March 1, 2022 Show with Mykola Leliovskyi on “An Assessment of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine from a Christian Eyewitness & Ukranian Citizen”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and to those listening all around the world via internet at ironsharpensirenradio .com,

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this is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this first day of March 2022.

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And as the world watches their television sets with bated breath, as the

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Russians have invaded Ukraine, and a 40 -mile convoy of Russians is now in the

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Kiev area, and the world is wondering what is about to occur, we have a very timely program.

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We have somebody in Kiev, Ukraine, who is our guest today.

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I'm so honored to have Mykola Lelievsky, also known as Nikolai, and also known by my co -host as Nick.

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He is professor of biblical theology and hermeneutics at Grace Bible Seminary in Kiev, Ukraine, and member of the leadership team at Grace Bible Church, also in Kiev, and we are going to be addressing an assessment of the

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Russian invasion of Ukraine from a Christian eyewitness and Ukrainian citizen, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Mykola Lelievsky.

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Thank you, sir, it's my privilege to be here. And I am so delighted that thus far our sovereign

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Lord has protected you from harm and injury, and we are praying, and I'm sure my audience is praying, that that will be the case long after this program is over.

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We also have the honor of having a good friend of Mykola, or as he calls him,

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Nick. We have Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries as our co -host today, especially because he has made many trips to Ukraine as an adjunct professor at Grace Bible Seminary in Kiev, and it's my honor and privilege to have you back on the program,

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Dr. James R. White. Well, it's great to be with you, and of course the background there is you had contacted me and said, hey, who do

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I get hold of in Ukraine, do you know anybody? And poor Nick, he's stuck with me as one of his

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American friends, and so there you go. But I'm ecstatic to get to see,

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I can actually see Nick right now, and the irony here is the last time that Nick and I were together, and he was translating for me, we weren't in Ukraine.

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We were deep inside Russia. We were in a city called Samara. I believe that was

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January of 19, if I recall correctly. And we were teaching at a – what was the relationship of that church?

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Was that an extension seminary? What was that? Yeah, it's a training center part of TMI.

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Right, right. But Dr. White, we should be careful with giving out all the coordinates for the

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Russian government, because you are very well aware of the big brother in the

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United States, but – I'm sure. Well, I'm probably never going to get to – I'm never going to fly again, so there ain't nothing to worry about me, that's unfortunate.

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But so many things have happened since then. We didn't see this one really coming, though we probably should have,

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I assume, in light of what's been going on. But just so everybody has a background, the school there, you've been teaching hermeneutics theology, and that school grew out of the work of TMAI, the

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Master's Seminary, things like that, and associated with the church there. And so the church has been going about how long now?

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So, actually, some Ukrainians, once the wall came down in 1991, even before that, got a hold of John MacArthur books in Russian, and they really liked them, so they asked him to send some professors to train

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Ukrainian men to exposit the word. And so in 1992, he sent several missionary families, and one of the missionary families started a church.

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Well, first, they were helping out with a church plant in the 90s, and then in the early 2000s, they started a church in my neighborhood, and I grew up in a non -Christian home, never met an evangelical

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Christian, and that was the church that God brought me to.

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I heard the gospel there for the first time when I was 15 years old in 2002. And so the

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Holy Spirit convicted me of my sin and regenerated me and gave me repentance and faith, and so I've been a part of that church since 2002.

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Praise God. Now, I was wondering if the situation over there in Ukraine, with the

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Russians invading as they are, how much there might be similarity as we experienced here in America during the

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Civil War. And what I mean by that is I'm assuming, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm assuming you have friends and brothers and sisters in Christ who are

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Russian, and it will be an interesting situation, to say the least, when you have this battle going on there where you may have people on both sides of the battles being people that know each other.

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Am I far off from that? Yeah, it's really a tragedy.

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It feels almost like a civil war because nowadays, you know, with the

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Soviet Union spreading peoples all across its territory, it's such a mix that it's hard to tell who's really ethnically

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Russian, who's really Ukrainian. Everybody has relatives on both sides of the border.

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And so we've always considered each other as, we called each other brotherly nations, and so obviously

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Russia was always the big brother because they're bigger and more powerful, and they kind of always looked down on us as a little brother.

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But nonetheless, there's always been a lot of respect, love, support between the two nations.

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And so to see a brother fighting against a brother is just heartbreaking.

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But I guess Ukrainians have really been aware that the situation has changed since year 2014 when

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Russia did not act in a very brotherly way by annexing Crimea and then instigating separatist terrorists in the eastern part of Ukraine.

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And so ever since then, there's been much conflict and alienation.

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And unfortunately, it has affected the church. But that's the part that, you know, you could expect that in the world.

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But unfortunately, politics have really, really affected the church. And there's been a lot of turmoil because of that in the

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Russian -speaking community. The Russian -speaking evangelical community is very, very small. And so what happens really affects it.

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And are there Russians who are students at Grace Bible Seminary there in Kyiv? We have several students who are online students.

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They're not able to attend in person because ever since 2014, there's basically no transportation connections between Russia and Ukraine.

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All flights, all direct flights between the countries are forbidden. And yeah, so it's really hard for Russians to get into the country and vice versa.

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But we do have several students from Belarus. But Belarus has its own problems with the elections and then the oppression and persecution of the political opposition of the government and those borders closing down.

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So yeah, so unfortunately, things have been getting really hard to do ministry together.

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But, you know, we tried to do everything that we could using internet and things like that.

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So God has been gracious in those ways. But right now, it's hard to tell what's going to happen in the future.

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Now, you look outwardly very calm, cool and collected. You don't look like you're frightened about anything or anxious or nervous.

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That may be just an exterior way that you are expressing yourself.

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I don't know what's going on in your heart and mind. But if you care to share as much as you feel comfortable sharing about what you are going through mentally and emotionally in regard to what is happening around you right now and what may happen in the very near future.

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Sure, sure. Several people have asked me that and they said, am I afraid?

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And I usually say that, honestly, I don't really feel afraid. But it's not because I'm so brave or anything like that.

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I think it's just because, number one, it's still very hard to believe that this is actually happening. Most people that I know are still in shock that this is actually happening.

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And then the other thing is, I think, you know, I just haven't really faced any severity of the war.

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I haven't had any firsthand experience with that. So it's I still I watch it on the news. And in Kiev, there's really in my area, my area has been pretty quiet.

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I mean, we do hear artillery, our Ukrainian artillery trying to keep the opposing army at bay.

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So there's artillery shots fired all throughout the day and night. But other than that, you know, there's just been one rocket that has been shot down in our area and just landed kind of in the field.

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And a part of it landed in a parking lot that broke some windows. But in our area, there hasn't been really anything, although a lot of people are either sleeping in their bathtubs or sleeping in makeshift bomb shelters, which are basically basements of these big apartment complexes.

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So but I think another another reason is also that it's a great opportunity to practice what

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I believe. It's a great opportunity to trust God. The Bible clearly says that God is in control of all things.

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The Bible clearly says that God has a good intention despite any evil intention that any man may have.

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The Bible clearly says that God works all things for the praise of his own glory.

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And so even though some might not understand and see how all of that is working out in time, but, you know, the

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Bible does say that God God uses these things to glorify himself. So it's a great time to to put those things into practice in a very, very real and horrible situation.

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God is good. God is good always. So so far, none of your close friends or family members have been harmed.

