Swords into Plowshares: Part 3 of 6

The following is Part 3 of 6 from a booklet by Rev. Blake Purcell titled Swords into Plowshares, Three Dimensions of Bringing Peace on Earth (and Ukraine)Isaiah 2:1-4, 11

Part I

Part II

III. Dimension II: The Purpose of Peace on Earth

God’s Wink

According to Isaiah 2 what must be the purpose of peace on earth? 2:11 and 17 both lay it out for us:

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. 

When is this? Isaiah 2:2 says in the latter days. We know from Acts 2:17 and Joel 2:28 that the latter days began when the Holy Spirit was poured out, which means that Isaiah 2 has been happening since AD 32 until now.  

Why did the Communist Party, based on an all-encompassing worldview/religion boasting that it would be so superior to all other human endeavors that it would cause all religions to evaporate from the earth, why was this lofty and high party politely asking to have an American come and share the Word of God with them? One reason from Scripture we can come up with is that the Lord wanted us to see that He was the One humbling the Communist Party and giving them the boot. This was God’s wink to us as they left the world stage. I think they were too exhausted to notice, unfortunately.

Exalt the Suffering Servant

Isaiah also explains who the Lord is and why He is exalting Himself. He is in Isaiah 53 the suffering servant in vss. 10-12:

Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself[g] an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors.

And the Lord alone will be exalted in that day in Isaiah means that the Father is leading all of history and mankind to exalt His Son. Moreover, the Son of God alone will be exalted in that day. Why is the Father exalting His Son? Because he poured out His soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors. God has ordained total victory for His kingdom because of the worthiness of His Son. This exaltation of Himself, the ultimate purpose for His total victory, Ephesians 1:6, is to praise His glorious grace. By exalting Himself alone, He is exalting Jesus and his death on the cross and by doing that He is exalting and praising His grace, and proclaiming to all that in Him mercy triumphs over judgment.

When the old Communist questioned me in 1991, “You came here for that?” just to tell them that Jesus died for sinners of all nations, God’s answer to him is, “Yep.” To this man my move into his world was irrational. But was it in the sight of God? Or was it normal in God’s economy? In the sight of natural man, it was ridiculous, but so was the death of the Son of God on the cross for sinners. That is absurd! Charles Wesley put it this way,

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

God’s love for us is not rational from a human point of view. It makes absolutely no sense.

The Reason for God’s Unconditional Commitment to Exalting Himself

According to Isaiah 2: 11 why does the Church exist? That Christ alone may be exalted. Why? Because He poured out his soul and made many from every nation to be accounted as righteous. And what does this exaltation of Christ look like? Verse 2, all the nations flowing into the mountain of the house of the Lord. So if we have partaken of the blood of Christ, then what should we have an unconditional commitment to? His glory and exaltation in the earth through having the nations flow into God’s global house? Correct! This is the Father’s attitude, and if we know Christ, it is ours.

God’s Plan B: Humble All Who Do Not Exalt the Suffering Servant

This leads us to the root of fleshly thinking among those confessing Christ. Our flesh, especially our American flesh, thinks that if we are not responsible to do our part of Isaiah 2:1-4, Isaiah 2:11 does not apply to us. We get a pass, because we are special. But Isaiah 2 traps all men. Either we voluntarily humble ourselves to fulfill 2:1-4, and get the word out to all nations, or we are involuntarily humbled in 2:11 and 17. We are either God’s friend and slave or His enemy. II Corinthians 5: 15, reads And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. What we find in the Bible is a God who is irrationally and lovingly committed and sacrificial toward His people, and who expects and requires a seemingly irrational love and commitment back from His people, period.

