Hassan is an eleven-year-old Ukrainian boy. When Russia invaded his country, his mother, a widow, was unable to travel because she had to stay with her sick mother. So she sent her son out of the country on a train by himself with only a plastic bag, a passport, and a telephone number written on his hand.

He traveled roughly 620 miles to Slovakia to meet relatives. After he arrived safely, she said, “I am very grateful that they saved the life of my child.” 

Vladimir Putin clearly considers expanding the Russian Empire worth the lives of thousands of Hassans. 

A story as old as humanity 

The first fact we discover about humans in God’s word is that we are each made in the image and likeness of God. After we learn that “God created man in his own image,” we are even told, “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Clearly, every male and every female is equally valuable in the eyes of his or her Maker (cf. Acts 10:34; Galatians 3:28). 

From then until now, nearly every sin we commit against each other is a violation of this fact. Cain considered Abel’s life worth less than his own. Joseph’s brothers felt the same about him. From Egypt’s enslavement of the Hebrews to the Western world’s enslavement of Africans, sex traffickers enslaving their victims today, and nearly every other kind of crime in the day’s news, we see all around us the horrific consequences of rejecting Genesis 1:27. 

In this sense, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a contemporary example of a tragic story as old as humanity. His Communist upbringing and KGB career taught him the Communist worldview with its depreciation of the individual as a means to the end of the state. 

“Primeval conditions in besieged cities” 

The New York Times reports this morning that the war has taken “a decidedly darker turn, with hundreds of thousands of people now living in primeval conditions in besieged cities as Russian forces try to batter the country into submission.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight address, “We are doing everything to save our people in the cities that the enemy just wants to destroy.” 

Writing for The Times of Israel, Rachel Sharansky Danziger notes, “Vladimir Putin’s invasion is very eloquent and very loud in this regard. It says: Might Makes Right. It says: human lives are cheap. It says: liberties and free speech must give way to the good of the state, and the good of the state lies in its glory, not in its people’s safety and welfare.” 

Then she asks, “Are we willing to accept a world shaped on these terms?” 

China’s horrific treatment of the Uyghurs and Kim Jong Un’s imprisonment and torture of those viewed as threats to his dictatorship are other examples. The long history of anti-Semitism is yet another illustration of humanity’s sinful “will to power” and willingness to subjugate other races and peoples to the advancement of our own. 

“A rule which is not tyranny” 

There is another side to this story. America’s founding on the biblical fact that “all men are created equal,” while fueling our pioneer spirit and entrepreneurial culture, must be balanced with the biblical fact that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Otherwise, the equality of human lives leads to the equality of human ideas. There can be no right and wrong, only what is right for me and wrong for you. 

As D. A. Carson notes in The Intolerance of Tolerance, tolerance then becomes not the right to be wrong but the insistence that there is no such thing as “wrong.” The result is the destruction of institutions foundational to human flourishing. 

From the equal rights of the unborn to the definition and sanctity of marriage, the healthy expression of sexuality within biblical marriage, the dignity and value of the elderly and infirm, and the urgency of justice for all races and ethnicities, every dimension of human experience is damaged when objective truth is replaced by relativistic tolerance. 

In The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis noted that “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means . . . the power of some men to make other men what they please.” By contrast, “A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.” 

A light that “cannot be hidden” 

Such a “rule” and “obedience” is captured in the biblical call to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” to God (Romans 12:1). As a “living sacrifice,” every dimension of our lives is to be yielded every moment of every day to our Master and King. 

Here we find one of the reasons why a “compartmentalized” life is so hazardous to the life of faith. When Jesus is a sermon subject and a person of history but not an intimate, present reality in our day-to-day lives, we miss the joy and the power he infuses in every soul that is truly united with him. 

Conversely, when Jesus is king of every part of our lives every day, we experience the “abundant life” he came to bring (John 10:10) and become the light that “cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14) and “overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). 

So, like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, we can reject Genesis 1:27 by viewing other people as a means to the advancement of the state. Similarly, we can reject Genesis 1:27 by viewing other people as a means to our personal advancement and agendas. Alternately, we can embrace Genesis 1:27 as mandating the relativistic equality of all ideas and values and thus replacing truth with tolerance. 

Or we can decide today to become a “living sacrifice” to our Lord and King. 

“Let there be peace on earth” 

Imagine a world in which every Christian made that choice every day. Imagine the impact on every person we influence. Imagine the difference if Christians around the world led the nations of the world to value every person as God does. 

A beloved hymn so relevant to our war-torn world begins, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” 

Would you make these words your prayer today, to the glory of God?

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My granddaughter’s favorite song is “Let It Go” from the movie Frozen. When I watched this little girl sing the song in a Ukrainian shelter, I was nearly moved to tears. She is likely someone’s granddaughter.

What if she were mine? What if she were yours? 

Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine is generating some of the most moving stories that I have ever seen. For example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave the first speech by a foreign leader ever to Britain’s House of Commons Tuesday, echoing Winston Churchill’s famous words to the same chamber at the dawn of World War II: “We will fight till the end, at sea, in the air. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.” 

The whereabouts of his wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska, and their two children are secret since Ukraine believes they are being targeted by Russia for assassination. However, she has played an active role on social media, shining a spotlight on what she calls “the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians.” 

Then there are the children who are such innocent victims of Vladimir Putin’s escalating atrocities. 

At least three people were killed and seventeen were wounded when a Russian airstrike bombed a maternity hospital yesterday. One million children have been forced to flee Ukraine, leaving behind their lives and their friends. Polio is even making a comeback as the war has halted vaccination efforts. Russian bombardment has killed so many people in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol that workers are forced to bury civilians and soldiers in a mass grave. 

And US intelligence leaders are warning that Putin is likely to escalate attacks even further in the coming days. 

Only 4 percent of Russians blame Russia for the invasion 

While the world increasingly sees Putin and Russia as an international pariah, the story is far different on the Russian side. ​​

The New York Times reports this morning that top diplomats from Ukraine and Russia failed to reach an agreement today to calm the fighting in Ukraine or even to ease the worsening humanitarian crisis. Note this statement by Russian foreign minister Sergey V. Lavrov: “We are not planning to attack other countries. We didn’t attack Ukraine, either.” He was repeating Russian claims that his country was forced to conduct a “special military operation” in Ukraine to protect its own security.

Many in Russia believe him.

Putin’s approval rating soared as Russia prepared to attack Ukraine. While thousands of protesters have demonstrated against the invasion, only 4 percent of Russians blame the conflict on Russia. More than two-thirds blame it on the US, NATO, or Ukraine. 

The vast majority who do not blame Russia for the invasion is unlikely to blame Putin for Western sanctions enacted in response to the invasion. In fact, such measures may harden their opinion against the West and reinforce Putin’s narrative that he is defending his people from Western aggression. This does not mean that the West should not do all we can to defend and support Ukraine, of course. But it does illustrate the fact that nations have narratives. 

Even the way the two sides describe the country being invaded demonstrates this reality. Russians refer to it as “the Ukraine,” with the definite article indicating that it is a region rather than an independent entity. Ukrainians refer to their homeland as “Ukraine” without the definite article to reinforce its independent status. Americans follow this custom when we speak of “the Bluegrass region” (with the definite article) of “Kentucky” (without the definite article). 

In reading British scholar Geoffrey Hosking’s Russian History this week, I found context that further clarifies Russia’s narrative of this conflict. Hosking reports, “Whatever else they may have wanted, Russians have always longed for security from terrifying and murderous assaults across the flat open frontiers to east and west.” 

This need “motivated the creation of the first Rus” state in the ninth century. It explains their support for Ivan IV (1530–84), the first “Tsar” (a form of the Roman imperial title Caesar), and later for Peter the Great (ruled 1682–1725), who built Russia into an empire. 

Rebuilding this empire is Vladimir Putin’s expressed and determined purpose. To the degree that Russians see his invasion of Ukraine as necessary in defending them from alleged threats from the West and restoring their national pride and power, they are supporting his invasion. 

“It is good for me that I was afflicted” 

So, each side of the war in Ukraine believes that its side is “moral.” Notice what is missing in this debate: a question as to whether objective morality exists. 

As I have discussed often over the years (and in two chapters of The Coming Tsunami), it is conventional wisdom in our postmodern culture that all truth claims are personal and subjective. But when children are hiding in shelters and bombs are falling on a children’s hospital, such relativism is one of the first casualties. 

Suffering has a way of clarifying our priorities and exposing our fallacies. The psalmist spoke for many when he admitted to God, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word” (Psalm 119:67). He could then observe, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes” (v. 71). 

I am praying that postmodern skeptics learn from this horrific conflict the absolute fact of absolute truth, the moral imperative of embracing and defending objective morality. I am praying for Christians to exhibit the transformative power of living by such morality as revealed in the word of God (Hebrews 4:12) and empowered by the Spirit of God (cf. Galatians 5:22–23). 

And I am praying that such Spirit-empowered integrity will begin with me. 

“God will make you fit” 

The reality of suffering and sin forces us to admit the reality of our finitude and our consequent need for divine grace. Oswald Chambers noted in a devotional that to be united with Jesus Christ, “We must relinquish all pretense of being anything, all claim of being worthy of God’s consideration.” 

He explains: “There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase. . . . When a man really sees himself as the Lord sees him, it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ.” 

He concludes: “If you are up against the question of relinquishing, go through the crisis, relinquish all, and God will make you fit for all that he requires of you.” 

Do you see yourself as the Lord sees you today?