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We have I have friends and there are several. So the professors from our school, they're all spread all over Ukraine, and some of them are in the area just north of Kiev, Chernihiv, where there's been a lot of battles.

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That's one of the main areas that the Russian army is trying to advance. And on Sunday, actually, Saturday night, our professor, who's a pastor of the

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Central Baptist Church there, told us that a rocket hit the side of the building there and the roof collapsed a little bit.

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So they weren't able to hold a service there on Sunday morning. But now there's been they're just staying the whole time they're staying in, again, a makeshift bomb shelter because there's been heavy, heavy bombing.

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And unfortunately, some of his some of his family, his brother in law actually was trying to rush his wife and kids into the cellar in his house and was hit by a rocket and died.

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And he wasn't a believer. So we're praying that the

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Lord would bring comfort to the family and also use it to save those who are not saved and help them think about eternity and their relationship with God.

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Now, before the program, you and Dr. White were having a little reunion and having a good time speaking with one another.

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But you were talking about your readiness to a degree to use firearms to defend yourself and your fellow citizens.

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I mean, that is something that you are prepared to do. I know that legally you are you must remain there, at least right now as a as a young man to you cannot leave the country, as I understand, as women and children can, because you must remain and in some way defend

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Ukraine if necessary. If you want to tell us about that. Yeah.

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So as I said before we started, since the president, first, first, the government, they announced that there's going to be an emergency situation in the country.

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Now it's wartime. So there's wartime laws that has affected everything that's going on.

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And there's some restrictions on some freedoms. And one is the freedom to leave the country. So all males aged 18 to 60 are required to stay and are subject to be drafted into the armed forces.

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And so far, the area where I am and just as far as I know so far, there hasn't been any like large scale drafting into the army.

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And mostly they just called up reserves troops because Ukraine does have a sizable army.

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And so they've called the reserved troops and there's been a lot of people that have volunteered.

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And so they have they have the military itself. And then they have like they call it territorial defense volunteers who are who are helping in some capacity.

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And so there's been there's been hundreds of thousands of people signing up. And so they have they haven't had the need to to draft people in.

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But yeah, I mean, this is my home. I don't have anywhere else to go. And so I'm trusting and I'm praying that it doesn't come to that because obviously taking another person's life.

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I've never done that, and I can't imagine what that would do to anyone, especially knowing that most of those people are unbelievers.

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And, you know, it's one thing for a Christian to die because we're Christian to live as Christ and to die as gain.

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And, you know, our citizenship is in heaven. Ultimately, it doesn't matter who's in charge,

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Russia, Ukraine or Putin or Zelensky, you know, God is our king.

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And that is the one before whom we will stand in the end. So so those who don't know him, you know, it's the consequences for their passing that are much more severe.

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But, you know, God, like I said, I believe in the sovereignty of God. And if God brings about those circumstances,

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I trust that he will he will give me the wisdom and he will give me the courage to do what what

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I'm supposed to do. One thing I want to say before I forget is that I first became aware of my

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Cola's existence when somebody contacted me and said,

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Chris, do you know that your comedy spoof song of Martin Luther, the great reformer, is on YouTube and it was put on there by a

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Ukrainian guy? And I remember seeing your name and I can't remember if I contacted you or not to find out how you discovered that must have been your connection with James White, I'm assuming.

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Do you remember how you even. Yes, you are correct. Yes. So I've I've known

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I've known about you for a while from Dr. White. I've seen you organize and moderate some of his debates back in the day.

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And I think Dr. White has shared that with me and you did such a great job doing that.

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And there was we're celebrating we're celebrating the Reformation Day at the church and I played that file and more people wanted to get access to it because they enjoyed it so much.

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And so I put it up on YouTube. Now, how did you first become in contact?

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So if you haven't seen it, if you haven't seen if you haven't seen Mr. Arnzen's rendition of,

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I guess, the great reformer or the great pretender by the fires, but the great reformer,

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I highly recommend you Google it. You will thoroughly enjoy it. So how did you first get in contact with Dr.

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White? So I remember that a team of our professors went to Berlin to get training in New Testament textual criticism.

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And the professor was supposed to be Dr. James White. I haven't really heard much about Dr.

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White until then. But I knew that he was an apologist that is used by the

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Lord in many ways and reaching out to different groups of people. So it was a one week intensive seminar.

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Like, I don't know how Dr. White pulled it off having traveled across the world, but he taught textual criticism from early in the morning until basically evening or late afternoon.

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And unfortunately, at that time, I didn't get a lot of I didn't get a chance to interact with him much because I was sitting in a different room behind a glass wall interpreting simultaneously for him.

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But I've really enjoyed the class. And by the end of it, I've asked I've asked another missionary who was in Ukraine who actually is my pastor.

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His name is Greg White. If we could invite Dr. White to Ukraine, because Dr. White has referred to teaching historical theology or church history classes before.

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And we had a class that was supposed to come up like that on the schedule. And so I thought it would be great if Dr. White would agree.

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And Dr. White very graciously agreed to come to Ukraine and teach at our school.

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And since then, he has agreed multiple times to graciously come and teach church history and apologetics.

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He's done seminars on different subjects as well. And actually, in 2014,

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Dr. White, when you came, that's when this whole thing started. And maybe Dr. White can share some of his experience when we had our revolution and the president escaped.

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And the city looked actually very much like it looked back then with the barricades and people walking around the streets with guns.

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And so so, yeah, you were here when when we had that revolution. Well, as I recall, you and Greg picked me up at the airport.

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And I think right about the time I landed, the State Department said, don't go to Ukraine.

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So it's like, well, great, wonderful. And so that was the first the first time that I got to teach there.

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That was not the time, though, the one that's most memorable for me. I mean, going downtown during the unrest and stuff like that, we were crazy enough to go eat at TGI Fridays while the revolution was taking place, you know, two blocks down the road.

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And we had a crazy guy come running in and yelling slogans or something while we were eating our very unhealthy fried food at TGI Fridays and having very interesting discussions about commentaries on Hebrews, by the way.

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But we'll leave that one there. But the the one that I remember most clearly was

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I think I was doing the Trinity there and we started having electrical issues that the power would go out.

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And I think maybe one of the nuclear power plants was having an issue or something. And how far we how far we were from Chernobyl is only like two hours, right?

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Yeah. So having having having nuclear power problems in Ukraine is a little nerve wracking.

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But I have a I have a picture I love of us in the in the classroom. And the only light is from a few candles, but mainly from the glowing screens of the laptops.

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Everybody's laptop was on. And that's that was the light that we used. But Chris, you need to understand something about something that Nick mentioned earlier.

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And I don't don't let me forget, Nick, I want to ask you about the Orthodox Church and what's going on in Ukraine with the

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Russian Orthodox and all the rest of that stuff. But one thing that Nick didn't mention that I think people need to understand is when we first met, like I said, he sat in the nursery so there because there was a glass window so he could see me.

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And he's got headsets on. I'm wearing multiple microphones so he can hear me in the other room.

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And then the Ukrainian students have headsets on. And so this is like the

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UN. So this was not stop start translation where I'd say something stop, then he translates it, so on and so forth.

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This was contemporaneous, continuous, live translation. And that's what they have at the

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UN. But my understanding is they only ask those people to translate for like 30 minutes because it is so hard to listen to someone speaking and translate that live that, you know, after after a certain number of hours, your brain just starts to leak out of your ears.