This reciprocal love for God is pictured in Isaiah. In chapter 53, He poured out his soul to death. In Isaiah 58:10, we are to pour out our souls for the hungry. What if we do not want to pour out our souls for the hungry of the world? Our flesh tells us that that God just says, “Oh, well.” No, what the humbling in Isaiah 2:11 looks like is in Numbers 14. Verse 28 reads, Say to them, ‘As I live, says the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:  your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. Why? Vs. 22, because they had seen God’s glory, and said, “No, we will not go into the Promised Land, we will not be poured out for the nations.” “Ok,” God says, “You have rejected plan A, Isaiah 2:1-4, now you get to enjoy my plan B, Isaiah 2:11.”

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

God tells us, “You get to die in the wilderness, and have a meaningless life, and your eternal state is up in the air.”

We find a similar plan A/B in Acts 8:1, And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria. And Acts 11:19-20, Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyre′ne, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 

Hmm. When the church was slow about fulfilling Acts 1:8 voluntarily, God put into place plan A/B, or A.1, and got them to fulfill Acts 1:8 involuntarily.  

According to http://www.thetravelingteam.org/stats the Missions center for Gordon Conwell Seminary, American Evangelicals own 80% of the Evangelical wealth in the world, but the USA only sends 25% of missionaries in the world. This means the churches of other nations are sending 3 times more missionaries than we are on 4 times less money than we have. Do you think God is ambivalent about our total self-absorption? We have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and positioned ourselves perfectly for God to put into place plan A.1, or B, or both. And He is doing that. American Christians have allowed American “exceptionalism” to mean, that what God promises He will do with the unfaithful of all nations and at all times, Isaiah 2:11, He will not do with us.

God said in Numbers 14, vs. 20, truly, as I live…all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. In spite of our unfaithfulness, God enacts plan A with those who are faithful, and they, those little children of Numbers 14, go into the Promised Land. God fulfills Isaiah 2:1-4 with or without our permission and participation. Either way, He alone is exalted, through our obedience or humiliation.

And our flesh says, “The American Church is so strong, how could Acts 8 persecution possibly happen in the near future?” Well, if Russia invades the Ukraine or the Baltics, we and our sons will probably be drafted. (I was already an Infantry Captain, so you will probably have to serve under me, and I’ll try to go easy on you.) Then we’ll find out how God can do an Isaiah 2:11 right quick. God will not be mocked.

I have to add the splendid irony of Numbers 14:40, after they heard God’s plan B, that they all get to wander in the wilderness until they die, they decided they liked plan A better. And they rose early in the morning, and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “See, we are here, we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised; for we have sinned.” The Holy Spirit made sure we knew that all of a sudden, what had been impossible to do just the day before, was easy now that they saw that God did not allow His people to ignore His great commission, or to even be slow in it. If American Christians are digging foxholes in the Baltics soon I bet they will be saying, “Lord, let’s go back to plan A! It wasn’t so bad after all!” But, at least for them, it will be too late. You see, in the long haul, because God is absolutely in control of everything, doing His plan A always ends up easier for us, in the long haul, than His plan B. God is funny that way.

Exponential Growth of Ministry in Former Soviet Union Because God Exalts His Word

Now I want to share with you what God has done with Cathy, me, and our 6 children and then ask why. In October 1990 I began to study Russian upon arrival in Leningrad. By August of 1991 I was able to lead a small Bible study of Soviet students in our living room. Within a year ten of those Soviet students, reared under the philosophy of dialectic materialism, had confessed Christ and were growing in their walk with God. They had the Word of God in the Russian Bible, and most of what it took to radically change their minds, hearts, and lives was to read it and hear it and discuss it. Some of them then married each other and now there are about 20 covenant children from that first 10 converts that came to Christ in our ministry. A few became founding members and elders of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of St. Petersburg that we founded in 1999. That church in turn became the flagship church for our seminary students when we opened the seminary in 1999. Through the seminary we now have a community of ten churches in a movement across 9 times zones and in 4 countries. Most of the places where our churches are being planted have never had a deeply biblically rooted church in their known history.

Why did this exponential growth happen and is it still happening? We see in Isaiah 2:2-3: It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

In vs. 3, this word for is the word kee in Hebrew, and means because of, and as a result of. All of this happened with us in Eurasia because the law of God is in fact from Zion. And why does God bless His word so powerfully? Because only His word exalts the suffering servant who poured out His soul to death for sinners, and God the Father is unconditionally committed to rewarding His Son’s suffering through the Church.

