Friday, April 11, 2025

Part I

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A Remarkable Life, Truth Even Stranger Than Fiction: KGB Officer Turned Double Agent, Oleg Gordievsky, Dies at 86

Well, I promised you one big story, here it is. It is an obituary and it starts on page one of The New York Times, the front page. Here’s the headline: “Soviet agent, Western Mole, and Global Rescuer.” It’s about the death of an individual. His name is Oleg Gordievsky. Born 1938. Died in 2025. An incredible story. Let me just tell you, it’s more incredible with every turn of the page. So what’s the bottom line? He was a Soviet diplomat. He was a Soviet spy. He was the top KGB agent in London, and then he defected to the West in 1985. And it was revealed that for many of those years, crucially, he had been a double agent.

He was the chief KGB agent for the Soviet Union in London. But he wasn’t working for Moscow, he was working for London. The KGB considered him one of their top agents, but he was actually working for Western nations during the Cold War, as The New York Times said, “Making him one of the most highly placed Western spies during the Cold War.” Now, here’s something interesting, a little suspicious.

He was found dead in his home southwest of London on March the 4th at age 86. Why is that a little suspicious? It’s at least a little suspicious because the death sentence against him placed against him by the Soviet Union had never been lifted when it comes to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent. And it goes without saying that if you are a KGB agent, you have a very long memory.

Clay Risen reporting from The Times tells us, “The local police who discovered his body said that they did not believe foul play was involved, but that an investigation was ongoing.” This is an even more interesting story than you might first think. In 1974, British intelligence turned Oleg Gordievsky into a Western spy. They basically turned him into a double agent.

MI6 recruited him in 1974. He was based then in Copenhagen. In 1982, he’s moved to London. That’s an even bigger posting. So they turned a double agent who ends up in London, and how convenient was that for Western intelligence? And while he was in London, “The KGB tasked him with seeding disinformation about Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher before the next year’s general election.”

So the KGB had him there in order to destabilize British politics. They had no idea that what they had put in place, who they had put in place, was a double agent for British intelligence, and one who was so highly placed and yet the KGB promoted him and put him in an even higher place. So what does it mean to have a double agent?

Well, as The Times tells us, “In practice, he helped the British root out secret operatives and informants working for the Soviet Union. He kept enough of a front to please his KGB bosses in Moscow, who soon promoted him to resident or head agent in Britain. He also played a crucial role in preventing what could have become World War III.” Well, if all you know about the story is this, just understand this is absolutely huge.

This goes back to the Reagan administration when under the leadership of the United States in 1983, the NATO forces decided to hold a mock simulation of response to a nuclear attack. It was a military practice operation known as Operation Able Archer. Able Archer, however, wasn’t understood clearly by the Soviets to be a simulation or a war game. They, given the tensions of the time, became increasingly convinced that it was in reality a sign that NATO and the United States were about to launch a nuclear attack upon Russia.

And nuclear forces in Russia were put on the highest level of alert. Very few people were absolutely certain. By the way, there was a heroic figure in Russia, in the Soviet Armed Forces, who very courageously at the last minute held back because he suspected this was not a real attack. He’s one of the heroes of the story. But Oleg Gordievsky, there as the resident leader for the KGB in London, was also able, given what he knew from both sides, help to prevent nuclear war breaking out.

It was a close call. The role of Mr. Gordievsky in this is made clear by The Times when they say, “He was able to persuade Moscow that an attack was not in fact imminent, while also communicating Soviet fears to the British and the Americans. As a result, Mrs. Thatcher, that means then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain, and Mr. Reagan paired back their language and future military exercises were more limited.”

All right. But at about that point, his Soviet handlers, his superiors in the KGB, began to understand there was a big leak in London. Not only a leak, a very big leak, someone informed them that there was a very highly placed mole in London. And so the Soviet KGB authorities launched a massive urgent investigation. And eventually that investigation turned to Oleg Gordievsky.

Again, their head agent in London turned out to be the chief suspect in terms of the existence of the mole. That is a very deadly situation for Oleg Gordievsky. The Soviets recalled him to Moscow. He was interrogated. They were unable to break him, but it was really clear he was under constant surveillance. He was not sent back to London. And the Soviets were really confident they had their man.

And by the way, the way that ended was usually with one shot to the back of the head without hesitation. That’s exactly how the Soviets dealt with those in such a position who had turned into double agent, someone who was considered to be a traitor to the Soviet Union. And it was not quiet. Because after all, if you want a regime of oppression and you want to keep this kind of discipline, you want people to know who got a bullet to the back of the head.

But Western intelligence had created at least a hope for opportunity to remove Mr. Gordievsky in the event he had been detected, he was, and that was an operation known as Operation Pimlico. It is defined in that business as an emergency extraction, in this case, not of a tooth, but of a double agent whose life needs to be saved. And here’s where the story turned so interesting I assure you. 

