Reflections on Ukraine

Justin Peters

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Hello dear ones. My name is Justin Peters. I hope that you and your family are doing well today I want to thank you for joining me for this podcast

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This is a very different one than what I normally do all of us have seen what's been or what is transpiring right now in Ukraine And our hearts break undoubtedly.

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I know all of our hearts break for what those poor folks are going through right now I just I cannot imagine.

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I literally cannot imagine But I was in Ukraine three years ago. I was preaching there few different churches in different parts of the country and also at urban Bible Seminary, which is

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TMAI the Masters Academy International they have one of their seminaries there in Ukraine and And I thought

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I would just share with you with all that's going on I went pulled up my pictures, you know on my iPhone and scrolled back to April of 2019 was just going through some of those pictures and boy the memories that it brought back and I thought

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I would just share with you some of the Some of the photos I have a couple of short little videos.

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This is a church that I preached at beautiful little church Kind of out in the country and there's my translator there wonderful wonderful guy

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Just boy the stories that he told of growing up under communism

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And how he was one of the only Christians in his school and and was persecuted significantly persecuted for his faith in Christ That's the pastor there on the front row beautiful little church and just dear dear people

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This is this is another church. I preached at this was outside of Kiev if memory serves and There is a lot of steps going up to this church and I told the the guys there

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I think I can I think I can do it. It might take me a little bit They said no, no, no, we'll get get you a chair. We'll take care of you so they got this chair and I just sat down in it and and they lugged me up all the all not only all the way up the stairs, but right into the door and Just Dear brothers,

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I could not have possibly been more helpful I mean just anything that I needed at all.

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They were they were just right there and just so warm. So so gracious after the service, this is three young ladies that came up and They spoke

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English and they were telling me just how much they had learned and how grateful and even in Ukraine, you know

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The word of faith movement the prosperity gospel was very Prominent there.

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It's it's had a unfortunately a massive impact and it's swayed a lot of people but they were busily taking notes throughout my entire time and learned a lot this is a another lady that came up to me and At this time my translator had stepped away.

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He was talking with someone else And so when this lady came up, I couldn't really understand her. Well, I couldn't understand her and she couldn't understand me, but She wanted to give me that gift that painting or picture there that that she has she herself

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Made and she gave that to me just as a an expression of her appreciation and what a just my heart just breaks for these phone, you know,

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I I look at these pictures and I Find myself wondering What are they doing right now?

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Where where are they? Are they okay? And I don't know. I Just I don't know

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I Emailed Greg white. He's the head of the seminary there in urban or open

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Bible seminary in Kiev and Emailed him a week or so ago and asked him what they were gonna do and and he told me they're staying put

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I've not heard since then. I emailed again a few hours ago. I haven't heard back yet. So I don't you know,

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I'm there they were gonna stay put and Continue the work as best they could of course this was before Open hostilities broke out.

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This was several days before so I I don't know I don't know what how they're doing right now, but Dear dear people and this is at the seminary not at the seminary itself

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But one of the facilities that they rented for the for this purpose But this was the main conference and you can see

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John MacArthur. There was skyped in he preached it was live and The gentleman there's the translator.

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His name was Nick and He translated for John and for me as well

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In fact what I'll just play a short little video of this and there's two gentlemen up on the stage that's

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Greg white to your left and Nick the translator to the right

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So it's my personal privilege to have you with us this evening it's evening here for us morning for you

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Thankful to the Lord for you for your ministry for your faithfulness in my history and to us

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So it's your your time now Nick will be your translator.

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So I want to thank you Thank you, thank you,

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I just wait to get hooked up, okay, I'm ready Translation Yeah, the sound is a little bit difficult, but I'll try not to interrupt you in the process here

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Okay. Thank you. I Just want to say greetings to the brothers and sisters.

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They're in Mackey. Yes Yes, I should say pretty good

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I MacArthur was better better prepared than I because he apparently knew at least a phrase or two in Ukrainian I did not when

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I got there. So it was a good way to friend. I kind of make a connection there. So Just dear dear sweet people.

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This is a this is a gentleman. I met named Manny and Manny is originally from Iran But lives in Ukraine now and he came up to me and he told me that he said

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Justin my My background my profession is video Production video editing and video production and he said

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I hope it doesn't upset you I said, I hope you're not mad at me but he said I took the liberty of taking your teaching and translating it and subtitling it into Farsi and Another language, maybe two other languages and he somehow managed to get this to get a lot of my teaching disseminated into Tajikistan Kazakhstan and Iran and I don't know how he did that but he did and he said

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I hope you're not mad at me for just doing it I was like, oh brother No, indeed. Praise the

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Lord. I was so not mad at all I was just humbled and blown away by that.

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Of course, so, you know, there's not religious freedom Certainly not in Iran, and I'm not sure about Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.

