O.S. Hawkins
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First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. Crystal never tried to be somebody he wasn't. He always knew where he was going. He didn't get to an intersection ring and say, I wonder which way I'm going to turn. He was very strategic, and he knew why he was here. He was moved and motivated by that call of God. ♪

The life of one of America's legendary pastors is our focus on this edition of First Person. We're talking about Dr. W.A. Criswell of Dallas, Texas. And I'm Wayne Shepherd. Welcome to First Person.

Dr. Criswell, who died in 2002, was the longtime pastor of one of the country's largest churches, First Baptist in Dallas. If you follow the news, the historic sanctuary portion of this church in downtown Dallas, built in the 1890s, tragically burned earlier this summer on July 19th. But amazingly, the very pulpit that Dr. Criswell preached from survived the conflagration.

Dr. O.S. Hawkins also preached from that pulpit as the church's pastor for a time, and he's written a biography of his friend, Dr. Criswell. The biography tells an honest story of this pastor, his spiritual accomplishments, as well as his mistakes and regrets. Our conversation with O.S. Hawkins took place just a few days before this summer's fire, and in our online conversation, I asked him why we should remember Dr. Criswell. There are few people that truly remember

can be called legends, especially in the evangelical world. And certainly Dr. Criswell was one. He was born in 1909. He died in 2002. He lived in every decade of the 20th century, rose to become literally a world figure

in evangelical circles, wrote over 50 books, built the largest church in the world here at First Baptist Church in Dallas, had relationships with every prime minister of Israel from Ben-Gurion on, and just had a

had an influence that was remarkable. You know, the word influence, Wayne, comes from two words in Latin, in and flow. And it's a word picture of a mighty river that's flowing, crystal clear and vibrant with a strong current. And into it flow these little tributaries and creeks and streams, and they're carried away in its flow. And Crystal was such a man that

There were thousands of pastors through his books and through his life and through his ministry that were caught up in his flow. He brought to fundamental theology an air of respectability and credibility. He could quote Browning and

and uh all of the great shakespeare all the great poets with the same manner in which he could quote the apostle paul he was he was pretty erudite wasn't he he was very much so although he came from very humble and poor beginnings and uh you know he's the kind of guy that if he had gone into business he'd have built a fortune 500 company if he'd have gone into politics he'd

He would have surely been a United States senator, probably president. Had he gone into law, he could have easily been a Supreme Court justice. But all he ever wanted to do and felt called to do from childhood was pastor a local New Testament church. And this he did, like, in my opinion, no others before him.

Well, you knew him so well as a friend and a mentor and as your predecessor at First Baptist in Dallas, where you pastored for a number of years. Was that easier or more difficult writing the biography because of that relationship? Well, I don't want this to sound self-serving, but we had a father-son relationship. I

I first met him when I was late just surrendered to the ministry back in 1968 and then when I was pastor in Fort Lauderdale he

sort of took to me and became a real father figure to me. We, Susie and I traveled all over the world with them in those days. And when I came to be pastor, uh, it, it truly was to answer your question. He was my biggest asset and greatest supporter. And, uh,

He was a great, great asset to me in those days, a pastor in that great church. Yeah. Of course, you didn't immediately succeed him as pastor. There was one other pastor in between, at least, that I know about, right? Yeah. Joel Gregory was there for only 20 months at

it didn't start well and it didn't end well. I remember those days. Yeah. And Joel would be the person to admit that. In fact, he wrote a book about it. Uh, so there was that brief, uh, uh, gap theory as Chris will call it before, uh, or I got there. But, uh,

You know, so the biography, I've worked on it for years and years. It's, you know, it's very well researched. And he made me promise. I put him in a room back in 1994.

uh, with nothing but the two of us in a video camera and for hours, uh, I videoed him and he, he made me promise him that, uh, or asked me to promise him that I would wait 20 years after his death to write this book simply because of some of the things he said about some of the people in it. And, and,

Not in particular his wife. He wanted to make sure everybody was dead. So he died in 2002, and we published the book this year. But I've been working on it a long, long time. Well, I wanted to touch on that because given your relationship with him, you could kind of expect a hagiography of an idealized biography of the man. But this book is anything but that. You're very honest in writing the book and telling the story of Criswell.