The idea was, the plan was that they would try to get Gordievsky to the Finnish border with the Soviet Union and then get him across that border. That border was everything. On the Soviet side of the border, bullet in the back of the head. On the other side of the border, a very respected status as a key intelligence asset for Western nations. Life truly on the line with that border.

But it was not an easy thing to extract someone from the Soviet Union. The difference between being close to the Finnish border and across the Finnish border was life and death. And it was being blocked, of course. It was being blocked by Soviet authorities, and it was being blocked by Soviet KGB officials and others who knew exactly how this operation would go.

They had lost contact with Gordievsky. They wanted to get him before he could get to the West. And so everyone was alerted, and that includes the officials there at the border crossing into Finland. After he got near the area, he was put by those who were leading Operation Pimlico into the trunk of a car. He was put in the trunk. There was a cover put over him, stuff put on top of the cover.

He was buried there in the trunk. Two female agents, one with a baby, turns out that’s really crucial, these two female agents were driving the car. They wanted to look just like a normal situation, just two ladies with a baby crossing the border. And it almost worked. It almost worked until the dogs caught the scent of Gordievsky in the trunk. The guard dogs, the Soviet guard dogs, got excited.

They got excited and they started yapping around the car. And that’s when one of the female agents, the mother of the baby, did the most incredible thing. She took the baby. She opened its dirty diaper, and the dogs were thrown off the scent. The dogs went for the diaper rather than for the spy. The crossing agents, who were probably at that point glad to have the odiferous car pass on into Finnish territory, let them go.

And Oleg Gordievsky’s life was saved by a baby and a diaper and some dogs. The Economist of London tells us that Gordievsky knew his life was safe as he was under this material in the trunk, hidden under the tarp in the trunk as they were driving. He knew his life was saved when he heard music. What was the music? It was Sibelius’ famous work, Finlandia.

He heard the Finnish classical music and understood that the message was being sent from inside the car. He was safe. He was free. But as The Economist also points out, he remained under a death sentence from Russia the rest of his life. And as I said in the beginning of the story, he was found dead, the cause of death not clearly known, at age 86. But I think now you know why the circumstances say it just might be suspicious.

It’s good for Christians to reflect upon the fact that truth really is stranger than fiction, that human beings operating in the way human beings do in a situation, of course, of moral distress, such as was true in the Cold War, with the complicated context of espionage and spycraft, with life and death on the line, events like this really happened. Space, time, and history. It’s not only as good as a movie or a novel. The truth be told, the truth being known, it’s even better.

But that’s the other side of it. So much of this is real life that the facts and the stories are often hidden for a very long time. And sometimes the secrets die with the spies. But I do have one odd question at the end of all of this, and that is I wonder whether Oleg Gordievsky ever thanked that baby.

Part II

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Why Do We Have Nightmares? How Do We Battle What We See in Our Dreams? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, now to turn to questions, and questions come sometimes in something of a pattern and sometimes they come in a collection.

There are certain issues, there are certain pastoral questions, certain theological questions that tend to come with a focus, and all of a sudden, I get several questions about them. And you can detect a pattern. Sometimes there are questions that seem to come out of the blue, and they’re newly asked or newly posed in such a way. I think this might be really helpful to others.

In this case, the question is coming from a 15-year-old boy, a 15-year-old young man, and a Christian young man. Clearly a thoughtful, sensitive Christian young man. The 15-year-old young man writes me telling me that he’s already feeling called to pastoral ministry. That’s a wonderful thing. So first of all, God bless you. God bless you. I’m not going to use his name here, but I’m just going to say God bless you.

You know who you are. And he is in a good gospel church. He’s being pastored by someone I know, and I’m thankful for that. And his pastor has been mentoring him. Again, very sweet. It’s a good picture. Here’s the question. The young man says, “My question for you is this, why do we have nightmares?” Okay, now just listen to this and listen to it with your heart as well as your ears.

Okay, here’s the question. He said, “I had a nightmare just the other day that was so disgusting and ungodly that I almost couldn’t eat the entire day without gagging.” He says his dream involved people he knew. He then says, “How can we as Christians battle things like this that tend to stick with us and affect us for a prolonged period of time?” 15-year-old ends by the statement, Soli Deo Gloria, to God be the glory.

All right, my heart really goes out to this young man. And I do have an answer to this young man. It was suggested to me by at least some very godly influences in my life when I was about this young man’s age. And rarely is the question asked with this kind of candor. And I’ll simply say, I think this is something that is a struggle for all Christians at different stages of life.

