Friday, September 27, 2024

Part I

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When Children Discover Their Parents Are … Russian Spies? Who Are You People? The Huge Story of the Children Who Recently Learned the True Identity of Their Parents for the First Time

We have remarked at various points that truth is stranger than fiction, and there’s a reason why truth is stranger than fiction. Truth is more varied than fiction because of the reality of human nature and the immeasurable multiplicity of human experience. Somewhere, somehow, among someone, something you can’t even imagine has taken place.

So we think of novelists and we think of writers and filmmakers and fantasists. We think they’re the ones who are coming up with all of this variety, all of this drama, when in reality, it’s often pre-existent. You have some of the most famous television programs, some of the most famed movies, you have some of the most famous books that have not come before an occurrence, but rather after an occurrence in order to try to take an opportunity to turn the story to a new effect.

And so you had The Americans. That was a television program about a couple who were embedded in American culture, a couple who were actually communist spies. They were agents for the Soviet Union. They were embeds and they were called “The Americans” because they were embedded as Americans, but they were anything but Americans. They were a young man and a young woman, in the case of the story as told on The Americans, who had been raised even from their adolescence in order to be spies, agents for the Soviet Union. They had been paired as husband and wife, not by romance, but rather by the KGB, and then they had been sent by a directorate of the security and intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union into the United States where they were embedded as illegals, as they were known in the spy trade.

Which is to say, they weren’t even coming under diplomatic cover. They were absolutely illegal. They were in the United States with fake papers. They often had complete backgrounds that were invented. It was a massive program undertaken by the KGB in cooperation with other Soviet intelligence agencies, and the truth may never be known about how many of these embedded agents were living in the United States during the time, for example, the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

We also know this. You go back to the year 2010, the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to loud effect, arrested 10 Russian illegals who were discovered in the United States. So that’s at least 10 who were known then. They were suspected to be a part of a very large, indeed vast, intelligence-gathering organization.

By the way, it wasn’t always clear how effective this was. It was never clear to American intelligence and to our allied intelligence agencies how particularly useful the information gathered by these agents was for the Soviet Union, but it played into the Soviet self-identity. It played into the status of the KGB within the Soviet system, and they were up to nefarious purposes. There is no doubt. They tried to move near military installations. They tried to be embedded into the culture, and so they had their kids playing baseball along with other Little League players, they had their kids in the ballet, they were involved in the community, they were gathering information, and it may never be known how damaging that intelligence-gathering process was for the United States and our allies.

But even at the time, there were those who asked the interesting question, does this happen in terms of the United States sending this kind of illegal agent or illegal agents, a man and a woman who are posing his husband and wife? And by the way, in most cases, they actually were married, but it was an arranged marriage on the Soviet part undertaken by the KGB, and they went on and they lived as a husband and wife and they were embedded in the culture, as I say, and they went on and had children and their children were a part of the community. And here’s the thing, their children didn’t know they were spies. Their children didn’t even know that their parents were Russian.

All right, so why are we talking about it today? We’re talking about it today because earlier this summer, in a vast prisoner and hostage exchange between the United States and our allies, and in particular the United States with Russia, the fact is that a couple were sent back to Russia as a part of the exchange. The couple were Artem and Anna Dultsev. As a couple, they were first sent to Argentina, to Buenos Aires, and then they went from there to Slovenia, and it was in Slovenia that they were discovered and they didn’t know they’d been discovered. There was a long observational process whereby intelligence agencies watched this couple and their two children and things began to fall apart.

For instance, the man’s business and the woman’s business interests, they just didn’t add up. The man’s business wasn’t producing nearly enough money to justify the lifestyle, to explain the lifestyle they were living, and in particular, the very expensive private tuition of the children in the schools there in Slovenia. So they’d been in Buenos Aires. At some point, the two children came along, a boy and a girl. They end up in Slovenia and people begin to ask questions. Eventually, there was a consensus on the part of intelligence agencies that they were illegals, that they were spies, and they were arrested.