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And so here I am teaching on textual criticism. That is a extremely technical subject.

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There is all sorts of technical language involved with it. And I was teaching for eight hours.

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And Nick was translating all of that for the Ukrainian students. And I at that point,

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I'm like, why don't they like this man? I mean, I mean, they're abusing this poor young man in the other room.

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I really honestly felt really, really bad, but was immediately just incredibly impressed.

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And then I guess then, Nick, after that, that's when you started listening to the dividing line all the time, because every time

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I'd come over, you had been listening. We used to have a streaming service called the Wayback Machine. And I think you've heard every one of my debates and multiple times on almost all the dividing lines for which

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I have to apologize for having ruined your life that way. But what that did was anyone who has ever worked with translators.

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So Nick and I have done both kinds of translation. So he's done the live thing. But most of the time, like when

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I'm preaching in a church service or something, you can't do it that way. So it's stop start.

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And anyone who's a preacher, you've got to understand that's really hard for most of us to stop.

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You're getting your head of steam up. You've got a cadence that you're used to. And stopping and starting is really, really, really hard to do.

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And you have to trust your translator. I've had some bad translators in various parts of the world where we were just constantly fumbling over each other and talking over each other.

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And there just wasn't a connection. And it really, man, by the time you get done speaking, you're just like, oh,

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Lord, why did I even try doing this? But when, especially the last few times, whenever I'd be having

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Nick translate, especially in class, if he was in class, what would happen is

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I'd say something, and then he'd go 30 seconds longer than I went.

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Now, in most instances, I'd be very nervous about that. Um, because I don't know what's going on.

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But with Nick, I just learned to realize he had enough of the background of like some of the students and stuff like that, that he would know that my answer would have been better understood if I had included this information.

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And since he's listening to me all the time, he's just filling in the blanks. Right. In other words, you were worried about how some interpreter might be embellishing something that you didn't agree with.

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Right, right, right. But there is one person in the world that I can trust to get that right.

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And we're talking to him right now. And that's one of the greatest compliments I can pay to anybody is

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Nick would fill in all the rest of that stuff. And so it was but you just got to understand anyone who can translate sexual criticism for eight hours.

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Nick is if you're seeing the picture of him right now, Chris, Nick is actually only 21. So that gives you an idea how we aged him in that one in that one class.

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But no, that was that was a great opportunity. And they're doing great work over there.

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And so I've I've really missed getting to be over there for quite some time now.

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Who knows what the future is going to hold? But yeah, it was it was it was quite quite the experience.

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And Nick also translated my little book on grieving. And I know,

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Chris, you have appreciated that book. He translated that into Russian and then arranged for me to do a sort of mini conference presentation type thing there in European on on the subject of grieving when when the book came out.

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So there's been all sorts of stuff like that. And it's I'll tell you,

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Chris, you and I are close the same age. And that means we're old enough to be Nick's parents.

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And you and I grew up ducking under our desks in school.

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And Russia was the great evil. And, you know, all the rest of that stuff, if our listeners are unfamiliar with that, that was what we were in grammar when

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James and I were in grammar school. That was a atomic bomb drill.

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Right, right. Yeah. For us to get under our desks as if this desk would really do anything to protect.

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Yeah, well, it's just for flying glass, not for much else. But the point was that and Nick will tell you at the at the school where I would teach, there was a chapel service.

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And the first time that I was sitting next to Nick, the first time that we sang hymns, and I'd recognize the tunes, but I wouldn't necessarily recognize the language because as Nick knows,

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I do really well with German, but Russian in one ear out the other.

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I know Bulga. I've got that's about the only word that I've been able to stick with.

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It just I it does not stick with me at all, but I recognize the tunes.

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And to hear those voices in Russian praising our savior and to sit there thinking about how

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I had been raised and never really thought much about my fellow believers in those places and then to be there with them.

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It was it was a life. It's a it's a world view changing thing when you experience stuff like that.

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I'm very thankful that I had if I never get to travel again, at least I had those years when

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I traveled all over the world and was able to experience that type of stuff and to and to realize that Christ Church is the one thing that the kingdom transcends everything else.

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All these other kingdoms will go away and will be forgotten, but that's the one thing that transcends everything else.

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And so that was that was really something to to realize. And we are going to our first station break, folks.

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If my guests could remember to make themselves while we go on a commercial break. And if anyone has a question for my cola,

30:56

Liliovsky, also known as Nikolai, which is the Russian version of Nicola and also known as Nick by our co -host,

31:06

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who knows my cola very well. If you have a question for my cola, send it to Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

31:33

Don't go away. We'll be right back with my cola, Liliovsky, and an assessment of the

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Russian invasion of Ukraine from a Christian eyewitness and Ukrainian citizen.

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end from which we strive is the glory of God.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

40:58

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today is

41:04

Mykola Liljewski, also known as Nikolai in Russian, and also known as Nick by our guest, or should

41:12

I say our co -host, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. And we are discussing an assessment of the

41:19

Russian invasion of Ukraine from a Christian eyewitness and Ukrainian citizen.

41:25

If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

41:32

And give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

41:38

USA. And we already have a number of people waiting from around the world to have their questions asked and answered by you,

41:46

Mykola. But before we do that, just out of curiosity, why did you use the

41:51

Russian version of your name, which is Nikolai, on the website for Grace Bible Seminary?

41:58

Just curious about that. Well, actually,

42:04

I grew up speaking Russian. My family, well, part of my family is

42:10

Russian. And so I actually learned Ukrainian only when I went to school.

42:16

And Russian is still very, very widespread in Ukraine. All Ukrainians understand

42:23

Russian and are able to speak it. So it's just Russian language is my mother tongue.

42:29

And I still use mostly Russian. So that's what

42:38

I'm used to. Okay, I was just curious. And of course, some of our listeners may be wondering why sometimes

42:44

I have went from pronouncing the capital city Kiev, and sometimes

42:50

I say Kiev, just like the reporters are doing on television. Mykola told me that Kiev is the

42:57

Ukrainian pronunciation, right? Right, right. Don't forget that people can't hear you shaking your head up and down.

43:10

So you actually have to verbally say something. Yeah, there are slight differences in the languages.

43:21

And so in Ukrainian, it's pronounced Kiev. And since Ukraine is making a big point about using

43:28

Ukrainian language internationally, the transliteration is Kiev with the

43:33

K -Y -I -V. But before Russian, all the names of places and things were in Russian.

43:42

And so everybody's gotten used to Kiev, or as Americans say it, Kiev. And so, but yeah,

43:50

I mean, if you're going to be talking to a patriot of Ukraine person who's really sensitive about those things, yeah, they'll explain to you that it's

43:59

Kiev, not Kiev. Okay. And Dr. White, before the break, you had alluded to a question you wanted to ask

44:07

Mykola about the Russian Orthodox Church. Well, obviously, in Putin's long, rambling speech that he gave at the beginning of the invasion, there was a lot of discussion of the fact that, well, really, you can't separate the history of Ukraine and Russia.

44:36

And historically, a lot of those boundaries just didn't even exist. And then you've got the

44:41

Orthodox Church. And I was looking at some pictures from the last time you and I were in Ukraine together, where you and I went to visit the war memorial.

44:54

And you remember, we got off the train at some point and visited an

45:00

Orthodox Church. And we were looking around, and the choir was singing, as I recall, when we were there.