It sometimes is a recurring problem for Christians. And for that matter, Christians who are both male and female, both men and women. But there’s an angle to this that is particular, I think particularly acute to men and to young men. Sometimes young men have dreams that absolutely scare them. And it’s not like a nightmare where they were a child with some giant bat coming to attack them.

Instead, it is something within them. That’s a lot scarier. And the difference between being five and 15 is the ability to be really scared about what’s in you and who you are. Well, first of all, there’s an entire biblical pattern of teaching about dreams. And sometimes God actually spoke to men of old by dreams. And at other times, however, we have dreams being interpreted by persons who are more accurately described as sorcerers.

Of course, Daniel was famous for in a godly way interpreting dreams. And that becomes a central part of the story of Daniel. But the reality is it’s a very long part of the human story that dreams can scare us. And particularly I think for young men, we can dream things, it could be violence, it could be lust, it could be any number of things that, and I appreciate the way this young man says it.

He says when he thinks about it, it’s disgusting. Okay, so it’s also helpful to know that really wise Christians of old have dealt with this. Even someone like Martin Luther, the Great Reformer, he understood this kind of struggle. He had his own fits of anxiety and perhaps even of depression and of extremity. He called by the German word anfechtungen in other words, they were so big, they just threatened to take him over.

But even speaking to young men, and I’m paraphrasing him here, he just famously said, “You can’t control what flies over your head, but you can’t avoid allowing anything to build a nest in your hair.” That’s a distinction I think we can understand. We really can’t control everything that crosses our mind. And the more conscious we are, the more control we have, the more responsibility we have.

And when we are sleeping, what comes to us as dreams, does it have anything to do with who we are? Well, yes, of course, it does. On the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily say anything about what you would really do in life or what you really want to do in life or how you would really act. As a matter of fact, I’m not going to get into psychoanalysis in this because that is not my job and I don’t want that job. I don’t even have a lot of confidence in that job. 

I think just from a simple biblical perspective and counsel I could give to a young man, it is you are doing exactly the right thing. You’re troubled by that dream. It should trouble you. But it should not trouble you to the point of your spiritual distress, unless that distress is to point you into godliness, a deeper dependence upon Christ, a deeper love for his word.

And by the way, it’s another basic principle of Scripture, which is you don’t just say no to a series of thoughts. You pray for the transformation of your heart and mind and you fill your mind with that which is good, to press out that which is bad. One final thought on this, the only liberty from any problem like this is Christ. The only liberty is the grace and mercy of God. That’s the only liberating. We can’t get past ourselves. We can’t solve our own problems.

We can’t deal with our own hearts apart from Christ. But we also remember that sanctification is progressive. And at certain stages of our life, we’re dealing with things. And the promise of God is that we can come out of this stronger rather than weaker, more faithful rather than less faithful, actually more usable for the kingdom than not. So I’m not saying that a young man, or for that matter, any human being, has no responsibility for the dreams that cross their mind.

I am saying that I think the good Christian biblical wisdom here is to understand we don’t control our dreams, but there’s no way really to deal with them other than to confess whatever sin might be in the dream. And to understand that at least in one sense, for this young man’s life, the dream has scared him and disgusted him about certain behaviors or whatever was involved in this. All I can say is, well, in itself that disgust is good. 

I’m praying for this young man. I know this godly pastor is going to be encouraging him as well. Just get deeper into the scripture. Get more active than even you are right now in faithfulness to Christ. I tell young men among my own student body, when they say, “I’m really struggling with this. I’m trying to deal with this,” and sometimes they even share that with me, or in the context of a local church, I say, “Here’s what you do. Go preach the gospel in a nursing home. Go do something. Someone out there needs you to show up. And in showing up doing the right thing, guess what? It’s going to press out the other.”

One final word, do not ever let this cast you into despair. Don’t. And you’re going to be incapable sometimes of preventing what might appear to be despair. And that’s where I’m so thankful you have a faithful pastor. Don’t bear this alone. Do exactly what you’re doing. Go to him. Also, I don’t know about your family situation. I can only hope you have a father who’s a godly father.

And I can simply tell you that in such a situation, my father was invaluable to me and was no stranger to anything I could bring to him as an anxiety or a concern. And as strange as all this sounds, I pray the Lord is going to use this to strengthen you in every way and make of you an even more faithful servant of Christ.

Part III

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Will Those in Christ Be Embodied in the Age to Come? If So, How Will We All Fit in the New Creation? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, next, a question coming from an older man. As I say, sometimes there’s a strange pattern, also about a dream. Don’t worry, it’s not the same. It’s not the same. This is an older man who dreamed he had a conversation with a major evangelical, godly Christian leader. And in that conversation, they were conversing about eternity and whether or not those who are in Christ will be embodied in the age to come.