And that's the way he would have wanted it. And I think most people thought it was going to be a hagiography, and it's certainly not, because it's warts and all. But that's the way he had the unique ability to own his mistakes and to correct them and

And to start over in a new path. We saw it on the race issue. We saw it on the abortion issue. We saw it on many, many issues when he when he we owned his mistakes and he had some. Yeah. And repented of them and sought to make reconciliation and and started a new path. He was very unique in that way.

Well, I was going to talk about his regrets later, but since you brought that up, let's talk about the regrets that he had and expressed to you. I believe there were three of them. The one was what you referred to a moment ago. His stance early on in segregation was not admirable in terms of how we view it, but he owned up to that, didn't he? Well, Wayne, he had a—before he came to Dallas at age 34—

to succeed the legendary Dr. George W. Truitt, who had been pastor there 47 years, became a world figure. And as you know, the seminary at Baylor is named after Truitt. He's got colleges, universities, elementary schools, hospitals. His name is etched and granted above all these kind of places. He was a world figure, Truitt. But his crystal crystal

He came there in 1944, the age of 34, and he inherited a church, to be honest with you, that was steeped deeply in white supremacy. Criswell had a good record on race before that. In one of his first pastorates, a little seminary, a college church, I think it was at Bader, but gone grove, the Sandoval family, a family of Hispanic migrants,

were saved, seven of them, and came to the church, presented themselves for baptism. The deacons said, we don't baptize people of color in our church. And Christian said, well, you do now. He said, you do now. And he made a stand on them and said, you can either do that or get... He had a good record, but when he got there, you have to understand that

that Truett, you'll see, you'll read a lot of stuff about Truett in here related to the race issue. In 1921 in Dallas, Wayne, the largest Ku Klux Klan cell in America

was in Dallas, had 13,000 paying members. And when I came to First Baptist in 1993, there was a book called Big D written by the head of the history department at SMU, Darwin Payne. It's a big, thick biography of Dallas. And I read that book and in it, it listed the 100 members of the steering committee

of the local Ku Klux Klan in Dallas in 1921, I called down the church office and I asked if we had records of the church year by year and who was members. Oh yes, we keep that. We go back to 1897. I said, well, pull me out in 1921. I want to come in there and look at it. I went down there and went through those 100 members of the steering committee

And I found out that dozens and dozens, the majority of them, were members of Truett's church, deacons in Truett's church. He allowed his deacons to be part, not just of the Klan, but of the

of the organizing faction of it, the steering committee of this vile organization. Joel Gregory tells the story of how in the 1930s, Truett was preaching to a group of people in St. John's Missionary Baptist Church, 400 black pastors. And he said in that meeting, he said, oh, I love preaching, but this is Truett now. I love preaching to you fellows.

When we all get to heaven, would you let me come over to your section and preach? And Truett founded Baylor Hospital in 1903 with a big gift from one of his major men. And he was the chairman of the board there for years. Never allowed a black physician, black person to come into Baylor Hospital his whole life. So that was the background that Criswell stepped into. To his discredit, when he got there, he allowed it.

He allowed himself to be kind of molded into that. So in 1956, two months after Rosa Parks had her experience on the bus that started the great civil rights movement, he's speaking at an evangelism conference in Columbia, South Carolina, and he's on segregation.

And Strom Thurmond was the governor of those states, South Carolina, invited him to come over. He put the joint houses, the legislature in South Carolina together. And it was the, Chris will call it the biggest blunder of his life. He went in there and those legislatures were hooping and howling and he got caught up in the moment, said some things.

that never came out of his heart. He said that he should have never said, but he lived his life with that regret. And then he spent so many years seeking, and you'll read in the book, the many, many ways he sought to reconcile himself with the Black brothers. And it was one of the great regrets of his life was that racial issue. But in the end,

He did so many things to seek to rectify that. And I tell all about them in the book, from educating African-Americans, as he did, to he founded a center here in Dallas. It's still there today. The Dallas Life Foundation sleeps 400 people a night, mostly people of color, feeds 2,000 every day, trains more people for jobs than any place in Dallas.