45:09

And it was beautiful, obviously. But anyways, you have the

45:15

Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and then you've got Russian Orthodox. And so you have

45:20

Orthodox battling Orthodox right now. And my understanding is, and I haven't been able to follow this, and I don't know if you've followed it either, but there is something going on between the

45:31

Ukrainians and the Russians, as far as the Orthodox Church is concerned, as well as far as authority issues or lineage issues or something along those lines.

45:44

How is the Church? Because, I mean, that is sort of, well, explain to folks, in Ukraine, you have the

45:55

Orthodox Church, but you also have a tremendous amount of secularism, too. So how does the average

46:02

Ukrainian relate to things like that? Yeah, it's very interesting.

46:08

And I have to give a brief history lesson so that it would all make sense. So, you know,

46:14

Kiev is a very ancient city. It's much older than Moscow. So I guess you can separate the history up until the formation of the modern, or even the formation of the

46:26

Russian state. Because Kiev was founded in the early

46:32

Middle Ages, and it was obviously pagan. And then in a few hundred years, they wanted to establish trade relations with Byzantine.

46:42

And Byzantine said, we don't do trade with pagans. And so King Vladimir, he said, okay, let's become

46:52

Christian. And so according to the legend, or the tradition, he sent envoys to Rome and to Constantinople to decide which branch of Christianity he was going to choose,

47:03

Roman Catholicism or Western Christianity, or what is now known as Eastern Orthodoxy.

47:10

And according to the legend, or tradition, however you want to call it, sounds more legendary to me than reliable, the envoys went to Constantinople and saw

47:19

Saint Sophia and said, wow, surely God must live here. And if you've been to Istanbul and you've seen it, it is very, very impressive.

47:28

No doubt. I've seen many Orthodox churches, but I've never seen one that big.

47:34

And, you know, if you know history at that time, Rome wasn't very impressive.

47:39

And the Pope lived, his residence wasn't that big. So in 988,

47:48

King Vladimir baptized Kiev Rus. So that state at that time was referred to as Kiev Rus.

47:54

And that's where the name Russia comes from. And that's why oftentimes you hear people refer to the

48:02

Slavic, the Eastern Slavic peoples, in particular, Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians as just Russian people, people of Rus, because it all originated in a state, ancient, or not really ancient, but a medieval state called

48:19

Kiev Rus, Kiev as the capital. And so since then, religion has really been a huge part of national identity.

48:28

Unfortunately, the brand of Christianity was obviously not faithful to the gospel at that point,

48:37

I would say. And it became very syncretistic because, you know, what happened, he took the citizens of Kiev and he threw them in the river and he baptized them.

48:46

And so now, you know, we're all Christians because we're members of the state because he wanted to do trade relations with Byzantium. And you know how well that works out.

48:52

So a lot of paganism, a lot of traditions were embedded into our blend of Christianity.

48:59

And even now, you can still hear people use so many pagan things in explaining just kind of popular, popular theology, because obviously there's the official

49:10

Orthodox theology that is somewhere in the church.

49:16

But, you know, the people, the popular Orthodox theology, unfortunately, is very, very pagan.

49:23

And in any case, so the state existed until 1244, when the

49:29

Mongols invaded. And basically, since 1244, Ukrainians have been enslaved to different kinds of people groups until basically 1991, when

49:39

Ukraine again became independent. So last year was the 30 -year independence of Ukraine. It was a big celebration.

49:45

And so because of that, each time an enemy would invade Ukraine, they would bring their own religion.

49:52

The Mongols obviously brought Islam. And then the Western, the big

49:58

Western empires, the Lithuanian empire, the Polish empire, the Austro -Hungarian empire, you know, they brought

50:04

Catholicism. And so we have a very interesting situation in the West right now with the—I don't know if people know—but the

50:10

Greek Catholic Church. It's only in Ukraine, and they are under the auspices of the

50:16

Roman Catholic Church. They answer to the Pope, but their liturgy and their attire and their style is very

50:23

Eastern. Yes, I actually know someone here. I know someone in the United States who's a part of that.

50:29

In fact, James, you might remember Greg Lloyd. Yeah. Greg Lloyd was the traditionalist

50:38

Catholic who really started the Great Debate series where James White was debating

50:44

Catholics for a decade on Long Island. And he challenged me at a party to find someone to debate gerimatotics.

50:56

And I know that the church that he is a part of is also nicknamed the

51:02

Eastern Right Catholics, and they have some other name as well. But they use Eastern Orthodox liturgy, but they're under the auspices of the

51:09

Roman Catholic Church. But anyway, sorry I interrupted you there, Michael. Yeah, that's very interesting that there would be people in the

51:19

States who are a part of that. But that's what we have in Ukraine. And so religion has always been a big rallying cry, a big part of national identity.

51:30

And obviously, during communist times, we were an atheistic state and all forms of religion were persecuted.

51:38

And my mom and dad met at the university to study scientific communism because they wanted to be part of the

51:47

Soviet propaganda mechanism because that was a very cushy job back in the day. But yeah, so when

51:54

Ukraine became independent in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine mostly became part of the

52:03

Eastern or Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchy.

52:09

If you know a little bit about the history, the Eastern Orthodox Church does not have a pope, per se.

52:17

They believe in the equality of the different churches, the different patriarchates, as they refer to them, the

52:26

Constantinople Patriarchate, the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the Moscow Patriarchate. Then there's the Armenian Church and the

52:32

Coptic Church and things like that. So they're really upset that the pope really tries to say that he is in charge.

52:43

But anyways, I would leave it to Dr. White to explain the Armenian equals and all of those things.

52:51

Dr. White can do that when we return from our midway break. If my guests will please mute themselves again.

52:58

Sorry, folks, but please be patient with us. The midway break is always a bit longer. Use this time wisely. Please write down as much of the information as you can that our advertisers provide so that you can respond to them, which will enable us to remain on the air for a longer future, since the only way we can survive and remain on the air is through our advertisers.

53:18

We'll be right back with more of Mykola Leviosky, and I know I butchered at that time, but we'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when you're making a purchase. Before I return to my guest, Mykola Leliovsky and our co -host,

01:08:38

Dr. James R. White, as we discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine that's happening as we speak,

01:08:45

I just want to remind our listeners that if you love this show and don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:08:54

click support, then click, click to donate now. We are in urgent need of your help. When we had to go on a long hiatus, when we were relocating our studio from one part of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to the other, we were airing reruns for quite a while, and it seems to have affected dramatically the giving from our audience.

01:09:15

It has plummeted to an all -new low, although there have been wonderful folks out there who have been maintaining their generous support, and there also have been some wonderful new sponsors of the show, but we are in urgent need of your help.

01:09:29

Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now. And you can also mail in a check if you prefer.

01:09:37

A physical address will appear on the screen as well when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:09:43

And last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful church like the one where our guest today,

01:09:52

Mykola Leliavsky, serves on the leadership team that's Grace Bible Church in Kiev, Ukraine, or like Apologia Church in the

01:10:03

Phoenix, Arizona area where our co -host Dr. James R. White is serving as one of the pastors, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful church like one of those churches,

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I have lists of churches all over the planet Earth and may be able to help you find one no matter where you live.

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So send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put

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I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Mykola Leliavsky on an assessment of the

01:10:33

Russian invasion of Ukraine from a Christian eyewitness and Ukrainian citizen. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:10:39

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. And Mykola, were you finished giving us some of that historical background regarding the conflicts in the

01:10:50

Eastern Orthodox Church in Russia and Ukraine? Almost, almost.

