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Verse:“Until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.” —Daniel 4:32
While visiting the Kremlin and the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow in May 2014, several thoughts crossed my mind.
I imagined the Russian Revolution (1917) and the powerful Soviet Union (1922–1991). Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) had forcefully stated in 1905 that “religion is opium for the people” and “a sort of spiritual booze.” He was fully convinced that their atheist Programme could successfully replace the alleged “yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind.”25 Lenin could not imagine that eventually, many of his atheistic seeds would uproot, and religion would be preached even at the Kremlin Congressional Hall.
A front-page article in the Russian daily newspaper Izvestia stated that on March 9, 1992, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation had announced that “the former Peoples’ Deputies of the U.S.S.R. are planning to conduct their session in the usual place for them, the Kremlin Congressional Hall... In the schedule of the palace there is planned for March 14–25 another activity titled Biblical Way to a New Life.
It will be conducted by American Seventh-day Adventists.”26 As planned, the Seventh-day Adventist Church held an extended, full-length evangelistic campaign in the 6,500-seat Kremlin Congressional Hall, formerly the center for Communist Party congresses. The meetings were conducted by Mark Finley, with a daily attendance of 10,000–12,000 people in two sessions and more than 1,400 baptisms.
But that was only one of several Adventist outreach strategies implemented after the Russian perestroika. In the Adventist Review of June 18, 1992, William G. Johnsson related that the Seventh-day Adventist Church had established in Russia (1) the first Protestant seminary, (2) the first Christian publishing house, (3) the first private clinic, (4) the first national religious radio program, (5) the first religious television network, and (6) the first evangelistic campaign in the Kremlin.
What a beginning in that challenging region, and what remarkable accomplishments! Never lose hope. God “can turn hearts as the rivers of waters are turned.” What He did in Russia, He can do anywhere —even in your life.