And then the guy woke up with a question, well, if we’re embodied, where can we all be? Well, the biblical answer to that is because there is no boundary in terms of space and time when it comes to the kingdom of Christ and the reign of Christ. And thus, however, however many there are of the redeemed, and it’s going to include men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation.

That’s going to be a lot of newborn believers. That’s going to be a lot of resurrection bodies. That’s going to be a lot of embodiment. And you know what? Heaven can hold us. Heaven can handle it. And in the truest of true senses, every single one of us will be with Jesus.

Part IV

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How Do I Keep My Children Safe From Their Grandparents’ Lukewarm View of Scripture? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Received a sweet question from a dad of a toddler, a one and a half year old daughter. And he says, and by the way, congratulations in advance. They’re soon to have a newborn son as well. He asked the question, “How do I navigate my parent-in-law’s disbelief in certain parts of the Bible?” He puts certain parts of the Bible in quotation marks. “If they don’t believe the Bible,” he says, “according to them it’s made by man, how do I keep my children safe from their grandparents’ lukewarm view of Scripture?”

Wow! This one I didn’t see coming, but I can certainly see it now that you describe it. And I would say, this is the situation in which you’re just going to have to affirm the Scripture. You’re going to have to make very clear that the Bible is the word of God, and you’re going to have to communicate that to the hearts of your children, even if that means saying, “We disagree with grandparents about this.”

And I would simply hope that especially when children are really young, there’s not much opportunity for grandparents to, this is a German theological word, liberal theology, to demythologize the Bible. I simply hope even skeptical liberal grandparents wouldn’t do that to toddlers or young children. But then again, then again, maybe they would. And that’s where I just would encourage you, you teach your daughter and your son to know that the Bible is the word of God, inerrant and infallible.

Make very clear to them that you believe every word of it exactly as revealed. And you know what? I think those children will be inclined to your godly teaching. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way in a difficult situation, such as with the theologically liberal in-laws, that the stakes are not only higher than a lot of people think, but they come earlier than a lot of people think.

I’m just thankful that you as a Christian dad, you’re on it.

Part V

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What are Your Thoughts on Paula White Being Named Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, finally for today, as if I’m not in enough trouble, a questioner sent in, and actually more than one sent in a question, about Paula White in her role as the Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office. And as one listener run into ask, “What are your thoughts on Paula White having the ear of the President? She appears to be theologically immature at the very least.” All right, I’ll go with that. Theologically immature at the very least, or in another case you might say, a theological nutcase, or you might speak about a radical prosperity preacher who is selling the promises of God in the guise of fundraising for a ministry. 

The problems with this are multiple. And frankly, they don’t start with Paula White. They start with an entire movement of let me just say a certain form of charismatic Christianity based upon assumptions about prosperity and God’s blessings. And frankly, it turns into a very manipulative theological system. If you do this, God’s obligated to do that. And of course, the great example right now is Paula White, as the media have reported, offering on her ministry in a video what’s called the “Passover Season, God’s Divine Appointment With You,” in which she offers supernatural blessings to those who give to her ministry in anticipation of Passover and Easter.

The script reads, “I believe that when you honor God on Passover, starting on April the 12th at sundown through Good Friday on the 18th and concluding on Easter Sunday, you can receive these seven supernatural blessings for you and your house.” But taking Exodus 23 outside of its exegetical context, outside of its covenant context, she writes, “God will assign an angel to you. He’ll be an enemy to your enemies. He’ll give you prosperity. He’ll take sickness away from you. He will give you long life. He’ll bring increase in inheritance, and he’ll give a special year of blessing.”

This is nothing that isn’t endemic to prosperity theology and the ministries that are based upon prosperity theology. I’ll just say that’s taking the promises out of context. And those promises are not something that can be offered to people today, much less for a $1,000 offering. Speaking of the offering, she denies it’s transactional. “You’re not doing this to get something, but you’re doing it to honor God, realizing what you can receive for your special Passover offering of $1,000 or more as the Holy Spirit leads you.”

Okay, I’m just going to let those words land as they come. In other words, this is not transactional, but it’s for a $1,000 or more offering as the Holy Spirit leads you. So am I concerned about that kind of influence at the White House? The answer is yes, I’m concerned about that. If I were naming a head of the White House Faith Office, it would not be someone with this theological profile.

I can also say that this is an issue that’s more widespread than you might think. I think honestly, in its essence, it’s a false gospel, but I will tell you that there are no doubt an awful lot of voters for President Trump who hold to this theology. But I’m not a politician, I’m a theologian, I’m a churchman, and I have to say on this one, I’ve got to call it for what it is. And yeah, there goes my invitation.

I’m glad to say that not everyone on that advisory committee, that advisory board shares this kind of theology, but I was asked this question directly and I felt by honor obligated to answer it directly.