When he found out that the people in South Dallas and the minority communities would not come to First Baptist, every time he found the church down there that was about to disband, First Baptist would go down there and buy that property. And they set up social ministries. He had 28 chapels all over South Dallas where they provided.

provided food and clothing and students from his college that went out there and preached. And so he spent his life trying to overcome that. But, you know, it's sad that that's one of the stains of his life. There's more to learn about the life of the late W.A. Criswell. We'll continue our conversation with O.S. Hawkins in a moment.

Here's Ed Cannon on the vision for FEBC's weekly podcast. The primary purpose of Until All Have Heard, of course, is to share the experience that FEBC has because we have staff on the ground in so many oppressive places. But in addition to that, we're trying to speak to you in a way that only the kind of testimonies you'll hear from around the globe can do.

Discover how the gospel is making a difference around the world. Search for Until All Have Heard on your favorite podcast platform or hear it online at febc.org.

Oh,

Oh, I was. Yeah, I these hands right here, along with Jack Pogue, picked his body up off the deathbed and placed it on the funeral gurney that morning, early that morning. But no one I've never seen anyone die like he did. Wayne, he he was in fact, I have right here something that he prayed. Here's a here's a prayer that he prayed.

Now in 1970, that was 32 years before he died. He prayed this in one of his sermons. "Oh Lord, as I grow older, may I not become cynical or bitter, but may my love for you grow deeper and wider.

May my faith in the things of glory be clear and near as I approach them. Lord, let it be that I might be sweet and kind and full of faith and full of hope in you. And he got answered that prayer. And when he lived out his life in that in that in that sort of fashion, no one ever died like he did. Jack Pogue, his lifelong friend, a businessman in Dallas, said,

four years before he died, Dr. Crystal had cancer. And Mrs. Crystal was up in her 80s. She couldn't care for him. And he didn't want to go to a retirement center. So Jack Pogue, who was the biggest real estate broker in Dallas, took him into his home, put a hospital bed in his den downstairs and slept on the floor and the couch by him for four years and took care of him. And it was one of the most

beautiful things you've ever seen. Crystal would wake Jack up in the middle of the night preaching, saying, oh, Jack, get the counselors ready. There's going to be a great harvest. Let's wait that. And the last words he ever spoke, he'd been in a sort of a semi-induced coma for a couple, three days and not spoken. And so Jack and I were there in the home and someone came to visit him.

And when they walked in, he kind of rallied and he opened his eyes and he said, oh, have you come for the revival? And those were his last words that he spoke during that.

Dr. Crystal was an amazing man, tremendous intellect, PhD, you know, he read Greek and Hebrew. Till his dying day, his Greek text and Hebrew text were on his desk. And yet he never lost the wonder of it, the work of it. He had a childlike talent.

wonder, wonder of God's creation and all of God's blessings. Well, we learned so much from this man's life. We also learned from these regrets that he expressed to you before he died. One of them seems to be a lesson that so many people talk about. We don't seem to grasp it while we're living, but at the end of life, we all say, you know, wish we'd spent more time with our family. And he certainly had that regret, didn't he? He did, and he was very open about it, didn't he?

In the end, he said, you know, the biggest, one of my biggest mistakes, he had three major regrets. And that was one of them was that he, that he put God first in his church, second, his family, uh, the thirties. And he, that was a tremendous regret, but,

He had an unusual relationship with his wife, Betty. In many ways, she was his biggest asset. And in other ways, it was just very complicated. I tell all about it. I don't have time here, but it's all told in the book. But one of the things it did, it just drove him into the solitude of his study every morning. And he had a unique ability.

to just as he would do, he would do like this, just wave it goodbye. When that root of bitterness surrounded him, just wave it goodbye, said the devil. And he had an amazing ability to keep centered and keep focused on Christ.