Now, here’s the thing, the children were told that problems had come up with the parents’ papers. That is to say, with their immigration papers, their residency status. And so these children, young children, they were never told that their parents were Russian spies, but they were allowed to see their parents. They were allowed to have some contact, even as their parents were in custody, but they came to our attention precisely because they were a part of the exchange that took place just a few weeks ago announced by President Biden.

Now, as we discussed on The Briefing, there are vast issues of worldview consequence in terms of, say, just inciting a business in this kind of hostage-taking on the part of hostile governments, including Russia, because we paid such a steep price in order to get some of our people back. The reality is that Russia wanted some folks back as well, and they wanted this couple. They wanted the Dultsevs back.

Now, they wanted them back because they wanted them out of Western intelligence custody, no doubt about that. They also wanted them back because it was a propaganda victory for Vladimir Putin and, insofar as he saw it, for Russia. They were now outed as having been so effective as to put in this couple, insert this illegal couple, who were undetected for a long time, and this is a part of the national pride of Russia, that it has spies like this. That’s why the KGB had a role within the Soviet Union that the CIA didn’t have in the United States because we are not primarily a spy culture. We understand it’s necessary, but they don’t become our national heroes by and large. Vladimir Putin wanted them back and he got them back.

But here’s the reason we’re talking about it today. It is because of the worldview, the moral dimension, the heart-touching dimension of the children, those two children, a boy and a girl. Because as The Wall Street Journal made very clear in a front-page article in recent days, we now know that the children did not know, even when they landed in Russia, what in the world was going on. And if you saw the televised footage, you understand what I mean. It was clear these two children had no idea what was going on.

The front-page article in the Wall Street Journal is simply entitled, “Children Raised by Russian Spies.” The subhead is this, “Putin romanticizes Moscow’s network of deep-cover operatives, but their missions come with a heavy price.” The two children, by the way, are the 9-year-old boy Daniel and the 11-year-old girl Sophie. And as The Journal says, “They knew their mom and dad as Argentine citizens named Ludwig Gisch and Maria Mayer Munoz. What they didn’t know is that their family was a carefully constructed lie.”

Okay, this really does tear the heart. Because as this big investigative report in The Wall Street Journal indicates, this is not an unprecedented development. Back during the Cold War, back, say, just even going back after the Cold War to the year 2010 when you had those 10 agents who were discovered, well, some of the same complications came about. One of them was a Russian embedded couple in Canada, and they had two sons. And guess what? Once the adolescent boys came to understand what their parents were all about and that they had been lied to and that their parents were actually spies who were Russians embedded in Canada, well, one of the sons decided that he would leave the parents and go back to Canada.

There’s something else here that is just a part of the darkness of this entire picture, and that is that when you understand the training, even the recruitment of these young people, probably when they were teenagers or when they were in their very young 20s, they were recruited and then their personal identities simply disappear. They find themselves involved in arranged marriages. They are sent wherever the spymasters want them to go. They are told what exactly to do, and yes, in order to keep the entire picture workable, they have children, but their children are actually unwilling and unwitting agents of a state they don’t even know is in play.

So even as the United States is involved in spycraft, no doubt about it, the United States is involved in espionage. You can count on it. We have an alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, most importantly the Central Intelligence Agency, but after that, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and not only that, we know of a multiplicity of alphabet mixtures for American intelligence. And then let’s be honest, we are pretty confident there’s an alphabet soup we don’t even know about. But it does tell you something. It tells you something about the difference in a civilization when the state is seen as so preeminent that it can make this kind of demand of citizens, wipe out their identity, and in a widespread, programmatic way, deploy them for its own national interests and then celebrate them when they come home, at the very time their children find out they never even knew who they were.

