh, we're just doing many things.
This isn't the end.
This might all help, but oh brethren, let's
get down to the basics.
Let's get down to the core of the
situation.
The core of the situation is simply that
we're not obeying Christ Jesus and his commissions
and his commands that are found in the
word of God.
In this little movement, the name we have
been given, Segmental Life has been given to
us, a name which we don't care much
about, but we have had because of the
financial matters that any organization has, and so
we have to incorporate.
But I'd like to just refer to this
organization as a movement, a movement of students,
a movement of students who are convinced to
have the truth, a movement of students who
are willing to pay any price, no matter
what it be, to see God's will carried
out on this earth.
Be it nights of prayer, be it fasting,
be it suffering, be it death, oh, that
God would give us that privilege.
And in this little movement, we have seen
miracles in Mexico.
We've seen God open seven bookstores.
We've seen God distribute over six million pieces
of literature.
We've seen souls come to Christ.
We've seen the truth propagated from town after
town.
Then in Spain, we've seen God work miracles.
Impossibilities made reality by prayer.
We've seen close to a million pieces of
literature already go out in the land of
Spain.
I believe that this is that, the propagation
of God's word by a group of people
who care for only one thing, Jesus Christ.
And His perfect will.
Nothing more counts in this life.
Nothing more has any significance.
Only this one great pending factor, Jesus.
His command and His will.
And in this little movement, we emphasize verses
like Luke 14, 33 that say, except we
forsake all that we have, we cannot be
His disciples.
And we emphasize that verse simply because it's
God's command.
It's Christ Jesus' requirement to be His disciples.
We've seen in communism a group of soldiers.
A group of men and women who are
dedicated to a lot.
So it needs to be in Christianity.
A group of men and women who have
forsaken all.
A group of men and women who have
no concern about anything at all except Jesus
Christ.
Except you forsake all that you have.
Whether it be material wealth.
Whether it be pride.
Whether it be impatience.
Whether it be any other thing that eats
away at our soul, it must be forsaken.
Whether it be family or friends.
Whether it be a job.
Whether it be a position.
Whether it be fame or fortune.
Jesus says, forsake it all.
Really.
Many people have not understood this verse.
They say it's impossible to forsake all.
I can't walk around without any clothes.
But they seem to forget that the same
time Jesus Christ said forsake all, it's also
said in Philippians, I'll supply all your needs.
So the balance of this thing is giving
everything to Jesus Christ.
Renouncing everything.
Forsaking everything.
And then let God supply your needs.
As he sees it in the light of
a dying world.
As he sees it in the light of
a time when the Russian is dying without
Christ.
Oh, that we might have better things to
live.
Another verse that we emphasize a great deal
in our work, in this little book, is
a verse found in 2 Timothy 2.
Verse 4.
We emphasize this verse, not because it's our
idea, but because it's God's word.
And we could go from Jerusalem to Revelation,
and we would find over and over and
over again that God demands it all.
In the Old Testament he says love me
with all of your heart and all of
your mind and all of your strength.
Jesus demands it all.
I talked to a young fellow in Russia
who wanted to become a member of the
Communist Party.
And he tried to be a member when
he was 21 years old, but they refused
his membership.
But because he was too entangled with the
things of his youth, with girls and a
few other things, so he was refused membership
in the Communist Party, which consists of about
3%, I believe, of the total population.
Communist Party membership is rough and tough, and
it's not easy to be a Communist in
the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.
And do you think it's any less for
Jesus Christ?
Do you think Jesus Christ demanded any less
for those who follow the truth?
Oh, what a pitiful state we are in.
Look around you.
Your home, your car, your way of life,
your manner of thinking, the way you walk,
the way you talk.
Tell me, does it all aim towards one
primary goal?
The obedience to Jesus Christ and the extension
of his will?
No.
Is all your thinking, all your talking, all
your living, is it all centered around Jesus
Christ?
It should be.
You say, well, well, well, this is fanaticism!
This is extremism!
You're right.
A person who does this is extremely in
love with the Lord Jesus Christ.
But this is the end.
You see, a fanatical extremist force can only
be met and stopped by another force with
equal power, another force just as dedicated, another
force just as extreme.
Communists are extremists.
Everywhere we went in the Soviet Union we
saw posters, we saw signs, we saw literature,
and all this literature aimed towards one thing,
the advancement of Communism.
The conquest of the world by the forces
of Communism.
And the only answer to this is a
complete, utter abandonment to Jesus Christ, that we,
with more dedication, more love, more zeal, more,
more in a sense fanaticism, meet this extremist
cause and present him with the truth.
Oh, it won't be easy.
In our little movement we've seen problems.
We've seen hard times.
We've seen sin creep in and Satan make
monkeys out of us.
