CD#11: The Christian Digest Presents THE ETHICS OF SMUGGLING
Excerpts from the Book by Brother Andrew (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 1974)

         Brother Andrew is an evangelist in lands where being a Christian is dangerous. He is the founder and president of Open Doors, a ministry to those who live in countries that do not allow freedom of worship or witness. His book "God's Smuggler" was an international bestseller, with over 10 million copies in print. Open Doors with Brother Andrew has branches in Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa and the United States. The following was written while the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were under Communist control.--A situation which the entire world may face under the reign of the Antichrist.

MARCHING ORDERS
         WHEN JESUS TELLS US we must go and make disciples of all nations, the assumption is that those nations are not disciples. Here is a very interesting thought from Watchman Nee, a great Chinese saint who died recently after spending more than twenty years in his Chinese prison. This is taken from his devotional book A Table in the Wilderness. It's dated January 10, and is a little commentary on Psalm 2:1, "Why do the nations rage?"
         The answer is supplied at once: it is because the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. However violent the hostility between them, World governments are at heart united on the wrong thing--they are against the reign of Christ. We look upon the nations as some of them bad, some good. But Scripture points us to the Prince of this World behind them all. Prompted by him, Earth's rulers today seek only absolute freedom from sanctions imposed by the law of Christ. They want no more love, no more humility, no more truth. Let us break their bands asunder, they cry, and cast away the cords from us. At this point alone in all Scripture is God said to laugh. His King is already on His holy hill. The Early Church was very much aware of Christ's dominion. More than ever today do we need to remember it. Soon, maybe in our lifetime, He will shepherd nations with a rod of iron. Our task is to plead with men to be wise, to put their trust in Him.

The Early Church
         He puts that beautifully. The Early Church was aware of the conflict, realising as one body that they were set apart for a purpose: to conquer the World for Christ, to make disciples of all nations.
         Recognising that Jesus sent them into enemy territory, they also knew they didn't need anybody's permission. They were facing an enemy--not a human enemy, but inimical ideas, religions, or political philosophies that govern people, govern whole nations, and, indeed, today govern whole continents. That's the enemy they were facing. They did not need anybody's permission; they had only to obey the commission!
         When Jesus ordered His disciples 2,000 years ago to move out with the Gospel into all the World, there were just as many "curtains" obstructing their way as there are today--religious, political, cultural curtains--and yet they had to go, bringing the Word of God to people in bondage everywhere. Against deathly opposition, they invaded every corner of the Roman Empire.

A Matter of Obedience
         Here we come to a sensitive point--relating to the government. Of course, we must obey our government, but that goes only so far. We must obey unless that government--whether it is our own or the government of those nations where God sends us as missionaries, as soul-winners, as apostles, as evangelists, pastors, or smugglers [of the Gospel]--unless that government takes the place of God.
         You ask: Where can a government take the place of God? In two realms: first, the realm of conscience--in the service of Christ, in witnessing; secondly, the realm of worship, because that's where they come with persecution. God demands body, soul, and spirit--this is very clear in the Scriptures.
         Many people try to substitute prayer for obedience. I have a great friend in one of the Communist countries; he is a well-known evangelist, a real scholar, but he doesn't work in his own profession--he works full time for the Lord Jesus. Once he said to me: "Brother Andrew, all those people who, when they want to work for the Lord, always ask permission where they think they should have it--whether from government, or a city council, or the police if they want to give out tracts, or have a campaign or an open-air meeting, or anything like that--indicate their basic unwillingness to get on with the job! If they were simply obedient, if they wanted to do it, they would do it.... Jesus told them to do it. They say people wouldn't like it, or the government would disagree. Well, they may get arrested, they may get into trouble, they may be called in for questioning. However, they can always explain, and they can always still apologise. But they must first do it."
         I think he has a tremendous truth there. It's so plain, and still we don't realise that the governments of this World simply are not for Christ.

Daniel's Disobedience
         Here's an illustration from the Old Testament. In Daniel 3:5-6 we have the situation where King Nebuchadnezzar has set up a huge image and has called together all his people, including many Jewish prisoners who lived there in exile, some of them having risen to high positions. This is the edict:
         "When you hear the sound of the horn, pipe [and other musical instruments], you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up; and whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace."
         Now here was the government, the legal authority. It was acknowledged not just by the Babylonians but also by the Jews who had submitted themselves to it--including a man of God like Daniel.
         Yet his three friends, when they heard this decree, and when the music was played and everybody fell down before the image and worshiped, did not bow. They refused. And they were cast into the fiery furnace.
         The government here was trying to take the place of God. Remember that. But the amazing thing is that when the authorities looked into the furnace, they saw four men, not the three, walking free in the midst of the fire, unharmed; and the appearance of the fourth was like the Son of God (Daniel 3:25).
         What had happened? God had identified Himself with those who disobeyed the king's command, because there was a more important issue at stake, bigger than just the national issue--a spiritual issue. Those who refused to obey the ungodly decree were in the Will of God and preserved by Him!