01:10:56

I was just getting to the point that Dr. White brought up that since Ukraine became an independent country, it has primarily been under the authority of the

01:11:08

Moscow patriarchy. But when the war happened, there was an outcry that a lot of money is going to Russia.

01:11:19

The Christians in Ukraine, the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine are supporting the war because basically in Russia, the church, and even in Ukraine, the church is viewed synonymously with the state, the government.

01:11:34

And in fact, in Ukrainian law, no other church is allowed to refer to itself legally as a church except for the

01:11:42

Orthodox Church. Every other church is referred to, can legally be called a religious community, religious community.

01:11:49

So we put our name, religious community, Grace Bible Church. That's the name of our religious community. But as a legal entity, as a legal entity or only a religious community, only the

01:11:58

Orthodox Church is a church. But because of the outcry, because of the conflict in Crimea and the war in the

01:12:07

East and all of that, Ukraine was able to use politics to gain an autonomous state or autokifalia as it's called in Greek, self -head, the autonomous state or autonomous rule.

01:12:24

And so now Ukraine has its own Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which took away more than a third of the churches that belong to the

01:12:35

Moscow patriarchy. And so there are two different Orthodox Church. Yeah, that was a big deal.

01:12:41

And Russia has broken all communication with the, as he humbly refers to himself, patriarch of the universe,

01:12:48

Bartholomew of Constantinople. And so, yeah, so if you were in the...

01:12:54

How dare they take Dr. White's title away from him? Yeah.

01:13:07

So religiously, you know, for Russians and Ukrainians, Eastern Orthodoxy has always been part of their national identity.

01:13:16

And therefore, the relationships between the states reflect the relationships between the churches.

01:13:22

And so the churches, obviously, the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchy did not support that decision.

01:13:32

And there still is a certain amount of churches in Ukraine that are loyal to the Moscow Patriarchy.

01:13:38

And there's been a lot of turmoil because of that. But right now, most of the

01:13:45

Eastern Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, they're autonomous. And unfortunately, just even though it's a big part of the culture, most

01:14:03

Eastern Orthodox and in Ukraine, over 80 % of the people would say that they are

01:14:10

Eastern Orthodox or Russian Orthodox or Ukrainian Orthodox. Now, it's very nominal.

01:14:16

People don't read their Bibles. People, well, the church doesn't encourage that. People attend church maybe just once a year on Christmas or Easter.

01:14:27

And so most people are very illiterate in terms of the Bible and things like that.

01:14:34

And, you know, the Orthodox Church teaches that if you want to understand who God is, and if you understand man's relationship with God, and you can understand salvation, all that stuff, you have to participate in the liturgy.

01:14:45

It's very mystical. It's not like the Western Catholic Church, which is very, there's a big focus on doctrine and writing things down and making catechisms and things like that.

01:14:57

The Eastern Orthodox Church is very mystical. It's very, very ritualistic.

01:15:03

And so there's a great need for the gospel in Ukraine. And if I may add, since the fall of the

01:15:14

Soviet Union, there's been a revival in Ukraine.

01:15:20

There's, Ukraine is called the Bible Belt of Europe. There's more believers in Ukraine and Romania than in all of the

01:15:28

European countries and Russia put together. Wow. There's, I think, three times more, there's three times more evangelical

01:15:34

Christians in Ukraine than Russia, even though Russia is three times the population of Ukraine.

01:15:40

Wow. And so Ukrainians have been missionaries serving faithfully in Russia for many years and in other

01:15:47

European countries. And so God has really blessed Ukraine. And I think, you know, He has used many of our brothers and sisters in the

01:15:56

United States. The United States has sent a lot of missionaries to Ukraine, sent a lot of people that came and trained our pastors, like Dr.

01:16:06

White, for example. I can speak of how God has used Dr. White in my life and in my ministry for more than two hours, at least, because God has used faithful men like Dr.

01:16:19

White who love His Word and are faithful to serve and exposit in great ways.

01:16:26

And so that there's, but still, you know, the evangelical church here is very small.

01:16:32

If you bring in all the evangelicals together, it's going to be about 2 % of the population. And if you think of the conservative denominations, all the conservative denominations put together, it would be maybe around 150 to 200 ,000

01:16:44

Christians in a country of 40 million. So there's a great need for the gospel, and there's a great need for solid teaching because even the churches that do preach the gospel, they struggle mightily with theology, sound doctrine, and things like that.

01:17:04

But that's why we're here, and that's why it's so important now to remind people about eternity, to remind them that, you know, they don't have a right relationship with God, that rituals and mysticism is not going to justify them of their sin, and that they need to trust the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

01:17:24

It's such an honor and privilege to be used by God to bring that message to people that really need it.

01:17:30

Amen. And Dr. White, before we go to any listener questions, do you have another one of your own? I was just going to ask

01:17:37

Nick if he could just briefly, he had mentioned that since 2014, there's been this division,

01:17:45

Russian -Ukrainian, and that this had impacted the church. And I assumed you were referring to the

01:17:51

Evangelical Church, the believing church. So have you seen divisions in churches or in associations based on...

01:18:02

Yeah, unfortunately, there's been a lot of divisions.

01:18:08

And, you know, just as you see in your own country, what happens in the culture really affects the church.

01:18:14

And all the issues that the culture brings up, they arise in the churches.

01:18:21

And so when these things started happening and politics got involved, people started taking sides.

01:18:30

And unfortunately, the arguments became very heated, very emotional, and there's been a lot of division.

01:18:37

And I think the church really has suffered from that, that, you know, people were saying, well, you know, you have to agree with this political statement, you have to agree with this political party, you have to publicly denounce your government, or you publicly have to denounce, you know, this statement or something like that.

01:18:56

And so I always remind people, you know, if you look at the first century and how people were treated and what churches consisted of, you know, there were

01:19:05

Jews who were basically enslaved by the Roman Empire. And then, you know, their

01:19:11

Jerusalem was destroyed. And I can't imagine Jews not accepting

01:19:16

Gentiles into their churches, especially Roman citizens, if, you know, they didn't publicly denounce

01:19:22

Caesar or something like that. I mean, the Bible is very clear about what we should be united about and what things should stay outside of the church, because they're not, that's not, that's not what we should be about as the people of God.

01:19:39

And so, you know, the New Testament does not make any political statements or anti -imperial rhetoric, even though Paul had plenty of opportunity to do that, you know, but we are to render to Caesar what is

01:19:53

Caesar's and to God what is God's. And unfortunately, just as I see in the church in the

01:19:58

United States in the recent years has been divided and very polarized, that's kind of the situation here, just a different issue, but basically the same result.

01:20:09

And we have a question actually from Marketta in London, England, originally from Prague in the

01:20:18

Czech Republic. We're going to wait till we are nearly completed with the interview to go to your question,

01:20:23

Marketta, because it's, I think, most appropriate to ask at the conclusion of the program. And we have a question from a dear friend of mine, actually.

01:20:34

I usually don't give full names when somebody writes in, but since this is a pastor of a really solid, faithful church,

01:20:41

I want to identify him fully. His name is Pastor Alec Mellon, pastor of One City Church, and that is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

01:20:51

Their website is onecitychurchlancaster .com. And Dr. White, you will be familiar with Alec's former co -pastor in Bayside, Queens, Ed Moore.