We've failed the Lord many times.
And yet, the glorious thing about it is
that when we rest in Christ, when we
commit ourselves utterly to Christ, we go into
this battle with a full assurance that we
are victors in Him.
And the victory is ours before we enter,
for Christ Jesus was victorious on the cross.
And as we go in to present the
truth to lost men and women, whether they
be Communists or whatever, other false cults, we
go in with the assurance that we're victors
in Jesus Christ.
We go in not resting in our own
strength.
We go in resting in the living God.
And this gives us the advantage.
This gives us the advantage over Communism.
And this gives us the advantage over every
ism.
Oh, what promises we have in the Word.
If only we'd believe Him.
If we would only take God and His
Word.
If we'd only obey Him.
If we'd only cast out every little bit,
any little speck of rebellion on our part.
And kneel to everything that Jesus Christ tells
us to do.
Oh, we'd be miracles.
But they aren't talking speech.
And I could talk to you all night
about what I believe the answer is.
But now I want to tell you just
a little bit about what God has led
us to do.
To combat evil all over the world, but
putting better words in more scriptural terms, to
advance the Kingdom of God.
We have plans right at present for the
largest literature crusade ever to take place in
the world that I know of.
Within a year's time.
We have set plans before God that are
completely impossible.
These plans consist, first of all, in the
distribution of 50 million pieces of Christian literature.
Including tens of thousands of books, thousands of
Bibles, and tens and tens of thousands of
Gospels and then millions and millions and millions
of chapters.
50 million pieces of literature we have set
before the Lord.
He will provide us if we believe.
If we pray, believe, and show God with
all of our hearts that we need this.
And with this literature, we will move into
Europe.
The key word is movement, operation, mobilization.
So far we only have 20 or 30
students who have joined.
Some adults in different places of the world
have joined with these young people.
They have promised to stand behind them in
prayer and in desperate living.
But as these students move into Europe, their
plan will be to mobilize Thousands and thousands
of churches throughout Europe will be contacted.
Young people will be asked to join us
next summer in a mass effort to cover
every city in free Europe.
In a mass effort to announce the truth
of Christ and stand against the onslaught of
communism in countries like Italy and France, in
countries like Germany and Austria.
Thousands and thousands of letters will go out
to England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Austria, Italy,
Turkey, Spain, to invite young people to join
together.
Trucks will be purchased, rented.
These young people next July will meet in
key cities after our teams have worked for
one year lining up the key cities, recruiting
young people from many cities, from many nations.
The Spaniards are, in a sense, leading the
way as we have seven or eight Spaniards
all ready to go.
These trucks full of young people, loaded with
tons of gospel literature, will move into towns,
will move into villages, will move into cities
to present the claims of Christ.
We don't know how many people God is
going to raise up.
Maybe a hundred young people, maybe two hundred
young people, maybe a thousand young people.
This depends on your prayers.
We're asking every missionary organization in Europe to
join in.
We're asking every sound church to join in.
And we will make every effort to reach
every soul in free Europe with a gospel
message, with the truth.
The printing presses will be turning off over
one million packs a week, over one million
powerful gospel messages with an invitation to study
God's Word and receive a free portion of
Scripture.
Everyone who writes in for these courses' names
will go into a file.
Some of them will go into permanent files
on addressographic sheet plates, and these people will
receive a constant flood of gospel literature.
Books are being purchased about a ton.
Of the best Christian books we can find.
Bibles are being purchased in every language to
reach people of every language group.
Yes, plans are being laid.
Students are getting desperate.
Perhaps you are hearing this tape because you
have been in contact with one of these
students.
Perhaps the student that you have been in
contact with has not had a tremendous bursting
personality.
Maybe he has not expressed fully all that
this thing is.
But I pray that God will grip you.
It has not been gripped already with the
great warfare that's ahead of that young person
that you're praying for.
He is not going into a normal missionary
situation.
He's going up against an impossible task.
He's going into a warfare.
He's going into a situation that calls for
such desperate action that I could not put
it into words.
All I could ask is that you read
chapters like Hebrews 11.
Yes, plans are being laid.
Perhaps you're one of the students that's going
and you're hearing this tape just before you're
coming over to Europe.
And all I can say to you is,
oh, make sure God has your all.
Make sure God has your all.
Make sure you're not holding back not one
thing from him.
For if you're not, Satan will make a
monkey out of you in Europe.
God works so hard.
God wants young people, no matter how young
they might be, to be desperately concerned and
completely wrapped up in Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you're one of the young people that
has just come back from Mexico and you're
going back to your college campus, to your
Bible school campus.