Now, let’s be honest. There is something in most children, perhaps even I can say, think of the experience of a 13-year-old boy, who just might find a certain secret thrill in imagining that maybe his parents aren’t who they say they are, maybe they’re actually spies. But then again, it’s one thing to play with that as an idea. It’s another thing to make it into a television series. It’s another thing altogether to find out that this is a reality and you then understand the moral dimensions of what we have to face, not so much with the two adults in this picture, but with the two children.

Those two children who look so small walking down the airway that had been brought up to that airliner in Moscow, you look at those little children and you just have to wonder, do they even know who they are? Do they even know their own parents? And what are they going to think going forward? The biblical worldview reminds us that for most of us, for most of human beings throughout history, we’ve known who we are because we know we’re the son or we’re the daughter of this mother and this father. We belong to this family, we belong to this nation, we represent this identity. What would it mean, especially for young children, to find out they never actually knew who they were? Then again, in a biblical perspective, there’s more to who we are than just those dimensions. But at the very least, it would seem to be a betrayal when you find out that the answer to the questions who you are were supplied to you by people who lied to you all the time.

Vladimir Putin was so bold as to say out loud when this family arrived in Russia, “Not everyone can give up their current life, give up their loved ones, their relatives, and leave the country for many, many years, dedicate their lives to serving the Fatherland. Only the chosen ones can do that.” That’s what he said. But it’s also interesting to know that sources within American intelligence simply said, “There are moral complications with that kind of embedded spycraft that most nations stay away from.” Enough said.

Part II

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If Kamala Harris is Elected as President and Uses Taxpayer Funds for Abortion, Are Christians Still Required to Pay Taxes? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, now we’re going to turn to questions we learn together. That’s the best process with these questions. We not only learn about each other, not only do I learn the kind of questions that listeners are thinking about, but I learn as I think about how to answer these questions and how to address some of these questions that come with urgency.

And one question that came with the urgency this week, is related to something I talked about on The Briefing this week, and that is the pledge that was made by Vice President Kamala Harris, that if she is elected president, she will move to encourage the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, so that with just 51 votes they can press through national legislation that would authorize abortion in all 50 states. And as I said, she won’t be satisfied with just that. She’s already come out against the Hyde Amendment, and so that would mean requiring the American taxpayer to pay for or be complicit in abortion.

Now, the question that came in from this listener, and I appreciate it greatly, is this, “If Harris should fulfill her promise to end the Hyde Amendment and fund abortion with revenue taken from the federal taxpayer, are Christians still obligated to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s?” Fascinating question. Not a new question when it comes to the Christian conscience, even in the United States, but coming with a particular weight, given the fact we’re talking about the sanctity of life and the evil of abortion.

But I want to leave the United States for a moment. I want to leave the United States. I want to go back to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” the question Jesus gave when he was asked about taxes, et cetera. And in that case, of course, the empire was the Roman Empire, the government was the Roman government, and Jesus was speaking of a coin. Whose image is on it? And the answer is Caesar’s image is on it. The emperor’s image is on it. “Well, then if he wants it so much, he puts his picture on it, let him have it,” is basically what Jesus said in response. “Render unto Caesar,” however, “the things that are Caesar’s.”

And of course the great biblical theology point there is Jesus was saying, “Caesar’s image is on the coin, but you are a human being. You are made in God’s image. You are stamped in God’s image. God owns you. Caesar may claim the coin, but he can’t claim you. He can’t claim your soul. He can’t claim to be emperor of your heart.”

Now, the reason I want to go back to the Gospels in this case, I want to go back to the New Testament, is to say that the empire then was the Roman Empire, and let’s just face it, it was an evil empire. And so if we’re going to ask this question, at least we ought to acknowledge that this is a question that was faced by the disciples, and appears to be a question answered by Jesus when he says, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

But we look at that and we also recognize, okay, we have other epochs of Christian history from which we learn. We can think of Christians who were in Germany during the Nazi regime and when they became very aware of their complicity in the Nazi regime, we can think of others, but the mainstream answer coming through church history, through Christian thinking, and Christian struggle on this issue is that we “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

And so if that money is being taken from you by coercion, that’s a morally important issue here. Caesar didn’t say, “Hey, I’m taking up an offering.” Caesar said, “I am holding you accountable for a tax.” Now, remember, the Caesars considered taxation, coercive taxation, so important that the Gospel of Matthew begins by telling us that the Caesar at the time, that the Emperor had declared the need for a census and the census wasn’t because he was curious. The census was for the purpose of apportioning taxation. And that became, of course, very important to the infancy of Jesus.