01:21:04

Dr. White has preached at the North Shore Baptist Church a number of times and has developed just as I have a close friendship with Ed, but Alec is now pastoring his own church.

01:21:16

And I was with him and his wonderful wife, Tammy, yesterday for a very sad reason.

01:21:21

We were at the burial of a very dear mutual friend who was a member of One City Church.

01:21:29

And Alec, don't forget, I want to do a special tribute program to Pete Padre very soon in the future that you will definitely be a guest of mine to conduct.

01:21:42

But anyway, Alec asks, it is my understanding that after the

01:21:47

Iron Curtain fell in the early 90s, one of the most receptive places on the planet was the nation of Ukraine.

01:21:55

What can you tell us about the growth of the church in your nation and how that church developed over the last 30 years?

01:22:06

You really already got into some of that already. How do you feel that the present situation is uniting

01:22:13

God's people in your nation? And I'll ask one more question before, or should

01:22:18

I say after you answer those. Mike Lolo. Sure. So as I've said,

01:22:26

Ukraine has been historically under the influence of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

01:22:32

And Protestantism came to our land in the mid -1900s only when the

01:22:40

German Mennonites would move from Germany to settle in.

01:22:47

And then there's different influences. So basically churches started appearing in Ukraine and Russia and some of the regions in the

01:22:55

Caucasus Mountains in the late 1900s, early 20th century.

01:23:02

And then the Communist Revolution happened and those churches were severely persecuted. But still, you know, many were so faithful.

01:23:10

Many have spent many years in prison and labor camps in Siberia and then returned.

01:23:19

And so it was very hard for Christians in the Soviet Union. But then, you know, when the Iron Curtain fell down, it was freedom.

01:23:27

And, you know, it was good that a lot of good teaching was allowed to come in. But there's also a lot of bad teaching that was allowed to come in.

01:23:36

Jehovah's Witnesses has exploded in Ukraine as well. And as far as I know, it's the largest group in the former

01:23:42

Soviet Union. And we have a Mormon temple in Kiev as well. So there's many, many different cults that came in.

01:23:50

But, you know, as I said, there was a revival. People would really show a hunger to hear about the

01:23:58

Bible because, you know, in the Soviet Union, Khrushchev said that, you know, he will put the last Bible in the museum.

01:24:04

And, you know, so people didn't have access to the Bible. But now, you know, Bibles were brought in and distributed.

01:24:11

And a lot of people turned to the Lord and filled churches. But unfortunately, the church was not ready for that.

01:24:19

Unfortunately, the church was not ready for that challenge because the church wasn't very doctrinally sound.

01:24:27

The teaching was very shallow. And so discipleship didn't really occur.

01:24:34

And it only took, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years for the next generation to arise and really be inculcated in sound theology and doctrine.

01:24:49

And so I would say that the church today is still very young. It's still very immature in terms of—not just spiritually immature, because, you know, spiritual maturity is something that we all struggle with, and sanctification is a lifelong process, but there's a lot of—any new trend that comes in, it really affects the church.

01:25:17

And it's not really grounded in Scripture. There's a lot of, you know, as I said, culture affects the church. And so there's a lot of Orthodox influences.

01:25:24

There's a lot of mysticism. There's a lot of ritualism in Protestant churches. There's a big charismatic influence, and we have our own charismatic apostles that scam people out of their money.

01:25:38

And so the church, as I said, it is large in number in comparison to other former

01:25:46

Soviet Union countries and even Western European countries, but it's in great need of biblical, solid teaching, maturity, biblical philosophy of ministry, biblical philosophy of evangelism.

01:26:03

So it is in much need of prayer and support, and I'm so thankful for so many brothers and sisters in the states that care about the

01:26:14

Russian -speaking churches, churches in Ukraine, and do their best to support in prayer and financially what's going on here.

01:26:22

And God has really been using it. God has really been using it greatly, but there's still much work to be done.

01:26:28

Now, you were mentioning earlier about the Russian -Ukrainian divide, even in evangelicalism there, and Alec, as a part of his second question, as you may recall, said,

01:26:41

How do you feel that the present situation is uniting God's people in your nation? Obviously, this present situation is very, very new, hasn't been going on very long as far as the actual invasion is concerned, but do you have anything to say about the unity that you've witnessed in the recent days?

01:26:59

Well, obviously, when something like that happens, people tend to turn to one another, embrace one another, and so everyone is trying to do their part in helping each other, and you even see the unbelievers helping each other and serving one another and doing acts of kindness, and everybody understands that, you know, we need all hands on deck and things like that.

01:27:27

And so in that sense, you know, the believers are united in their response to the crisis and their desire to serve and their desire to be used, you know, obviously when things like that happen,

01:27:39

God opens up many doors for Christians to serve, and I think Ukrainian Christians are jumping at those opportunities and helping people and also trying to share the

01:27:49

Gospel, trying to point them to Christ as their greatest need. And so in that sense, the

01:27:56

Church has been united. In that sense, you see believers helping one another, and even outside of Ukraine, the neighboring countries, you know,

01:28:05

Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, I get messages daily with people saying, how can we help?

01:28:11

How can we support you? And they come up with things for refugees and things like that.

01:28:18

So the response has been very good in the sense of everybody sees that this is a need, and everybody tries to find a way to help and see how they can fill that need.

01:28:31

And it's been overwhelming, just the support of our brothers and sisters outside of Ukraine and prayers, and in any way that they can, they're very eager to help.

01:28:41

So the Lord really uses that to encourage those of us who are here. Alex, last question is, how does the

01:28:49

Reformed faith help you to endure suffering compared to other evangelical or Orthodox views?

01:28:59

Honestly, if I did not believe in the doctrines of grace, if I did not believe in the sovereignty of God, I don't know how

01:29:06

I could endure what's going on. I mean, honestly, I don't know how

01:29:11

I could endure anything in my life, because if you believe that God is not in control of everything, then what is

01:29:18

He in control? And if God is not in control and sovereign over evil that happens, then why pray?

01:29:27

It just brings so many issues. So honestly, if it wasn't for the

01:29:34

Reformed faith, I don't know if I would have faith. And obviously, you know,

01:29:40

God is sovereign even over those matters, but it definitely is something that I fall back on—God's faithfulness,

01:29:50

God's sovereignty, and all of these circumstances. And as I said in the beginning, you know, we trust and pray that His intention in all of this is a good intention, and our job is to be faithful—faithful until the end.

01:30:08

And, you know, our life is hidden in Christ with God. I remember

01:30:13

Dr. White preached that passage at our church when he came on Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4, you know, where Paul encourages us to think of the things that are above and not, you know, earthly things.

01:30:25

And, you know, for a believer, it's such a comforting truth that nothing can take us from God's hands.

01:30:34

And so we are secure in Him, and so if we are secure in Him, well, it's time to practice that.

01:30:45

And, you know, if God knows better how to run our lives than we know ourselves, and if He has us in these circumstances, and if He wishes for us to end our existence here on earth amidst this tragedy, then, you know, we are to be faithful and accepted as something good from His hand, because God is so good to us all the time, even when we don't realize it.

01:31:12

So, yeah. Well, we have

01:31:17

Renata from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I'm probably butchering the pronunciation of that.