And I say to you all that God
might grip you, might God grip you with
a simple fact that around you on your
campus are hundreds of young people who need
to catch the vision, who need to catch
the vision of Jesus Christ, telling every man
to forsake all and join in this warfare
to stop evil and to present Christ and
the truth to every soul on the face
of the earth.
Might God burden you to organize prayer groups.
Might God burden you to spend nights in
prayer.
Might God burden you to fast.
Might God burden you to just become an
extremist for his cause.
For this is the only answer.
Just because the school you're going to calls
itself Christian doesn't mean a thing.
For let us say that the Christian church
in the United States today is bending at
the niche.
And what God is looking for is young
people who will stand up against all the
rottenness and the worldliness that is creeping into
the church of Jesus Christ.
Young people who will stand against all criticism.
Young people who will condemn backbiting.
Young people who will speak evil of no
one and walk in logs fellowshiping with the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Young people who will take the steward of
the spirit and instead of using it to
carve up other Christians will put it to
use against the enemy.
Young people who will forget about all the
materialistic demands around them.
Young people who will forget about all the
things that so easily move in and deceive.
And will stand for Christ whether it be
in the university or the Bible school.
Whether it be in the high school or
whether it be the graduate school.
Young people who will stand for Christ.
Perhaps you're an older person.
You say, well I can't go to the
mission field.
I've got a family, I've got children.
What can I do?
I say the demands of Jesus Christ are
the same for you as they are for
the young person.
Some of the most effective people in our
movement are people over 60.
Women who know what it means to pray.
Women who bow their knees before him every
day and cry for people like me who
are so prone to error.
Women and men who are willing to take
the name of a young person or the
photo of a young person and lay it
before the throne of grace and weep over
that person, that that young person might not
be sidetracked.
You see, because we are young.
And some people say we are foolish and
we're prone to error.
And we can make mistakes.
And we know all of that's very true.
And that's why we need your prayer.
This little movement isn't going places because we're
a bunch of apocryphal.
This little movement isn't seeing miracles come to
place because we're all Peter's and John's.
This movement is going places because a few
people are on their knees upholding us and
we in turn can uphold them.
And we labor together and united we stand,
divided we fall.
And remember the word of God said that
long before Abraham Lincoln.
And how true it is.
Just as in the end of the communist
manifesto Karl Marx makes the cry.
Workers of all countries unite.
So Jesus Christ is calling down to his
church this evening and saying Christians unite.
Turn from your sin.
Turn from your prophetess.
Turn from your materialism.
Turn from your ease.
Turn from your laziness.
Turn from your carnalism.
Unite.
Unite as men and women who are concerned
about one thing.
Seeing Jesus Christ exalted.
Seeing God's word advance.
Truth penetrates into the very darkest regions.
Yet operation mobilization could shape Europe.
Every major newspaper in Europe will be contacted.
Churches will be alarmed.
We'll do everything we can to shape Europe.
But we in ourselves can do nothing for
it's only God in answer to prayer who's
going to do anything in Europe.
50 million pieces of literature will never get
off the printing press much less be distributed
unless people get concerned.
Unless the handful of you who hear this
tape connect your life to this cause and
then start to tell others and bring others
into this same vision.
This vision of giving all to Jesus Christ.
This vision of spending hours in prayer before
God that the word of God might penetrate.
But not only for Europe.
For our next party and right along with
this party is communist Europe.
Literature is going to win all these languages.
A great book, Science Speaks, a gospel book
is going into Russia at this very minute.
And we'll start to mail literature into these
lands.
By sending literature registered out of Paris we
can get it in almost any communist country.
But this is going to take prayer.
We want to send thousands and thousands of
registered gospel ministers messages into the Soviet Union
into Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
We have the addresses.
I have a phone book from Yugoslavia.
I have phone pages from Czechoslovakia.
I have a guide to the chief thing
in Poland.
I have a book that gets over 2
,000 addresses in Russia.
So we want to start mailing in the
gospel in registered letters.
But we need people who will stand with
us and believe God for everything that's needed
to get this job done.
And then we have young people.
Young people who right now are studying Russian
and are willing to go into these nations.
And it will not be long before many
and I say many young people will be
penetrating the Iron Curtain.
You say impossible, you say ridiculous, you say
foolish.
I don't care what you say.
Anyone who's met anyone in our group already
knows that what people tell us doesn't mean
too much.
But we're convinced that when God said, all
the world shall hear He meant it.
And if He asks us to do a
job, He'll give us the great specificity.
And so these countries will be penetrated by
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps this is your first contact with this
little movement.
Perhaps you don't fully understand all these ideas,
maybe even some of the terminology, this despotism
and fasting, belittling and forsaking all in the
warfare.
And you'd like to have answers to your
questions.
Well, I'll be very frank and very sincere.
I would be glad to personally answer any
questions about this case.