So I guess the bottom line in this is that I think there will be Christians who will come to the conclusion that a regime is so illegitimate that they will not recognize it, and I’m at least holding out the hypothetical possibility that that can be a righteous judgment. But if Jesus did not make that judgment of the Roman Empire, and we know the evil of the Roman Empire, then evidently, we’re going to have to think very carefully about declaring that we won’t pay taxes to the United States.

But again, I come back to something else, and as I said, one of the issues here is that taxes are coerced. You don’t give an offering to the Internal Revenue Service. The Internal Revenue Service says, “You must pay this money, and if you don’t pay it, we’ll come and get it. We’ll put you in prison if you refuse.” And so you look at that and you recognize, okay, that’s morally significant because it means that your moral accountability is very different than if you were contributing to this cause, very different than if you were electing or deciding to give this money, or investing this money, say, in an economic opportunity. No, this money is being confiscated from you.

And you do have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to be as active as we can be in government to make sure that the government will spend those monies in ways we think are more righteous and less unrighteous. But in a fallen world, well, we were just talking about that, talking about the spies, in a fallen world, we don’t even know where that money goes, but it is our responsibility to try to uphold righteousness in every possible way we can, and of course to defend life in every way that we can now.

Part III

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I am Bedridden with ALS, and I Cannot Attend Congregational Worship on My Own. How Can I Stoke the Fires of Desire for God’s Word in My Heart? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Now, all right, the question to which I’m going to turn now is an urgent question, and my heart tells me I need to address this question. It is unlike any question I’ve received heretofore, but I think once I read it, you’re going to understand why we need to think about this and we need to answer this question. So it’s a question from a 44-year-old man and here’s what he wrote. He says, “I’m a Christian who has been bed bound for the last four years because of ALS. What do I do now that I can’t attend church physically? I feel myself drifting apart from the Word and my hunger for it. I know that I’m doing wrong, but I can’t bring myself to read it consistently. Besides praying and asking for the Lord to return my love for his Word again, what can I do?”

Well, brother, I want to thank you for entrusting me with this question, and I want to tell you that I am, right now, I’m praying that the Word will minister to you just in the way you suggest. I pray that the Word will give you both the hunger for his Word and the satisfaction in his Word. And I want to speak to you brother to brother and say there’s another dimension to this, however, that I want to address, and that is that this is not just about you. This is about the responsibility of other believers to assist you in this. This is about the necessity of a faithful church ministering to you. It is simply true that it is not just you who are physically unable to attend church for reasons we fully understand and make us just even all the more want to reach out to you. It is beyond your control and you’re unable to attend church, but you know that does not mean that the Christian Church doesn’t have a responsibility to reach out to you.

And here’s the thing, left to our own devices, every single one of us, ALS aside, every single one of us, left to our own and apart from the fellowship of the church and apart from being able to be present in the preaching of God’s Word, we are in spiritual danger. We’re going to lack spiritual nourishment. And so I just want to reach out to you and say my great hope is that there will be some way that a faithful gospel, scripturally based church would be able to minister directly to you to encourage you not only by, say, being able to hear the reading of the Word of God, be able to, say, watch or listen to streamed Bible teaching and preaching, I think those things are wonderful and I think they may be especially precious to you in this situation because you can’t go to church, but there’s more to it than that. We need the fellowship of the saints, we need the encouragement of fellow believers, and we need to be encouraging one another to obedience to Christ and growth in Christ.