Justified by Works
         Another beautiful illustration is the story of Rahab. In Hebrews 11:31 we read: "By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace."
         Her action was a very illegal thing, because her local legal government was against Israel, and Israel was going to conquer her nation. Therefore, Rahab's duty was to her own king, her own government, her own people. Or was it? No, she had seen something else: she had seen the spiritual conflict (Joshua 2), and had chosen in her heart to follow the God of Israel, if only she could find out something about Him.
         The whole fascinating story unfolds when the soldiers (let's call them police) come to her home and say, "You have entertained men of Israel who have come here to search out the land. Take them out of your home. We are going to arrest them. Here is the arrest warrant. Our legal government wants them."
         But the woman has taken the two men and hidden them. Listen carefully now to what she says. "True, men came to me, but I did not know where they came from." Was that the truth? No, it was not. "And when the gate was to be closed, at dark, the men went out." Was that the truth? No, it was not. "Where the men went I do not know." Was that the truth? No, it was not. "Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them."
         But she had brought them up to the roof where she hid them with the flax which she had laid out in order upon the roof (verse 6). This is what she did when those soldiers went to search outside the gate: she took the spies out quickly and let them out over the wall, and they escaped. First, though, she got their promise (verse 14) to spare her life and deal kindly with her when the Lord gave them her land.
         That's an amazing story. She tells lies, she hides spies, she helps them escape, she does everything against her own legal government because behind it she sees another kingdom--the Kingdom of God--and she's going to risk everything in order to help the Kingdom of God, including telling lies.
         We may never tell a lie, but I still have to see the day when our names are written by God in Hebrews 11. Rahab is in! "By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace."

Ethical Concealment
         Again in the Old Testament we find out about one of the greatest men of God, the great prophet Samuel. He had anointed Saul to be king, and then Saul proved unworthy of this great honour and God rejected him. Samuel was very sad about it. Then, in 1Samuel 16:1, the Lord said to him: "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil, and go; I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided Me a king among his sons."
         But Samuel is afraid (verse 2). "How can I do that? If Saul hears it" (they were already living in a police state, a dictatorship), "he will kill me."
         The Lord then said to Samuel, "Take a heifer with you."
         Now wait a minute! Is God telling Samuel that he should hide his real errand? Cover it up? Do something that many people wouldn't even call ethical? Here the Almighty God Himself instructs Samuel to cover up his action, to camouflage it and tell only part of the truth! I call this concealment of truth.
         God says: "Now, listen, Samuel, this is what you do: you take a heifer with you, and if Saul's police stop you, you just smile at them and say, `Oh, I'm going to sacrifice to the Lord; just look at this heifer. I am going to Bethlehem and I am going to invite Jesse to the sacrifice.'"
         God said, "Samuel, while you do that, I will show you what more you shall do: you shall anoint for Me him whom I name to you."
         Well, this is God's divine authorisation for concealment (hiding, let me call it) by means of a statement other than that which would have disclosed the main purpose of Samuel's visit to Jesse. You may call it evasion, or a suppression of the whole truth. But the issue here is this: Saul had no right to know the whole purpose of Samuel's mission to Jesse, nor was Samuel under obligation to disclose it. Concealment is not lying.