You can write me, Carlos Marat 7, Madrid,
Spain.
I want to answer questions.
I want to tell people why I'm so
convinced about this thing.
And you can write anyone else in our
group and they will also try to give
you the answer.
It was in the university about four years
ago when I became more convinced than ever
that Christianity was the truth.
It was in a time of doubt.
It was in a time when I wasn't
even sure the Bible was the Word of
God.
But through study, through prayer, through fellowship with
the Lord Jesus, I became convinced that it
was the truth.
And if the Word of God was the
truth, there would be nothing too high, no
price too high to pay to see that
truth set out.
And I would be glad to answer your
questions.
We want that people understand the way we
believe.
We want people to understand why we're willing
to do what some people consider foolish things,
to see the gospel of God.
We don't believe we're rushing up a blind
alley.
We don't believe we're acting on just pure
emotion.
We believe we're acting in the light of
the truth.
And we'd like people to write us.
We'd like people to write us and tell
us they're standing with us or write us
and ask us questions.
For you see, united we stand, divided we
fall.
Will you stand with us?
Maybe you're just a student going back to
school.
Maybe you're one of our leaders.
Maybe you're not very much in this movement,
maybe you are.
But we'd ask you to unite with us.
And when we say us, we don't just
mean our little small group.
We mean the whole body of Christ.
We're not the only ones evangelizing the world.
God has his children all over.
The missionaries of your own church need your
prayers.
They need your prayers more than anybody else.
For around the world, missionaries have the same
struggles, the same hardships, the same problems.
Around the world, missionaries are being squashed by
materialism just as much as the people in
the United States.
Around the world, missionaries can just as easily
become lazy and slap off just as anybody
in the United States.
And so we need to join together in
prayer.
United, we stand.
Divided, we fall.
And ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.
Oh, I pray that all of us who
hear this tape mic right now take a
step of faith and say, God, I'll obey
you no matter what.
And then the first thing he tells us
to do, do it.
Whether it be through Luke 14, 33, or
Hebrews 12, 1, or 2nd Timothy 2, 4,
whatever you tell me to do, oh God,
I'll do it.
If it be pray all night, I'll do
it.
If it be go to the fire and
mission field, I'll do it.
If it be raise up a prayer group
on my campus, I'll do it.
So help me God, whatever you tell me
to do, I'll do it.
Brethren in Christ, with that spirit, nothing would
stop us.
If we as Christians would open the word
of God with that spirit, nothing would stop
us.
We'll go through the iron curtain, we'll go
through the bamboo curtain, and someday we'll all
be together in heaven and rejoice that the
word of God was exalted in every nation.
Oh, that we might realize that as we
disobey God, we suffer, the world suffers, all
of us.
May God drive this home to our hearts,
for Jesus' sake.
For ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, I must confess as I've spoken
these words that I am condemned.
Oh God, forgive me for my lack of
zeal, for my lack of love, for my
lack of concern.
And oh God, we pray together that you'd
work out all the hearts, that we might
yield completely to thee, and do whatever you
want us to do, as revealed in your
words, for Jesus' sake we pray.
Amen.
This is a report on what happened in
Russia and behind the iron curtain in the
summer of 1961.
And ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free.
John 8, 32.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank thee that we who
are in Christ Jesus know the truth, and
the truth has made us free.
We would ask, oh God, that as we
listen to this tape, and to a telling
of this experience, that we might realize more
than ever that we are the children of
light, and the sons of truth.
That we have been called unto this great
task of giving forth truth, and of spreading
the gospel around the world.
Oh God, might we turn from ourselves during
these moments, and look to you.
Might we look on the harvest, and realize
that indeed we must pray to the Lord
of the harvest.
And we ask this in Jesus' name, with
thanksgiving.
Amen.
As most of you know, the Lord gave
us this summer a very interesting experience.
For close to two years, I've been praying
and looking to the Lord for a ministry
among the people of the Soviet Union and
countries behind the iron curtain.
Little did I know that this summer, God
would open the way to start this type
of a ministry.
Most of you know that I was in
Europe along with Roger Molstad and two other
fellows to line up and make preparations for
the coming crusade in Europe.
We were in Vienna, making preparations for the
crusade, which will start in Vienna, Austria.
When we went into the tourist office and
questioned about possibilities of getting into Russia.
We knew that there were possibilities, but as
far as we knew, it would cost $11
or $12 a day.
We did not feel that God would lead
us to make such an expenditure to do
work in the Soviet Union.
However, at that time, we were given the
wonderful news that a new program within the
last year had come into effect.
And the program was a program of camping.
And that instead of $11 a day, we
could go into the Soviet Union for $2
a day on this program of camping.
Traveling in our own car.
