A God Who Was There
Paul Dawson
1/29/97
A God Who Was There
As believers we struggled with the reality of the Cold War. We wondered why
God would allow the evil empire to thrive and grow. We wondered about God's
purpose. Only now can we see that He was there, working, all the time.
Recently a Russian believer shared his perspective. He felt that God had
used communism and its evil to prepare the Russian people for the preaching
of the gospel. He said....
God used religious persecution to teach the people that serving God is not
without cost. Persecution showed that serving God had to be the first
priority. Believers put God before job, family, even freedom. The example
serves the cause of Christ still today.
God uses the complicity of the Orthodox church and the infiltration of the
communists into that church. This stirred within the people a longing for
something different, something purer. People today are interested in a
relationship with God, but not the religion of politics. The kingdom has been
well served.
God uses the isolation that communism imposed. In the past, expressing your
thoughts was fraught with danger. This fear isolated people. Today people
long for relationships. They are eager as well for a sense of family and
fellowship that is free from fear.
God uses the poverty. Socialism's greatest failure was in this sense. The
people had little or nothing. That has incited the desire for something
better. While that may simply mean having more things, many times that desire
finds its fulfillment in God.
The speaker concluded saying that Russia today is bankrupt spiritually. It is
economically stagnant, overrun by western vices, and without direction. After
70 years of this great social experiment, the conclusion is simple:
In Russia, the only solution is God!
--Paul Dawson