And so I simply want to say that even as this is how I want to speak to this brother asking this question that so affected my heart, I want to say I’m actually talking to everyone listening here, and understand, let’s ask the question right now. In your church, is there someone, or in the reach of your church, should there be someone in a similar situation, and you understand from hearing this brother so generously share this testimony from his heart, what should your church, what should my church be doing in a way that our conscience needs to be immediately quickened and understand there’s something lacking here, the Christian Church needs to stand up and graciously and lovingly, and frankly, boldly to provide?

And I don’t want to leave it there. And I’m going to say that I’m very thankful that you emailed me this question. And so I just want to say we’re going to email back, and if there’s a way we can help to connect you with a gospel church in your area that can minister to you in this way, I want to tell you, I believe there are brothers and sisters in Christ, there are gospel congregations that would consider it a high honor to be able to encourage you in the Word of God when you cannot attend church. And so I’m going to hope that you writing me this email opens a door where we might be able to help make that happen and that will be to the glory of God. And we thank you for your question, brother, and we would send you every encouragement we can in the Lord.

Part IV

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What is the Significance of Pentecost If the Holy Spirit Worked in Old Testament Saints? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

All right, another question. This one is from an 18-year-old listener, and he asks, “How were the elect given the gift of faith in the Old Testament before the Spirit came at Pentecost? If the Spirit was already,” I’ll just say active before Pentecost, “what is the significance of Pentecost?” Okay, what a good question, and it’s the kind of question that comes from reading the Bible. And so we read the Old Testament, and then for instance, we read the Book of Hebrews and we come to Hebrews 11, and then we look at the Book of Romans and we see, for example, Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit telling us about Abraham who believed and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. And we come to understand that there are Old Testament saints.

Now, as Christians, we believe that they are saved, that all are saved only by explicit conscious faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but the New Testament answer to that question is that there were those in the Old Covenant who trusted God to be faithful to his promises, and even though they did not know the name Jesus, they trusted that God would be faithful to all that he had promised, and they’re counted among those who are in Christ and are righteous.

Now, you look beyond that and you say, “Well, then if the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost, then how were those saints of old, how were they drawn to faith in God? How did the operation of salvation by God’s plan work in their hearts?” And this is where I want to come back and say the Spirit is present in the Old Testament, and that is because when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we’re talking about the third person of the Trinity. So we’re talking about one has never not existed because he shares the same properties with the Father and with the Son, including his eternality.

As we’re looking at this, we recognize that what happened at Pentecost was not the invention of the Holy Spirit. What happened at Pentecost was not the development or evolution of the Holy Spirit. What happened at Pentecost was the giving of the Holy Spirit to the church, and that is the great turning point in church history. And by the way, there were those who had been drawn to faith in Christ already, including the disciples, and so there were those who were drawn to faith in Christ already. How were they drawn? Well, they were drawn by the Spirit. But that’s a different thing than what happens at the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is given to the church and now Christians have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul writes about this so beautifully.

And so it’s a smart question. It’s a question that comes from reading the Scripture, and I really appreciate this 18-year-old young man sending in this question. And so Pentecost is really one of those great turning points in history of the church, without which we can’t explain how the church is the people of the Spirit. That’s only possible because of the gift of the Father on the day of Pentecost. And of course, Jesus speaks to this also in the Gospel of John when he says that it’s even to the advantage of Christians that he should go back and be with the Father because the Spirit is coming, and the Spirit will be the great gift to the church.

And so in the age of the church, which is what we’re in right now, Pentecost is the declaration of when the age of the church began in the Spirit, and the church has only survived because of the presence and the protection of the Holy Spirit, and our preaching and our evangelism is only affected because of the presence and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

I guess in conclusion, I would say if you look at the Old Testament, it’s really clear that the Holy Spirit is there and the Spirit is often invoked, even in the process of creation, but the Holy Spirit wasn’t given to Israel the way the Holy Spirit is given to the church on the day of Pentecost, and I think that really tells us something.