You know, there's just so many funny stories in the Bible that took place. And there's so many intriguing stories about the assassination of Kennedy and how he got wrapped up in that in 1963. It was an interesting story. So there are a lot of stories here, Wayne, never have been told. Actually, I've been told by so many people, some that are reviewed, it says it reads like a novel, which you don't want to put down.

And they're just an amazing bunch of stories never been told about personalities that people would know about and things that happened along the way. Yeah.

We can't skip over what we learned from him theologically. He was staunchly supportive of premillennialism and really became kind of the go-to voice on that particular issue, right? No question about it. No question about it. And he left us his study Bible.

that is filled with, he brought premillennial thought into the forefront of Baptist life, to be honest with you. Truett was a big postmillennialist, and Criswell didn't even know he was a premillennialist. He got to, interesting for any of the, maybe there's small church pastors out in the highways and they're just listening to us,

Christel spent the first 10 years of his pastoral ministry in total obscurity. His first pastor was Devil's Bend. How'd you like to pastor at Devil's Bend? Not a very aptly named for a pastor, right? Yeah. He pastored at Pecan Grove. He pastored at White Mound. He spent the first 10 years pastoring in out-of-the-way places where God was just preparing him

for the future. Then when he got to, after he got his PhD, he went to Oklahoma and pastored, and that's when he began

preaching verse by verse through the Bible. And that's how he became a premillennialist, as he just began to preach expository messages. You know, among his many, many books, you know, he's got a commentary on Revelation all about premillennial thought. But his most important book was one he published in 1969, Why I Preach the Bible is Literally True.

And thousands of preachers of my generation, young preachers in those days, it formulated and fashioned our framework of worship.

preaching and studying. And he brought an intellectual dimension to that fundamentalist thought that had not been seen before. You know, he's greatly influenced by J. Frank Norris. He was a fundamentalist pastor of the largest church in the world at the time over

in Fort Worth. And he was greatly influenced by him and by Dr. Truitt. Yeah. And I know you've written about those two men as well, which is fascinating to learn about. Yeah. Truitt was a statesman. Truitt never wanted to get in any controversy. He stayed serenely above the freight. Norris wanted to hit you head on. He was a fun... He was Truitt in public.

But he was Norris in private, and that's really better. We've talked about a lot, OS, but just sum it up for us. What's the bottom line lesson of W.A. Criswell to you personally? What's the takeaway that you will never forget? The importance of a hidden life. He would say to everybody, spend your mornings with God and your afternoons and evenings with the people. And he did that.

It's a philosophy I call being comes before doing, because what we do and all the things that we're able to achieve is because of who we are and what we are. Now, Crystal was, and I would say this in closing, finally, that he had three unique factors that everybody needs to capture. He knew who he was. He didn't try to be somebody he wasn't. He just knew who he was.

He knew where he was going. He felt the will of God and the call of God on his life. And he knew why he was here. He was moved and motivated by the same thing Jesus was. It's sidecar, Jesus said. My meat, the thing that sustains me, is to do the will of him who sent me. So Crystal was moved by that. He never tried to be somebody he wasn't.

He always knew where he was going. He didn't get to an intersection ringing his hands saying, I wonder which way I'm going to turn. He was very strategic and he knew why he was here. He was moved and motivated by that call of God on his life. It's always amazing to me to learn the story of how God calls and prepares people at just the right moment in history for what is needed. And I think that's true for the man W.A. Criswell.

Our guest has been Criswell biographer Dr. O.S. Hawkins. As I mentioned at the outset, O.S. knew Criswell well and had permission to tell the whole story of his life.

Once again, our interview took place just before the devastating fire of the historic sanctuary in Dallas where Criswell preached all those years. And we'll put a link to the church at FirstPersonInterview.com where you can read more about the fire and the church's recovery. There's also a link to the biography that O.S. Hawkins has written titled Criswell, His Life and Times. You'll find it at FirstPersonInterview.com where you can also listen to this program again and share it with others.

Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Thanks for listening to First Person.