01:31:27

She says, Grace and peace, brothers. Here in Brazil, the conservatives and a great part of the

01:31:33

Christians are supporting, in a very superficial manner, Russia against not exactly the

01:31:41

Ukraine people, but what they see as the grand schism of Biden and all the sexual corruption it forces in our nation.

01:31:55

They see Putin as a conservative force, even a hero for my shock.

01:32:02

Could Brother Mikola comment about that type of view? Thanks, God bless

01:32:07

Ukraine and our brothers there. Yeah, it's true.

01:32:14

Putin is viewed as a great conservative politician, a defender of morals and family and things like that.

01:32:29

But in reality, that is absolutely not true. And Putin has done more to persecute evangelical

01:32:35

Christians in Russia than any other president before him in the history of independence of Russia.

01:32:41

And of course, we see what's happening in the West. We see the moral decay. We see all that.

01:32:49

And, you know, any country that is leaning towards the West would have to incorporate that somehow into their own politics.

01:33:01

And even Ukraine right now, they're talking about entering the European Union. Well, in order to be part of the European Union, you need to pass these laws regarding homosexuality and things like that, which

01:33:11

Ukraine has always been against. And so in that sense, we would say that the current president of Ukraine is much more lenient towards LGBTQXYZ and the rest of it than Vladimir Putin.

01:33:31

But in reality, we know that morals don't save people.

01:33:36

We know that any sinner, an adulterer, a fornicator, homosexual, they all need the gospel.

01:33:45

They all need Jesus Christ. They don't need to just stop sinning and trying to clean up their life.

01:33:51

So I understand that in the world, people are polarizing and Putin is seen as a leader, as a man's man, a guy who knows what he wants.

01:34:04

And some of the leaders and some people say, you know, Joe Biden is not like that.

01:34:10

And so I understand why people would be sympathetic to Putin, but people in Russia suffer greatly because of him.

01:34:19

You know, many people who are opposed to him are either in jail or dead. There's a lot of persecution.

01:34:26

And so Putin is not, I don't see how anyone who espouses a

01:34:33

Christian biblical worldview would be in support of a bloodthirsty dictator who is running his own country into the ground and who is sending his own people to die in a meaningless war for his,

01:34:51

I don't know, to fulfill his ambitions and visions of grandeur. So yeah.

01:34:58

Renata's final word is, and for Dr. White, I'm always listening to your program and now reading your books, learning so much.

01:35:06

God bless your life and work, Pastor White. I'm sorry?

01:35:13

That's wonderful. And Renata, the next time you send in an email to my program, have something nice to say about me, please.

01:35:20

Okay? But we have to go to our... I'm just kidding,

01:35:25

Renata. We're going to our final break right now, and we will get to as many of the other questions awaiting a response as we can.

01:35:33

And this will be a much briefer break. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with my cola,

01:35:39

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Or visit lynbrookbaptist .org. That's lynbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. And my cola, we have a listener named

01:42:10

Ken from Tampa, Florida, who says, I affirm everything

01:42:15

Dr. White said about Nick, his church, and the seminary. I have been ministered to by the saints in Ukraine since 1996.

01:42:24

My question is, how are the students of the seminary and churches able to minister during these days?

01:42:37

Yeah, I think I know who is asking this question. Dear brother,

01:42:43

Pastor Ken. I think if I'm thinking of the same person, because he usually is that kind to me as well,

01:42:52

I'm very happy to hear from him. Um, yeah, the students are trying to do their best.

01:42:59

Some of the students are in areas that are under very heavy bombardment.

01:43:06

And mostly they're just spending time in, like I said, makeshift bomb shelters, which are basements of big buildings.

01:43:16

But many of them are passing out tracks. Many of them invite people to church.

01:43:22

And, you know, they spend time, they hide out in the church basement rather than another basement.

01:43:29

And that's for most people, that's the first time they're exposed to an evangelical church. And so I think

01:43:36

God is trying to, I mean, God is using the people that are trying to serve.

01:43:42

But even today, you know, I was standing in line to the grocery store, and the lines are so long because it's just really hard.

01:43:51

There's no essential items and things like that. And if you throw COVID in there and silly

01:43:57

COVID restrictions that we still have to deal with. But people, unbelievers, you know, at first, the first few days, they were kind of open to listen to people's stories and get to know each other.

01:44:09

But now everyone is just so tired from, you know, spending nights in bomb shelters.

01:44:15

Everyone is so upset that this is still going on. And they see the Russian army becoming more and more indiscriminate in their attacks on just civilians and rockets landing in civilian buildings.

01:44:32

And there's a lot of hatred. And one woman today, you know, she said that, you know, she doesn't care about Jesus Christ, and she doesn't care about what happens to her.

01:44:47

She only cares about her children. And, you know, once this war is over, then she will consider her relationship with God and things like that.

01:44:56

So unfortunately, right now, I think everyone is just, like I said, shocked that this is going on and trying to figure out, okay, how do we, what do we do?

01:45:05

Do we run for our lives? Do we, I know some of the students are evacuating from the areas where there's, when their lives are in immediate danger.

01:45:15

And some of the students are trying to figure out, okay, well, let's convert our churches to refugee centers and then, you know, have services with them, which some of them have done.

01:45:26

And so the students in the West are taking in refugees from the East. But I think it's all still in the process of being worked out.

01:45:34

But it's, God still uses these opportunities.

01:45:39

And I'm thankful that we have students all over Ukraine that can help each other out. It's a great network of people, and they're supporting each other and helping each other.

01:45:48

So I'm sure God will, that will be glorified even in these circumstances. Amen. And Ken, since you are a first -time questioner, and that goes for all of our

01:45:59

American listeners who are first -time questioners, you have won a free

01:46:05

New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the NASB, and compliments of CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will actually be shipping the

01:46:15

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Bibles overseas would be astronomical for CVBBS. So we send our apologies to you that we cannot do that for you as well.

01:46:35

We have, as I was mentioning earlier, a listener in London, England, Marketta, originally from Prague in the

01:46:43

Czech Republic, and I thought it was most appropriate for her question to be asked toward the end of the program.

01:46:49

She says, I would like to ask Nick how we could best pray for him and his

01:46:55

Church. That's a great question. Obviously what's on everyone's mind is safety, and like I said, you know, if God chooses to prolong our lives in this world, we will be thankful and try to use it for His glory.

01:47:18

So safety is definitely a concern right now. And the second thing is just for us to be faithful to live out what we believe as Christians, to trust

01:47:32

God, to not lose heart, to look at things that are invisible rather than the visible, to think about eternal things, not just temporal things, to remember that these light and temporary afflictions produce a surpassing weight of glory when we understand it through God's perspective.

01:47:57

And so pray for our faiths to mature and be tested and that we would be found faithful.

01:48:06

And of course, pray that we would be able to serve those around us, serve our fellow citizens who do not know the

01:48:17

Lord, who do not have that hope, that they would be able to hear the Gospel, that God would bring them to repentance and saving faith, and pray that we would be able to serve other

01:48:29

Christians, and especially I know there's a lot of hatred going on right now between Christians in Russia and Ukraine, because Christians in Russia are so afraid of the government and they're so afraid of the regime there that they cannot speak out, and Christians in Ukraine are asking for them to go out on the streets and protest the war and start movements and publicly denounce the government, and they're already so persecuted there and they're afraid.

01:48:57

And so pray that God would work in these circumstances for us to show love and mercy and compassion that would reflect the character of our

01:49:09

Lord Jesus Christ, that even in these things we would consider how we can reflect

01:49:19

His character, how we can pursue His will, and how we can bring glory to His name.

