March 3, 2022

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Signed by about 500 persons, but most signatures were secret. After the draconian response of the government, the appeal has been taken down from the web. However, this group is teaching their churches about suffering under Pharoah and the Exodus as it might apply to Ukraine. This Biblical preaching is extremely dangerous.

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“The time has come when each of us must call things by their real names, while we still have a chance to escape punishment from above, and prevent the collapse of our country. We call on the authorities of our country to stop this senseless bloodshed!”

Heed God’s words:

Jeremiah 18:7–8, that the nation that turns from its evil ways will be spared.

Cain committed the sin of fratricide against his brother Abel.

The words of Jesus: “Put your sword back in its place … for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52).

Only the signatures of the principal signatories are public:

Yuri Ilchenko, Khabarovsk;

Evgeny Kokora, Novorossiisk;

Andrei Kravtsev, Nalchik;

Roman Nosach, St. Petersburg;

Aleksei Markevich, Moscow;

Pavel Togobitsky, Berdsk;

Viktor Fast, Solnechnyi;

Igor Shaifulin, Novosibirsk; Mikhail Cherniavsky, Khabarovsk

Let my people go! by Andrei Kravtsez of Naichik (southwestern Russia. Excerpts)

In the last lines of the 5th chapter of the book of Exodus, the prayer of the prophet Moses is recorded, full of undisguised annoyance and disappointment. Having failed at the beginning of his mission to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, Moses bitterly appeals to the Almighty:

“Why did you send me? … After all, since I came to Pharaoh and began to speak to him on Your behalf, he began to do worse with these people. And you did not deliver your people from slavery!” …

The Lord’s answer (6:1-8), in which there is not the slightest rebuke to the impatient prophet, reveals the plan of upcoming events: God will not only free the Jews from slavery – He will make them His people and give them a land “flowing with milk and honey” .

However, this will not happen as quickly as Moses and the oppressed Israelites would like: Pharaoh’s heart will “harden”, and he will enter into a confrontation with the Almighty. In this struggle, he is doomed to fail, and in this is glad tidings for Israel. However, as it happens with biblical prophets, it also has a bitter side: for some time the people will become worse than before (Rev. 10:10)….

What should and could the Church do today? What is the role of believers in Christ in times of political instability? And speaking specifically, in the situation of the modern conflict between Russia and Ukraine? 

As priests (1 Pet. 2:9), believers are called to represent the people before God and represent God to the people. We are part of our people and citizens of our country, but at the same time we have access to the living God, Creator and Judge of the world. Being a priest means, first of all, praying for those who are not able to recognize the evil they commit as such (Luke 23:34). Being a representative of the Kingdom of God means offering prayers of repentance to God for the crimes committed today in our name. This means asking Him to stop the bloodshed, to protect the suffering and to repent for our government and our people.

As for the second side of the priestly ministry – to represent God to people, then it is connected with the words and deeds of believers in relation to others. How is it practical today to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9)?

First of all, this means that the Church cannot participate in the war either by words or actions, especially when this war is aggressive. The Church cannot succumb to hostility and maintain hatred towards anyone whom society today has declared enemies: Ukrainians, Europeans, Americans or anyone else. Believers should see in every person the bearer of the image of God, and ethnic reconciliation between them should be evidence of God’s plan for the whole world.

Being representatives of the Kingdom of God also means being “special” people (Matthew 5:45-48). Not only in the sense that believers do not do evil, but in the fact that they do what no one else will do: they forgive offenders, extend a hand of mercy to help the lonely and needy, do not take revenge, do not curse and wish good to their enemies. It is in this case, according to Jesus, that they show the image of the Heavenly Father to those around them.

War will bring grief to many families. This is a terrible tragedy, and it is very important that next to those who have lost loved ones there are believers who can “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15), helping them find hope and comfort in the Lord. Many around us are in confusion and fear, without clear worldview guidelines and hope. We have all this in Christ, and it is our responsibility to share it with others today.

Most importantly, presenting God to people means proclaiming the gospel message of the need for repentance and reconciliation with God. Genuine repentance entails a profound change in attitudes, values, and behavior as a result of seeing oneself in the light of God’s truth. The Church calls for such a change in every member of society – both ordinary citizens and those in power. But for this you need to tell the truth to everyone who is able to hear it.

Unfortunately, the passive support of the war on the part of many believers, the forwarding of propaganda videos on social networks, and the dependence of many in assessing what is happening exclusively on the state media indicate the absence of not only a holistic biblical worldview, but also the simplest skills of critical thinking. This is largely due to a compromise with the imperial narratives that have been imposed on Russian society over the past years. In the name of such ideas, we are witnessing the dehumanization of an entire nation, the denial of its right to its own identity, language, culture, and political independence.

Although it is unlikely that any of the believers openly support the killing of civilians and the destruction of Ukrainian cities, sometimes even our prayers for peace do not take into account the words of Scripture that reconciliation is not based on hushing up the truth, but on its recognition, repentance and mutual forgiveness . I’ll make a reservation right away: while information about what is happening is being hidden from society or distorted, and criminal prosecution is threatened for the dissemination of any information that contradicts official sources, I do not urge anyone to endanger themselves. It is up to each individual to decide whom he will obey more—the authorities or God (Acts 4:19).

Scripture does call us to be obedient to authorities, but it also tells us that authority is set to punish evil and encourage good (1 Pet. 2:14; Rom. 13:3-4). …

Today, the people in power in our country are the same people who thirty years ago were the bearers of communist ideology. Many of them come from organizations that for decades rotted in the camps and shot our fellow citizens in the dungeons, persecuted dissidents and classic writers, now known to the whole world. All of us who succumbed to nostalgia for the USSR and longed for delicious ice cream and cheap boiled sausage (like the Jews in the desert for onions and cauldrons of meat) are involved in the fact that the revival of totalitarianism again became possible.

Today, the “rising from its knees” empire is conducting a “special operation” against another post-Soviet country, justifying this with protection from a military threat. But the true goals are the same – geopolitical and economic. It is about restoring the greatness of “historical Russia” and preserving the privileges and power of a narrow group of people. We all cry out to God to stop the bloodshed, but looking back at the book of Exodus, we must admit that deliverance will not necessarily be as quick as we would like.

By all appearances, our people will first have to go through a lot of economic deprivation, which, like the Egyptian executions, will undermine the triumphalism and self-righteousness that fuels this war. As sad as it is to admit, it is quite likely that only the death of many of our compatriots on the battlefield, like the death of the firstborn in Egypt, will lead us to the realization that we have chosen the wrong path. That peaceful coexistence with neighboring countries is possible only on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Without claims to their history and territory, without attempts to return them to the “bosom” of the empire and dictate their will to them.

Our past – in many ways atheistic and bloody – still haunts us, because it has not received a proper public assessment. At the end of the Soviet era, the hopes of many people were tied to national repentance. There was an expectation that the resurgent Christianity would offer society moral guidelines, that the evils of the past and present would be called evil in order to avoid its repetition in the future. But the fallacy of anti-human ideologies remained uncomprehended by our society, including a significant part of believers….

Like Egyptian idols, false ideologies must be exposed and rejected by society before we are truly worthy of the freedom that thirty years ago fell into our hands without any effort on our part.

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