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Anatoly was a twenty-six-year-old member of Irpin Bible Church, northwest of Kyiv, Ukraine. Note that he “was.”

An IT professional in a local company, he also served in his church’s media ministry. When the Russian invasion began on February 24, Anatoly evacuated his wife and other family members to safety. Then he courageously returned last Friday to join his church’s skeleton crew.

As a young mother and her two children fled Russian shelling, Anatoly volunteered to carry her suitcase across Irpin’s collapsed bridge. All four died when a Russian bombshell landed in the middle of their would-be humanitarian corridor.

As with Abel of old, “through his faith, though he died, he still speaks” (Hebrews 11:4). 

What is he saying to us?

Boy dropped from burning apartment building

Anatoly is just one of the hundreds if not thousands of Ukrainians killed so far in Vladimir Putin’s illegal and immoral invasion of their country. Why, then, did I want to tell his story this morning? Why did you choose to read it?

Here’s some good news: A three-year-old boy was dropped from the window of a burning apartment building in New Jersey Monday morning and caught by first responders. And some tragic news: a New Jersey man was swept out to sea while swimming off a beach in Hawaii last Saturday. And some more tragic news: an eleven-year-old girl died after falling under a moving school bus in Colorado last Thursday.

How did these stories make you feel?

I told each of them to make the same point: there is something in us that rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep (Romans 12:15). This is part of our identity as beings made in the image of a God (Genesis 1:27) who loves each of us as if there were only one of us (St. Augustine). Each person is therefore someone of infinite worth to our Creator, not a means to the ends of a nation or its rulers.

This fact is vital to understanding the larger significance of the war in Ukraine for America’s future and American Christians today.

The future of our cultural freedom

US intelligence officials testified at a congressional hearing Tuesday that Putin is likely to escalate the conflict in Ukraine with no concern for civilian casualties, viewing his invasion as a “war he cannot afford to lose.”

Yesterday, we began discussing the fact that Russia’s invasion represents a “new Cold War” pitting the autocratic regimes of Russia and China against the individual freedom ethic espoused by Democratic nations of the West. Putin’s invasion is just one example of the degree to which he sees democracy as impeding his tsarist vision for Russia.

In response, I noted that America’s founders clearly linked freedom with morality and morality with religion.

They were right. 

As the Bible notes, we are all “pinched off from a piece of clay” (Job 33:6). As a result, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It is therefore crucial that Christians embody and share with others the good news of God’s transforming grace (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Said bluntly, the future of our cultural freedom depends on the degree to which we embrace our spiritual freedom in Christ (cf. Galatians 5:1; John 8:31–32). In a day when American society is more opposed to Christian truth and morality than ever before, this fact is more crucial than ever before.

What percent of Americans elected our president?

The more secular our democracy becomes, the weaker our democracy becomes.

Princeton University scholar Allen C. Guelzo, in reviewing political scientist Jan-Werner Müller’s book Democracy Rules, cites Müller’s argument that “democracy has a deep philosophical affinity with relativism.” This is because our democracy rests on the two pillars of freedom (of speech, assembly, and association) and equality (of all citizens as equal political participants).

As a result, we make decisions based on popular voting, not objective truths, and trust that a free media will hold our leaders and institutions accountable.

But what happens when fewer and fewer of us participate in our democracy? (Kevin D. Williamson notes that Joe Biden was elected president by only 24.6 percent of all Americans.) 

What happens when the Americans who do vote are increasingly uninformed about the issues we face? And what happens when the people and the media they trust increasingly insist on tolerance over truth and seek personal and partisan advancement over the common good?

In The Republic, Plato warned that democracy is inherently flawed: freedom is supreme, but laws are not obeyed and chaos results. Leaders pander to the wants of the people whose support they require. A few people take advantage and accumulate great wealth. To restore order and put down the rich, the people then vote a tyrant into power and democracy ends.

Is this our future?

A difference that will echo in eternity

The last world war united Americans in defense of freedom and democracy with a sacrificial ethic and resolve of character that enabled us to defeat the greatest enemies our nation had ever faced. I am praying that the “new Cold War” will unite us once again in the same cause and evoke from us the same character.

And I am praying that America’s Christians will lead the way by surrendering daily to Christ as our King (Matthew 6:33; Ephesians 5:18) and then advancing his kingdom through our gracious witness, godly influence, and sacrificial faith (Ephesians 4:15).

In this day of global social media and connectivity, a single courageous Christian like Anatoly can make global headlines and a global impact. As with Isaiah of old, a single committed believer can use his or her influence to make a difference that will echo in eternity.

In answering his Lord’s call, the prophet cried, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). 

What will you say to your Lord today?

NOTE: One very practical way we can be the presence of Christ to those suffering in this conflict is to care for refugees as Jesus cares for us. For more, please see our website article, “As 2 million Ukrainian refugees flee, how will you welcome the refugee next door?“

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