Also, within the past year, they had released
the necessity of having a guided tour or
a tour leader within the car.
And that meant that we could travel freely,
of course on roads that they prescribed, in
the Soviet Union.
It was not long after that we knew
God wanted us to take advantage of this
opportunity.
This camping program was only good for the
summer.
We knew that if we didn't move in
at this moment, we would have to wait
another whole year.
And so, before the Lord, we prayed and
laid ourselves that he might give us opportunity
to preach the gospel behind the Iron Curtain.
The next day we headed for Yugoslavia.
We heard that it was easier to get
into Yugoslavia than any other Iron Curtain country.
And so while we were waiting for our
Russian and Czechoslovakian visa, we went into Yugoslavia
on a special visa.
It was in Yugoslavia that we got our
first taste, or received our first taste, of
getting the gospel out behind the Iron Curtain.
In communist Yugoslavia, we traveled through the night,
distributing hundreds and hundreds of New Testaments and
Gospels of John out of the window of
the car.
Throwing them over the fences of the houses,
throwing them along the sidewalk.
We went from city to city, giving out
the word of God.
It was on our second night in Yugoslavia,
when we were in the city of Belgrade,
that the Lord gave us an opportunity to
teach over a thousand portions of his precious
word.
However, on the next morning, the police caught
up with us, and we were arrested and
taken to the local police station.
There we spent a day being questioned by
the police, at which time our literature, the
little bit that was left, praise God, was
confiscated.
We thanked him and praised him for this
opportunity to work in Yugoslavia, for it gave
us a chance not only to give out
close to 2,000 portions of his word,
but also to come face to face with
each communist, to see what they really believed.
It was at the end of the day,
or toward the end of the day, that
we were told that we had to leave
Yugoslavia immediately, and we were given 24 hours
to get out of the country.
We headed back to Austria, rejoicing in Christ
Jesus, and looking forward to the entrance of
Czechoslovakia in Russia.
We spent five days in the city of
Vienna, making preparations for our trip into Russia,
first through Czechoslovakia, and then Russia.
At this time, we had a large rubber
stamp made, the size of an 8.5
by 11 piece of paper.
On this rubber stamp was a special letter
track, presenting the gospel to the Russians, and
also an invitation to write us, to receive
free material.
We gave three addresses, one in France, one
in Switzerland, and one in Austria.
The rubber stamps had been finished the day
before we were to leave, and everything was
set.
We had 1,600 gospels of God within
the walls of the car, we had 400,
that's in Russian, we had 400 in Slovakian,
underneath the seats of the car, plus other
literature.
How we praised God, that afternoon, that we
crossed the Iron Curtain into Czechoslovakia.
And yet, as we looked around us, it
seemed that we had entered into a new
world.
As we drove across the border, we looked
as far as our eyes could see, along
a four line divided fence, electric barbed wire
fence, that's made up of the Iron Curtain.
On one side of this fence was a
passage gram ten feet wide, that stretched the
entire length of the fence, as far as
our eyes could see.
This gram was freshly raked, so that they
could see whether there were any footprints of
any people in that area.
To make sure that no one escaped, also
along this area were large towers.
On top of most of these towers, at
least the one that we saw, was a
sixteen or seventeen year old fellow, machine gun
is on, watching to make sure that no
one left the land of Czechoslovakia.
It did not take us too long to
get to Czechoslovakia.
They checked the car somewhat carefully, but carefully
enough to discover our literature.
And that night was one of the most
glorious nights of our lives, as we traveled
through one Czechoslovakian town after another, distributing the
word of God.
By the time we reached the Russian border,
four hundred gospels of John had been distributed
in Czechoslovakia.
In cities where most people had never seen
a portion of God's word.
In towns where most of the men and
women were confirmed atheists.
As we crossed into Russia, again we felt
the powers of darkness around us.
At the Russian border, they checked the car
very thoroughly.
We had some Gospels of John hidden in
our food box.
One of the Russian guards who was checking
the car took out the food box and
started to investigate it.
The pain was about one inch from the
Gospels of John when I caught his attention
and he decided to seek no further.
And so as we passed through the Russian
frontier, we again praised God for his grace
and his faithfulness to allow us to enter
that country with one thousand six hundred portions
of his word.
That night we went right to work.
Roger in the hotel room started to print
the gospel tract to be sent out along
with papers from the Gospels of John.
It was taken out from underneath the dashboard
of the car.
The stamp pad was slipped out from underneath
the seat of the car.
The ink was taken out of the back
of the glove compartment.
And in a small hotel in Utskhorod, Russia,
the printing device started to work.
At the same time I went outside and
started to look around for a phone book.
I might mention that the reason we were
in a hotel is in that particular city
they did not have any camping sites.