And as Christ is being exalted, what else is happening in our 10 churches in these 4 nations across 9 time zones? Our people and all those in Bible believing churches in Eurasia are beating their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. The Church preaches the word to the nations, the nations flow into the Church and learn to live in peace, and all of this, when done God’s way, exalts Christ alone. When we do things God’s way, God blesses as only He can.


Click here to continue to Part 4.

To Open the Eyes that are Blind

To open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.  Isaiah 42:7

What should the attitude of the church be to those who are in prison?  Some Christians feel sorry for them while others believe they are being justly punished for their misdeeds.  The commandments of the Bible clearly show that we should feel compassion and mercy to those who suffer in prison.  I am grateful for the loving kindnesses I received while I was a prisoner; it changed my life so much so that now instead of a life of despair, I am a pastor, a husband, and a father.  In His great mercy, the Lord has, and still, rescues prisoners through the ministry of the church.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Saint Petersburg has a history of being involved in prison ministry.  A number of our church members came to Christ while in prison and continue to minister in this realm by participating in the Angel Tree Christmas project for prisoners’ families and by helping to build a halfway house for released convicts. Two months ago we were asked to participate in an exciting project to film testimonies of how Christ has changed our lives and to show glimpses of our lives.   Four men from our church participated—myself, Dmitry Ivanov, Alexander Golov and Dmitry Kupch.

The film is currently being edited.  Pray that God will use this film to reach many who still suffer in bondage to the Evil One.

Pastor Oleg Volkov

Reformed Presbyterian Church

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Swords into Plowshares: Part 2 of 6

The following is Part 2 of 6 from a booklet by Rev. Blake Purcell titled Swords into Plowshares, Three Dimensions of Bringing Peace on Earth (and Ukraine)Isaiah 2:1-4, 11

Dimension I: The Vehicle of Peace on Earth

The flow of thought in Isaiah 2:2-4 is that the law of the Lord is sent out from the mountain of the house of the Lord, and then men learn God’s ways and begin to beat their swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks. If that is right, world peace comes from the word of God, preached by the universal Church, and applied by the people who hear it.

This seems straight forward and… too good to be true. But Isaiah 11:1-10 backs all these points up but is even more colorful and explicit. In Isaiah 11 what we see is at Christ’s first coming, around AD 30, the word of Christ struck the whole earth bringing justice. That justice causes the wild Gentile animals, the lion, bear and leopard to live like God’s sacrificial animals the lamb, cow, and ox. We know from Daniel 7 that these exact wild beasts represent the empires of the world. In Isaiah 11 the word of Christ transforms the whole world, and in Isaiah 2, the word of Christ goes out through the mountain of the house of the Lord, which we know from I Timothy 3:15 is the Church. The Bible is explicit as to what institution will bring a global cessation of violence. In the Bible universal shalom, and hesid, all around well-being, come through the Church, the whole Church and nothing but the Church.

Click here to continue to Part 3.

To read Part I, click here.

Tea and Psalms in Romanovka

Tea and Psalms in Romanovka

6 months ago, SRS Field Director Blake Purcell challenged me and the other pastors in training at the Biblical Theological Seminary to focus on training our church members to feed themselves from the Word of God.  This was a huge blessing as Blake taught me to take one verse of the Scripture and give men and women the opportunity to write down observations and applications which we share with each other.  Now we meet on Thursday night. My wife Olga cooks a meal, we pray and chant a Psalm.  When we finish our tea the men and women break into small groups and work on Bible verses we are memorizing by heart.  We close by sharing our reflections.  I am very encouraged that our congregation is beginning to feed themselves and that I have a new tool for working with people.

Pastor Ruslan Moroz

Romanovka, Russia

Click here to support Pastor Moroz's church plant in Romanovka (under "This is For", select Ruslan Moroz).