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It probably limited if it if there is But oh just so many dear people.

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Here's just a couple more pictures of different churches. I was in different parts of Ukraine Back to the main conference.

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So this is a picture of Phil Johnson Talking with a Baptist pastor there in Ukraine, and I took the liberty of filming just a little bit of their conversation

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But I thought this might encourage you. Listen, listen to what this dear Ukrainian pastor has to say

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Very glad that here at the conference. There's no pastors that are in Here When I taught, he taught in the seminary after he graduated.

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I taught in the seminary for a little while. Because I became a preacher of Reformed theology and that's why

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I met him here in the seminary. And here I meet some of his, that he had as students.

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They came to me with tears in their eyes and said, yes, we are here and we agree with Dr.

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Johnson. What a dear brother, what a dear brother, of course,

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I have no idea What he's doing now, where he is, how he's doing, any of those things

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Dear friends, many of you have heard me say before that you have to get out of the United States Before you can really appreciate what we have here.

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For those of you who are watching here in the United States, by God's grace I know there are people who watch this channel all over the world.

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But for those of you who are Americans, you really have to get out of the United States before you can appreciate

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What we have here, the freedoms that we have, the conveniences that we have Because most of the world is not like this at all, not like the

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United States and we're losing those freedoms, granted We're losing them, losing them rather briskly too, but we take so so much for granted here

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This is a picture That I took. This is a very large statue

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In a museum in Ukraine and this is the, I believe it's called the Motherland Statue.

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This statue is over 200 feet tall. The perspective there, the angle kind of, you can't really tell just how gigantic this statue is

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It's just absolutely enormous but this was erected in the 1970s,

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I believe and originally conceived as a World War two statue, but then it kind of morphed into a

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Statue to communism, to the Soviet Union. In fact, you can't really tell it but on the shield there that that Statue is holding is the hammer and sickle so an ode to the

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Soviet Union One of the things I noticed in Ukraine, because Ukraine used to be a part of the

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Soviet Union, is that there are no ramps Anywhere, there's no ramps for handicapped people, steps everywhere you go, all the businesses, the restaurants, there are steps even when

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I landed at the airport and Got off the little airplane on the tarmac, there wasn't a jet bridge

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You just, you know, walk down the steps and on the tarmac and they put my scooter together for me and so I got my scooter and I motored my

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Scooter to the airport. Well to get in the airport, I had to go over step and So it just steps everywhere.

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Well, that's that's a throwback to the communist days because under communism

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Handicapped people were throwaways If you couldn't contribute to the collective

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Then you were just seen as a as a drag on society You were you were a hindrance and so there was no provision for you and handicapped people were either put into you know, some kind of a horrific hellhole of a home or Guild, you know if you couldn't contribute to society if you just you're just a drag so it got rid of you

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So there's no provisions there and Ukraine, of course is after the Soviet Union collapsed.

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It became its own country And and so the lack of ramps and whatnot is it's not a reflection on the

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Ukrainian people and them not caring about Handicapped folks. It's a reflection on communism and how they you know, their country used to be

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And so as we were watching the news today, you see Vladimir Putin President of Russia who would very much like to put the old

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Soviet Union back together and longs for those communist days and you just see the brutality of Communism you see the brutality of people when their

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God is the state that's That's what people do to one another when your

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God is the state. That's human life just has no value So it's it's heartbreaking to see what is going on right now but Let me also say that one and many of you have heard me say this as well it can be discouraging to look at the broad visible spectrum of Christianity today all of the compromise all of the

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Dilution of truth all of the being blown about by winds of doctrine by the trickery of men

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The moral failings all of this stuff. It's it can be easy to get discouraged when you see that but there

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One of the great blessings that has been mine as an evangelist is to go to all these different countries and see good churches led by good men

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Solid flocks dear dear brothers and sisters in Christ who love Christ love his word love the truth or committed to it

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They love to worship and These churches are all over the world and they're in Ukraine Just ask that you please please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ right now in Ukraine Yes, pray for their safety pray for their families pray for their

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Physical well -being but also in this time pray For them to stand strong in Christ pray for them spiritually pray for their witness pray that these trials that you and I just Hey, we can't

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I can't relate to it. I know it's going on, but I've never I've never had to go through anything like that But pray for their witness pray for their testimony pray that through this

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Horrific thing that is going on That Their light will shine bright and they will have opportunities to share the gospel

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Who knows maybe they'll even have opportunities to share the gospel to some Russian troops, you know, it's uh, just pray

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Ultimately pray that God's will be done that Christ would be glorified that these precious saints brothers and sisters would be strengthened

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And would lean hard on Christ right now Okay, thank you dear ones until our next time together

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May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the love of God and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit Be with you all