So they let us stay in the hotel
for the price of camping.
Unfortunately in the town of Utskhorod we could
not find a phone book so after a
few hours we decided to move on.
In the next town where also they did
not have any camping sites we were again
given hotels.
In the hotel Roger started to print and
I went out again to look for a
phone book.
Again without any success.
It seems that in the Soviet Union one
of the books that is extremely hard to
get a hold of is a phone book.
However the Lord enabled me to find another
book that had a list of every town
in the Soviet Union.
And so we decided to start sending letters
and gospel tracts to the postmaster of every
town in the Soviet Union.
And that night I started addressing the envelopes
with a Russian typewriter that we had brought
along.
The next day we arose and started out
toward the city of Kiev.
Little did we know what God had planned
for us.
It was after we passed the city of
Rovno that I decided to throw a gospel
of John out the back of a car
window.
I mainly decided because the margarine that we
had in the food box had melted on
this gospel of John.
And I knew that we wouldn't be very
wise to send it through the mail so
I decided to just throw it along the
highway when no one was looking.
I threw the gospel of John out.
A half hour later motorcycle police pulled us
off to the side of the road.
We knew that God had different plans than
we did.
Someone had found the gospel of John.
Immediately radioed ahead.
And the police had stopped us only a
few miles, about 25 miles down the road
or less, 25 kilometers.
We then were asked to wait.
For two hours we waited alongside of our
car.
Later on we found that we were waiting
for two chief officials to come from the
nearest big city.
When these officials arrived we were escorted into
a small room.
There sat the officials around the small table
and the gospel of John laid on the
middle of the table.
They looked at me.
I looked at them and said, oh, you
found our gospel of John.
Yes, we have.
And then the conversation started.
From that moment until the time we left
the Soviet Union we can honestly say with
all of our hearts that practically all of
our time was given to testifying to the
name of Christ, praying and praising.
Immediately they started questioning us.
Why did you come to the Soviet Union?
And so we answered.
We came to the Soviet Union because Jesus
Christ is our Lord and our Savior.
And he told us to go into all
the world and preach the gospel.
And this means that we must tell everyone
of the love of Jesus Christ.
Even those of you who are here in
Russia.
Our interpreter, who was provided for us by
the police, interpreted our short message.
And then another question.
What were you going to do with our
literature?
We have brought this literature here because this
literature contains the way of life.
Because this literature tells of Jesus Christ who
died on the cross 2,000 years ago
to redeem men from their sin and to
show them the way to heaven.
And so the questions went, one after another.
And each question we turned in, or each
answer that we gave, we turned in to
a short gospel message.
It was not long that they were in
the car.
The literature was discovered, at least part of
it.
The printing device was discovered.
And then we went back into the room
for more questions.
That night we were taken back to the
largest city, the city of Vrovna.
We were given a room and told to
wait there until morning when there would be
more questions.
They had not discovered the 1,600 gospels
in the walls of the car.
And that night, Roger and I, before the
Lord, decided that no matter what happened, no
matter what questions were put before us, we
would tell them the truth.
The next morning, one of the first questions
that was asked us, do you have any
more of this literature?
Roger said, we do.
They were amazed actually.
For after they saw 1,600 gospels in
the walls of the car, they were amazed.
These people who lie day and night were
amazed to find two people, two young fellows,
who despite what they knew it would cost
them, told the truth.
And so that day again, we had opportunity
to testify to the power of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
The entire afternoon was spent answering questions.
They tried to see if we would tell
lies.
So they put Roger in one room, put
me in another room and asked us questions.
They asked us the names of people, they
asked us dates, they asked us everything they
could to try to trip us up and
get us to lie.
We just gave them the truth.
When we were done telling them the truth,
then they said, now we want you to
write this out.
And so I wrote seven pages out.
And on each page, I gave the picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation
story.
When I told them why it's come, when
I told them what the literature was for,
when I told them who sent us, when
I told them where we got the money.
Each time, both Roger and I were able
to insert the gospel message.
So actually the whole day was spent in
giving forth the blessed gospel.
This paper that we wrote up, this gospel
paper, was translated into Russian and mailed on
to the city of Kiev.
How we praise God for the way that
his gospel went abroad.
Although we only had the opportunity to speak
directly with a few, with perhaps a dozen
or so of these communists, we know that
many hundreds in these cities heard that someone
had come with a Bible and heard parts
of the gospel.
Because these men went back to their families,
and of course their families did not keep
this matter secret.
For something like this was a great happening
in Russia.
Back the day we left, over a hundred
people gathered around our car.
And thanks to our very friendly interpreter, who
seemingly was becoming convinced about the existence of
God and the fact that we were right,
we were able to interpret a few words
of the gospel to this crowd of over
a hundred people.