Swords into Plowshares: Part 1 of 6

The following is from a booklet by Rev. Blake Purcell titled Swords into Plowshares, Three Dimensions of Bringing Peace on Earth (and Ukraine)Isaiah 2:1-4, 11

Associated Press, January 2014, Kiev, Ukraine, Orthodox priests stand between police and demonstrators.

An Invitation to a Communist Party Meeting (Part 1 of 6)

February 1991 – I was ushered into an ornate marble room in a rundown palace. My friend introduced me to the fifty or so people at the meeting and I was asked to share why an American with three children and an expecting wife would move to their country when everything in it was falling apart, and tens of thousands of citizens were looking to emigrate.  

This was not just any meeting. It was one of history’s last assemblies of the Communist Party of the USSR, in the birthplace of that party, Leningrad. I shared why we moved to their country by explaining Revelation 3:20 and how Christ came into my life, forgiving my sins and giving me a reason for living. I said that made me willing to move my family to the USSR and share that message with Soviet citizens so that they could know the joy of having their sins forgiven and be able to live an abundant life, a message straight from my Campus Crusade and Navigator training.

I do not doubt that I was the first Gospel preacher their militantly atheistic Party had invited to speak, but I had to also have been the first American they had ever seen in the flesh. They probably were curious to see if I had horns on my head and a pointy tail as their propaganda had said, and to see why any sane man would bring his wife and three kids into a country that had no food in the stores. At the end of my remarks an older man raised his hand tentatively, and said, “You came here for that?” It did not seem that he doubted my motives but rather my sanity.

What does all this have to do with peace on earth and good will toward men? Bear with me as I read Isaiah 2:2-4 and 11:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths”. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more…

The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

These verses refer directly and indirectly to three dimensions of biblical world peace. Those dimensions are the vehicle of that world peace, the purpose of that world peace, and the cost of that world peace, all three of which we will explore now. Along the way I’ll explain what my partying with the Communists had to do with some of these things.

Click here to continue to Part 2.

Rev. Purcell is an evangelist from the PCA's Pacific North West Presbytery, and Field Director of the Slavic Reformation Society

Chaplain Prison Ministry Update

Chaplain Prison Ministry is a ministry to prisoners in St. Petersburg and the surrounding region of Leningrad. God has moved in mysterious ways to allow our ministry to reach the prisons. Often we have a difficult time gaining permission to enter the prison but because of increasing problems with drugs and addiction in the prison, the authorities have permitted us to enter and conduct Christian concerts. At Easter we were allowed to have a concert featuring songs and a Christian mime team. We are also excited about a new project that we just started to film former prisoners from different walks of life that have been able to make a new start, of course, with the help of Jesus Christ. Pray that this film will reach many for the Lord. Finally as we seek to minister it is very important to build relationships within the prisons, so in April we hosted a party for 100 children of prison employees.

In Christ,
Igor Krutogolov
Good News for Captives

Click here to donate to Chaplain Prison Ministry (under "This is For", select Igor Krutogolov).

Pray for Peace in Ukraine

by Rev. Blake Purcell

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

My son Lewis and I just saw the news of dozens of pro-Russians in Odessa burned out and killed.  We prayed for peace with tears. 

Horrible things are happening in Ukraine.  There are more Evangelical Christians in Ukraine than any other part of the former Soviet Union. Some Orthodox priests have been very brave in trying to keep the peace.

We must follow their example and pray for peace and be willing to be peace makers as they are.  Isaiah 2 and 11 call the Church to be the makers of peace and the examples of peace.  People are dying and we must pray and stand in the gap for the land (Ezekiel 22:30). 

Please make Tuesday, May 6th, 2014, a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Ukraine and between Russia and Ukraine.  Atrocities are being committed on both sides, and the future of the world in our time and the Church in this part of the world depend on this. 

Please share this with all your Christian friends, family and churches. 

In Christ from St. Petersburg, Russia,

Blake Purcell

Field Director

Slavic Reformation Society