01:49:27

We have Ted, who is asking for a church recommendation, an Eagle Point, Medford, Oregon area.

01:49:35

We will get you that information as soon as possible after the program. I'm sorry, I think I said Ted, it's

01:49:40

Tim. Thank you for writing in, Tim, and listening live to the interview.

01:49:46

As you remember, likely, Mykola, a church on Long Island who heard about the interview before the program started,

01:49:56

Hope Reform Baptist Church of Long Island, who actually sponsored this program in Coram, New York, they requested information on how to send financial help, if you could provide any other ways financially and otherwise, how our listeners can help you, the ministry there, and any other way they can help

01:50:19

Ukrainians during this situation. Yes, that is very kind.

01:50:25

We really appreciate all the help from our brothers and sisters. I know that in America there's something with donations being tax -deductible and things like that, so I think the easiest way for you to do that would be to go to Grace Community Church website, which is,

01:50:44

I think, www .gracechurch .org, which is a church where John MacArthur is the pastor, and on the front page they have a link to donate to relief in Ukraine.

01:50:58

They have two missionaries in Ukraine. One of these missionaries is in our church, Grace Bible Church, and so that's one way of doing it.

01:51:06

Another way is just to get a hold of a trusted partner in Ukraine or somebody that does ministry in Ukraine and see how you can support them.

01:51:17

I also want to make sure before we go off the air that I give the websites of both the seminary and the church where Mykola serves.

01:51:28

The Grace Bible Seminary in Kyiv, Ukraine, can be found at www .gbs .org

01:51:40

.ua, and the Grace Bible Church in Kyiv, Ukraine, can be found at www .gracebiblechurch

01:51:48

.org .ua.

01:51:53

And Dr. White, do you have a final question for Mykola? Dr. White Well, obviously my biggest concerns are with the immediate future, and obviously if things were to go what we would consider to be the wrong direction, the question

01:52:15

I have is, have you all thought about being able to pursue ministry under, well, it would obviously be different if it was just Russian domination or a puppet state.

01:52:33

Would you expect more restrictions in a situation like that? Have you all discussed what the future plans would be should the invasion is successful?

01:52:48

Mykola Well, like I said, we firmly believe that our citizenship is in heaven, and God raises rulers over us and He casts them down.

01:52:58

So if God so chooses to establish a different regime in our country, we will try to remain faithful and serve.

01:53:07

Obviously, from experience of the eastern parts of Ukraine that have been, there's these separatist puppet states, you know, the

01:53:17

DNR and the LNR. There, they've banned basically any religion other than Russian Orthodoxy, and they seize church property, and there's a lot of heavy persecution.

01:53:31

There's just a lot of lawlessness going on in those areas. So obviously,

01:53:37

I think if that were to happen, then, you know, our ministry, which is connected with, you know, our brothers and sisters in the

01:53:47

United States, would suffer greatly because I think they passed a law in Russia that any organization that receives financial support from the

01:53:55

United States is considered a foreign agent and, you know, is basically outlawed and can be prosecuted and things like that.

01:54:05

So unfortunately, you know, Putin is going down the path of self -isolation, turning basically into a large

01:54:14

North Korea, and that is very unfortunate even for our brothers in Russia right now.

01:54:20

But right now, it's very difficult to predict what the situation would be, and I know that Ukrainian people are willing to die for their freedom.

01:54:33

You know, Ukrainians have always been eager to fight, and even during World War II, you know, they fought on one side.

01:54:40

A minor group, obviously, not the entire country, but some have fought both at the same time against the

01:54:45

Nazis and the Soviets because they viewed them the same. And so, you know, if Putin does succeed in taking some of the larger cities, then there's going to be resistance, and people are just going to be shooting at troops from their windows and things like that.

01:55:01

So it's going to turn into a long, long occupation, which I don't know how they would have resources to maintain.

01:55:09

I mean, it's a country of 40 million people. So I'm not sure what his strategy is.

01:55:15

There is, to me, there is no winning this war for him, because even if he occupies the entire country, he will not be able to afford sustaining it, or really,

01:55:29

I mean, how many troops will it take? So we're praying for God to intervene.

01:55:34

We're praying for God to stop the injustice, to stop the bloodshed, to defend the people, to defend his people, and just people who are attacked, unprovoked.

01:55:47

And we pray for the freedom that Ukraine has enjoyed to continue, so we could spread the gospel, so we can minister freely.

01:55:55

In Russia, you know, when they signed those laws banning evangelism, banning inviting people to church right now in Russia, if you just on Facebook invite somebody to church, they will prosecute you for illicit missionary activity.

01:56:08

At the same time, in Ukraine, they passed laws where you can have any religious service, you can do anything you want without even giving any advance notice to the government.

01:56:17

You can go on the streets, you can preach the gospel, you can invite people to church, and God has been very gracious, and we pray that this freedom would continue so that the message would go forth unimpeded.

01:56:28

Amen. And this has already exceeded any kind of standard military action.

01:56:37

We are talking about terrorist activity, we are talking about war crimes, because you have civilians being targeted in their homes, you have hospitals and ambulances being blown up.

01:56:50

I mean, it's really satanic. And you have about a minute and a half, if you could conclude with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:57:02

Mykola? Well, I'm very thankful by the response of our brothers and sisters around the world.

01:57:09

They have shown a lot of compassion, shown a lot of support, and we really appreciate your prayers.

01:57:15

God has used your prayers to help us not lose heart and stand firm, and so please continue praying for us.

01:57:26

And right now, outside of my window, I hear artillery fire, so it's heartbreaking what's going on, but continue praying that we would trust the

01:57:36

Lord and be faithful. And once again, the website for Grace Bible Seminary in Kyiv, Ukraine is gbs .org

01:57:46

.ua, gbs .org .ua, and the website for Grace Bible Church in Kyiv, Ukraine is gracebiblechurch .org

01:57:55

.ua, gracebiblechurch .org .ua. Mykola, it's been such a rich honor and privilege to have you on the program.

01:58:03

I look forward to having you on in the future for updates about what's going on, and even after this is all settled by God's grace and mercy on completely different subjects regarding the kingdom of Christ.

01:58:15

And Dr. White, thank you also so much for adding so much to the program by your co -hosting today.

01:58:22

Well, it's been great, and Nick, we'll continue praying for you all, and I really enjoyed getting a chance to see you again, and God bless your continued ministry there.

01:58:33

And of course, Dr. White's website. Thank you so much. Dr. White's website for Alpha Omega Ministries is aomin .org,

01:58:39

aomin .org, and I want to tell Renata, who just wrote me again from Brazil, apologizing for not saying anything nice about me.

01:58:48

I was joking, Renata, so you don't have to worry about that. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:58:56

Savior than you are a sinner. Pray for Ukraine. Thank you.

01:59:06

All righty. What time is it there,

01:59:12

Nick? 1 a .m. Yeah, you have your 1 a .m.

01:59:20

face on. I really appreciate you doing this at this hour of the evening, or morning,

01:59:27

I should say. I've seen Nick's 1 a .m.

01:59:33

face in various situations. Yep.

01:59:39

Anyway, well, love you, brother, and we'll be praying for you. God bless you all. Yeah, God bless you, too, guys.

01:59:46

Thank you very much. This is a very important program. God bless. Okay, thank you.