We also can praise him that although the
literature was supposedly complicated, we are sure much
of it will be distributed.
We think of one of the days when
we found a few more pamphlets in our
Bible, and we decided to be honest and
turn them over to the authorities.
We gave it over to one of the
authorities and said, well, thank you very much,
I'll keep these for my personal copy.
And so it was, the literature went into
the hearts and into the pockets of these
hardened, or so-called hardened communists.
The day before we were to leave, that
is the third day, the entire day was
given over to the study of God's words.
It sounds almost unbelievable.
It sounds fantastic that a group of hardened
communists would come into our room, bring their
own Bible, and sit down and discuss the
word of God with us.
Their purpose was to prove to us there
was no God.
Their purpose was to try to convince us
that we were wrong.
And yet as they left that room that
night, they knew that they had not won
the battle.
They knew that the word of God had
triumphed.
For as they presented one argument after another
against the Bible and against God, thanks be
to God we were able to answer their
questions and present clearly to them the way
of salvation.
And the simple fact that Christianity does not
consist of churches.
Christianity does not consist of rituals and things
that they do not understand.
But Christianity stands for love, stands for peace,
stands for joy, stands for brotherhood, stands for
helping the poor man.
Things that they believe are the most important
things in life, or they say they do.
These are the realities of the word of
God.
And when we presented to them Christianity in
the light of this, they were quite amazed.
The next day order came from Keith.
We were to be escorted out of the
Soviet Union.
Our literature was all to be confiscated.
Our typewriter was to be confiscated.
Our printing press was to be confiscated.
But we praised them.
Although they had this material and it was
confiscated, we knew the gospel had gone forth.
We knew that dozens and dozens of people
in the cities that we had been in
were chattering and talking about the word of
God and about the two young fellows who
had come to town distributing Christian literature.
How we praised them as we drove out
of the Soviet Union.
The motorcycle policemen led us carefully over the
highway 300 miles to the Russian border.
There at the border again we testified to
the love of Christ, to the border guards
and customs officials.
Then we crossed over into Czechoslovakia.
In Czechoslovakia we were met by two more
motorcycle policemen.
They escorted us, one in front and one
in the back of our car, 300 miles
through Czechoslovakia.
What a blessed trip as we sang and
praised God for what he had done.
As we praised him for the 400 pieces
of literature that had gone out in Czechoslovakia.
For the dozens of gospels that were being
distributed in Russia.
And for the testimony that we were able
to give with our own mouths to these
hardened convicts.
That it was a wonderful sight, we must
admit, when we crossed Czechoslovakia into free Austria.
It was like coming out of darkness into
light.
How we praised the Lord for every experience,
every moment we had had in the Soviet
Union.
Yes, an interesting experience.
A blessed experience of preaching Christ to those
who had never heard.
And yet we know that this is just
the beginning.
Just scratching the surface.
We had definite plans for the evangelization of
these countries.
But these plans are insignificant and even insufficient.
But there is only one thing that will
bring about the evangelization of 200 million Russians.
13 million Czechoslovakians.
28 million Polish people.
18 million in Yugoslavia.
And the millions and millions in Romania, Bulgaria
and Hungary.
There is only one thing that will bring
about the evangelization of these lands.
And that's the desperate prayerful actions of those
who are listening to my voice.
And of myself.
Yes, ye shall know the truth.
And the truth shall make you free.
These people are free.
These people are in bondage.
But they are in bondage not because they
are behind an iron curtain.
They are in bondage not because they are
being ruled by a communist party which is
a fanatical group of men and women determined
to bring about their cause.
They are in bondage because they have not
received the truth.
They are in bondage because they have never
heard of Jesus Christ to the most part.
They are in bondage because they never had
the opportunity to hear the good news of
the gospel.
As much as we praise him for the
opportunity to give out his word behind the
iron curtain, we praise him for what we
learned.
As we sat over three days across the
table from the hardened communists answering their questions
and talking with them, we realized afresh the
enemy's power and the strategy that the enemy
has.
I have before me a book, a book
written by Karl Marx and Engels, the two
great leaders of the very earliest communistic movement.
And in this book is a copy of
the Communist Manifesto.
And I'd like to read you just the
last part of this Communist Manifesto which has
been translated into close to a thousand languages.
The communists disdain to conceal their views and
aims.
They openly declare that their aims can be
obtained only by forcible overthrow of all existing
social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic
revolution.
The proletarians, that is the working class, have
nothing to lose but their chains.
They have a world to live in.
Working men of all countries unite.
Let me read it again.
The communists disdain or hate to conceal their
views and aims.
They openly declare that their aims can be
obtained only by the forcible overthrow of all
existing social conditions.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic
revolution.