A Matter of Priority
         As I have said before, I pray hard that I don't have to tell the truth. But it's not telling a lie if I hide the truth from people who have utterly forfeited the right to know the truth.
         Charles Finney, the great American evangelist, said, "To withhold truth for a good motive cannot be considered sin." (Finney [1792-1875] was an American lawyer who got saved at the age of 29 and went on to become a famous evangelist, professor, college president and pastor. It was said of his witnessing, "The `slain of the Lord' fell as if machine-gunned on the village streets!" Today his lectures and memoirs are standard reading in evangelical schools.)
         If I stand at the Communist border and have my car loaded with Scriptures, then I am under no obligation whatsoever to tell them the truth, because they are in the service of the Devil. Their aim is to prevent the Kingdom of God from coming to this World. And they do it with the most cruel means: suppression of the truth, killing off pastors and believers, imprisoning of millions of believers, burning down the churches. And these people, the guards and police, are all in that system: and though I love them as people, I surely don't love their system, because they are in the service of the Devil himself, dedicated to stamp out the church so that the Kingdom of God will not come here in this World.
         You see, here we have again the spiritual conflict. What is behind it? Why is King Saul going to be angry if he hears about Samuel's mission to Jesse--the anointing of David? The issue is another king instead of Saul!
         Remember what we are saying: Jesus is the King of kings, and His orders take priority over all the decrees of human governments, especially when Godless men try to restrict or prohibit the spread of the Gospel and the pressing of Christ's claims upon the hearts of people. This is a fact of divine revelation which is not open to argument or rationalisation. "We must obey God rather than men." It's that simple.
         I repeat: no government has a right to restrict Christian believers from making Christ known, and that is the issue today. Are we going to obey God or men?
         Many people say to me, "You are breaking the law, because you are doing what you are not supposed to do. If the law in a certain country says that no Bibles are permitted, you should not bring them in."
         Now, what is the law? There are two laws, and the first is the law of God. When Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment, he quoted verses which every Jewish child knew from Deuteronomy 6: "The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.... And thou shalt write them upon the [door] posts of thy house, and on thy gates ... and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."
         "You shall teach them to your children...." That's God's law. Jesus reflected its spirit when He said: "Let little children come to Me."
         Now, here is another law of a Godless regime that says, "You cannot teach children about Jesus. You cannot teach them to pray, teach them the Bible, or take them to church. And they cannot be baptised; it's forbidden."
         There is the basic issue again: which law do Christians obey? Whose orders do they take?

Being Nice to the Devil
         I want to be very plain here: if we are consistent in keeping the law of God, of necessity we will have to break the law of many governments. At this moment, in all the Godless, atheistic governments where they tell us not to teach, not to take Bibles, we've got to break that law or break God's law.
         If we do not reach all nations with the Gospel--if we don't make disciples of all nations including Russia, Mongolia, Red China, Tibet (you can name all of the Communist countries)--if we write off any of them because we say that they are behind political borders and it wouldn't help our diplomatic efforts, but might even revive the Cold War (not to speak about the Hot War), if we would go in and arouse anger and do things we are not "supposed" to do--well, all right: we are establishing for ourselves a tradition. We want to be nice to the Devil! We even want to lend him a hand as he kills God's children and tries to prevent the coming of the Kingdom of God. In doing that, we definitely break the law of God!
         That is the issue. We've got to see it. When the apostles were threatened there in Jerusalem (Acts 5:27-29) and told not to teach or preach any more in the name of Jesus, Peter just turned his back to them and said: "We must obey God rather than men."
         What so many regard as an ethical issue, saying, "Oh, you shouldn't smuggle; you should keep the law," is nothing but an agreement with the Devil. In debating the morality of smuggling, we deny God the right to rule the World. And that's exactly why the Devil rules it.
         As we go to Matthew 28, we see that Jesus first claims that He has all authority, both in Heaven and on Earth, and then He commands, "Go therefore ..." which implies that we do not need anybody's permission. We don't have to confer with our enemy, and have a nice conference or a cocktail party, to discuss our plans. No diplomacy here. We simply have to do it, because it is enemy-occupied territory and only one has the rightful claim to the World: that's God, through Jesus Christ, His Son! He redeemed men by His cross, and orders us to rescue them.
         Sheer obedience, not conscience or courage, is our response!
         The requirement of God's Word is submissiveness of heart to all authority, but absolute obedience only to God. In practical terms this means that Paul, Silas, Peter, and other disciples "(obeyed) God rather than men" and cheerfully accepted the consequences of prison sentences and death. They sang in prison, not in noisy protest, but in happy submission to authority and its consequences--"counting it all joy" to suffer for Christ's sake.