The working man has nothing to lose but
their chains.
They have a world to win.
Working men of all countries unite.
To you it might be only a paragraph.
But to these men who sat across the
table from us, it was everything in life.
These men were convinced that every ruling society
in this world had to be overthrown by
Communism.
They were convinced that the only way to
have peace was to destroy every capitalistic government.
These men had more faith in Communism than
most Christians I have ever met had faith
in God and Jesus Christ.
Most of them that we spoke to were
convinced that there was no God.
And yet we trusted in their hearts it
would not send.
But they were products of Satan.
But as we thought about this thing and
as we talked to them and as we
read different portions of literature that we could
find, we realized that there was one supreme
power behind this movement.
But some things are the same with you.
To bring these men into captive.
To bring these men into a position where
they were willing to do anything to spread
it.
For their false cause.
As far as I could see, this one
thing is the printed page.
I had before me the works of Marx,
the works of Lenin, and other Communistic magazines
and books.
As I walked freely through Soviet cities, I
went from one bookstore after another.
All along the streets there were book stands.
Everywhere you turned, books, all printed in Russia
practically, all Communistic, were for sale.
And the people who had increased in literacy
in the past years were reading and studying
like a people I had never seen before.
Not studying the Bible, for sure.
Not studying any of the literature that you
have ever read, except perhaps some of the
classics.
But studying basically propaganda printed in Moscow.
And I have some of this propaganda which
is printed in English for thousands of books
that are printed in English.
And I want you to just read one
paragraph from a magazine called World Youth.
Which is a magazine calling all youth to
join the revolution and overthrow their government.
The title of this article in this one
magazine, World Youth, is called United States Imperialists
Strengthening Fascist Dictatorship in South Korea.
It says this, this is a 1961 magazine.
In the past period, the United States Imperialists
framed up the Sigmund Reid puppet regime at
the point of the bayonet.
The United States covered South Korea with a
network of police and jail, suppressed and disbanded
a large number of patriotic political parties and
social organizations, and stifled the democratic rights and
freedoms of the people.
The United States massacred great numbers of the
people and youth, drenching the land of South
Korea with the blood of their victims.
You shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free.
But I have just read to you something
that each one of you knows is a
lie.
Saying that the United States has massacred great
numbers of people in South Korea and has
drenched South Korea with the blood of their
victims is far short of the truth.
And yet this is typical of communistic propaganda.
This is typical of the communist way to
win people to their way of thinking, by
lying.
Some of you have heard of J.
Edgar Hoover's book, Masters of Deceit, and how
true that title is.
The communes are masters of deceit.
I have before me many other pieces of
communistic literature, some of it in English, some
of it in Russian, some of it in
Spanish.
And you can get it in dozens and
hundreds of other languages also.
Literature, being distributed over the world in such
a way that it's hard to believe.
We've all heard the figure that the Communists
spent three billion dollars on literature last year.
And after my trip to the Soviet Union,
I'm convinced that this is the truth.
I have in my hands one of the
volumes of the works of Lenin.
I bought all four volumes.
One inch thick each volume, hardcover, top grade
paper, for about a dollar seventy cents.
You couldn't even print those books for that
price.
The paper alone would be worth more than
that.
The communists aren't interested in making money.
The communists have one goal, propagation.
Propagation of their lives.
And so these books go out all over
the world.
Not by thousands, not just little gospel tracts,
but hardbound books.
Books that carry a thousand lines per page,
if we could say, if we could count
the lines.
For all it is, it's from Satan and
it's just lie upon lie.
But you see, when people don't hear anything
else, all they can do is believe what
they read.
And so communism, by distributing enough of this
literature to enough people, have been able to
captivate almost a third of the world.
As we drove through Czechoslovakia, coming out of
the country, we pulled up to the border.
There was a young fellow carrying a machine
gunner who was in charge of that border
post.
And as he walked past us, we realized
that he was probably only fifteen or sixteen
years old.
And immediately I thought back to the United
States and asked myself, what are the young
people of fifteen and sixteen doing in America?
And so it is all over the Soviet
Union, young people.
Young people who are sold out and convinced
about a lie.
And who are ready and willing to march
the world over to see that this lie
is accepted and believed by all the world.
What is the answer?
What is the answer to this iron straw
of Satan?
What is the answer to this tremendous quantity
of people that are convinced about a lie?
Two hundred million people in Russia alone.
Not to speak of China, not to speak
of Mongolia or these other countries.
What is the answer?
I believe we as Christians have the answer.
And on the other side of this tape,
I would like to discuss briefly Christ's answer
to communism.
And what it means to the Christians of
the twentieth century.
While they are changing this tape, please remain
in silent prayer.
Thank you.