A LOOK AT THE WARFARE

Going Back to Paul
         Ah, now the objections begin to rise! How can any law-abiding Christian advocate actions against the government? What about the Scripture's teaching of submission to those in authority over us? Why resist the "powers that be" when they are "ordained of God"?
         As we shall see shortly, this is an area of woefully fuzzy thinking by masses of well-meaning Christians, including some of the most prominent churchmen in the World. To get at the heart of the problem, we must examine carefully two things: (1) What does the Bible truly teach about the relationship between a Christian, who is a citizen of the Kingdom of God, and the temporal authority of his earthly government; and (2) What is the true nature of human systems of government?
         The Apostle Paul's significant discussion of this whole matter in Romans 13 is especially interesting to me as a Dutchman with Calvinistic background. In the Netherlands during World War II when we had five years of German occupation, some fine believers, on the basis of Romans 13, cooperated with the German occupation army, considering it to be the legal government because Paul said there was no power or authority but what is instituted by God.
         Paul said that there is no authority except from God, but he surely does define the kind of authority and government that he has in mind. He said that they protect the good, and he who does good will receive their approval, because the ruler is God's servant for the people's good. Is that really the case with Godless authorities?
         What is Christ's law? He desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. This idea He links to our prayer and our attitude toward a legal government.
         In other words, if a government, local or national or international, limits the church in its activity, and curbs the witness of Christians and even persecutes them, then we are no longer under any obligation to observe this government in this respect of conscience and worship. We are free, because God has defined what the role of the government is. To obey government and to oppress the church would be just as silly as when the Dutch obeyed the German occupation army, or as it would have been for the Jews to obey Hitler.
         It is perfectly clear from Paul's life that his pride in his Roman citizenship and his general loyalty to the laws of the Empire never took the place of his unreserved obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, even when it meant conflict with Rome to the death! He respected authority, but he knew which authority had the supreme claim on his allegiance.

Peter as a V.I.P.
         Not all of the New Testament teaching on governments comes from Paul, of course. Peter is another classic example of a colorful character in the Early Church whose statements and experiences are worth examining. Let's look at Acts 5:17 and the verses following it.
         Here Peter was in a situation where he was under pressure by the government which he had to honour and obey--the government that was supposed to punish the bad and praise the good--and which had put him and other apostles in prison. While there, he was treated like a V.I.P.--Very Important Prisoner--with many soldiers guarding him!
         What happened? At night, an angel from the Lord opened the prison doors. Highly illegal! You can't just open the prison doors like that, because they were closed and sealed by order of the government that was put there by God. Correct? But what does God do? He identifies with the man who defied that government. God Himself takes the apostles out of prison.
         What's more, God doesn't say to Peter: "Now disappear, become an underground evangelist." No! He says: "Go, stand and speak in the Temple to the people all the words of this life."
         Doesn't that strike you as humorous, really? God is not afraid of a confrontation with the powers of evil. We are the ones who are scared because we don't know the real issues.
         Naturally, the authorities catch up with Peter again and say: "We strictly charged you not to teach in this name" (an official government decree), "yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us."
         Then came Peter's wonderful response: "We must obey God rather than men."
         There is a choice, you see. You can obey man, sure! And the government, sure! You need not do anything for Jesus in your whole lifetime. You can obey men instead of God--and let the whole World go to Hell!

A Text out of Context Is a Pretext
         If we are going to cite the Bible as our authority, we dare not take single verses out of their total context. Submission to civil, legal authorities is a principle that the Scriptures very clearly and carefully qualify.
         That brings me to direct consideration of a question which was posed earlier: What is the true nature of human systems of government? In principle, all earthly authority derives from God under His sovereign Will. In practice, however, most earthly authority has sold out to Satan, and exists as the visible expression of his demonic force in the invisible world. God's Angels are working in that invisible world on behalf of God's servants, but we must never forget that the fiends of Hell are desperately active in the invisible world, too. In the plan of God, rulers are meant to be His agents for good; but in defiance of His plan, far too many of them are the Devil's agents for wrong and evil and sin.
         For the student of God's Word, hostility toward the church of Jesus Christ comes as no surprise. The Bible makes it very clear that the nations of this World simply are not for Christ. In Luke 21, where Jesus gives His sermon on the Endtime, describing earthquakes, famines, pestilences, terrors, and great signs from Heaven, He says, "But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for My Name's sake."
         Jesus is saying here that persecution is carried out by people, but in the name of the government. It's governments that run the prisons, and this verse implies that the government may even run the church. There you see again how wrong this World is, how it is indeed turned upside down! It surely is time that we came along and put it right.
         Karl Barth, that great Swiss theologian, said something like this: "A government always tends to move between two extremes. It's either Romans 13--servant of God; or it is on the other end, Revelation 13--the beast that came out of the sea and out of the earth."

The Enemies of God
         After all of this discussion, it may occur to someone to ask: What about those Scriptures that say we are to love our enemies and to pray for them? Yes, what about those?
         Dr. Dotsenko says: "The true enemies of the Christian are those who are the enemies of God. All other people are his brothers and sisters in Christ. These he should love and forgive."
         That insight helps me understand a verse that I always had problems with, Psalm 139:21: "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee?" The Bible never tells us that we must love God's enemies.--They are God's enemies, and nowhere in the Bible is there any injunction that I must love those who hate God.

THE WAY OF VICTORY

No Peaceful Coexistence
         Our enemy never has a claim to the truth, nor has the border guard who is in his service. I am under no obligation whatsoever to tell him what I am concealing, because I am engaged in a spiritual warfare and we never talk things over with our enemy!
         Consider Matthew 28 again. Jesus said: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." He didn't say that we must have a conference with the enemy. Jesus Himself did not have a conference with the Devil to try to settle their dispute by a common agreement.
         Our Lord commands us to go and proclaim. Defeat the enemy. Rescue those who are perishing under the dominion of sin and Satan. Once you know this, you know that when you get to the border crossing you are in God's business. It's none of the enemy's business to know what you are doing. You conceal it. He has no right to know the truth.
         You don't have to tell a lie, either. Just have faith in God that He will see you through, and then go on with the business. Because the enemy has utterly forfeited any right to know the truth, very often concealment is an obligation which the truth itself requires.

Some Part to Leave Out
         Along with concealment, there is also a principle of partial truth, which is not to be mistaken for untruth. In Exodus 1 is an interesting example. The midwives of the Hebrews were ordered to kill all the baby boys born to Jews. They didn't obey the order. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said, "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?"
         Listen to their answer. The midwives said, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes to them." Was that true? Yes, but it was not the whole truth. The babies were often delivered before the midwives got there, but the midwives did not kill them; they let them live.
         So here we have an instance of what I call "partialities." The Bible makes clear why the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh's command: "because the midwives feared God" (verse 21). They concealed the whole truth by telling only "partial truth." The Hebrew mothers were quick; the midwives got there, of course, but they were not going to destroy the baby after it was born. That part they withheld from Pharaoh's knowledge. What they said was the truth--in part, and it saved their lives by throwing enough sand in his eyes so that he couldn't see any farther.
         Just to review another basic principle of this spiritual warfare: notice that the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh, the legal authority, because they feared God. Remember, we either break God's commands and stick to our own silly man-made super-pious traditions, or we break our traditions and become vital Christians in the way that Jesus and the apostles were. Not fearing Pharaoh, not fearing the enemy, but obeying God: the choice is ours.

Opposing Forces
         Biblical ethics regarding the strategies of war and truthfulness is not always concerned with words, but sometimes with actions and other forms of signification. I call it a strategy of opposing forces when we employ action intended to deceive the enemy.
         In all the work we do in Communist countries, we don't have to tell them our moves. We do have to inform our prayer partners about some of our program; but as to our real strategy, we don't tell even our prayer partners everything because we don't want to give away our trade secrets. Far less likely are we to publish our strategy and make it known to our enemy.
         Furthermore, it's a part of the strategy to take actions which deceive the enemy without our having to tell a lie in words. Again, we have a Biblical illustration of that. In Joshua 8, the Hebrews are expecting to conquer Ai, the second city in Canaan, as easily as they had just captured Jericho. But something went wrong. Because there was a traitor in the camp, a thief, they lost the first battle and many lives.
         Then came the second try. What had Joshua heard from the Lord before? To lie in ambush in order to conquer the city. But now he was to retreat, what I call "designed and feigned retreat" or "simulated defeat."
         Joshua was under no obligation, of course, to inform the enemy that the retreat he made was not real. It was just a maneuver to get the people out so that the other army which he had hidden around the corner could then come in, set fire to the city, and cause a panic so that they could destroy the whole army. Joshua didn't have to tell that to the captains of Ai. This was the strategy of war! The people of Ai failed to see through Joshua's plan and were self-deceived by his apparent retreat.

The New Testament Way of Doing It
         This World is enemy-occupied territory, filled with souls to whom Christ holds the rightful claim. Under His explicit command, we go in by every possible means--partial truth, concealment of truth, interpretation, change and opposition, or any other form of strategy that will help us to get in there with the Gospel.
         We are under obligation to obey God instead of men. His commandment is "Go!" Whenever we dabble with this command, or compromise, or debate its morality, we simply deny God His right to rule the World. And that's exactly why the Devil is in command.
         We are not facing an ethical issue but a loyalty issue. If we are true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we simply go into all the World because He sends us. We need no welcome, we need no invitation, we need no permission from the government, we need no red-carpet treatment, we need no VIP reception--unless it means Very Important Prisoner for Christ's sake.
         The command has been given by the risen Lord and the issue is clear: Spiritual battle! Let's go in Jesus' name, and do it! We can do it because ever since He first issued the orders, Jesus has given to every generation the ability, the strength, the manpower, and the opportunity to do it.
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