#207: BOOK REVIEW: God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew, John & Elizabeth Sherrill.
This is the true story of Brother
Andrew, a Dutchman who has spent his life working for God in places where
Christianity is forbidden by the government. It is the tale of his wayward
youth, his conversion, the powerful work of God in his life, and his trust in
the sovereign God of the universe.
During the Cold War, Brother
Andrew smuggled Bibles into countries behind the Iron Curtain-a term indicating
the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of
World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. This was a very
hostile region to Christians. In a time when there were no significant Human
Right Movements or the media to cover inhuman treatments, Bro Andrew took risky
and daring moves to take contraband items into these regions.
That takes some serious
motivation. This was the first thing that caught my attention in his story.
Besides this, the story of Bro Andrew hinges on the power of prayer, faith and sacrifice. I mean, most times as followers
of Jesus, we may have been held back by the fear of what people will say or
being persecuted. I’m sure fear of how people will respond has held back most
of us at one time or another. But somehow Bro Andrew dared to smuggle these
Bibles into unfriendly regions.
On one occasion, Brother Andrew
approached the Romanian border in his car—which was packed with illegal Bibles.
Printed material especially was liable to be confiscated at the border, no
matter how small the quantity, because coming from out of the country, it was
regarded as foreign propaganda. Now here he was with a car and luggage
literally bulging with tracts, Bibles, and portions of Bibles.
He could only hope the border
guards were moving swiftly and not paying much attention, which might allow him
to pass through undetected.
But just as he was hoping this,
Brother Andrew saw the guards stop the car at the front of the line. He
watched, in anticipation, as the vehicle’s owners were forced to take out all
of the car’s contents and spread them on the ground for inspection.
Each car that followed received
the same treatment, with the fourth car’s inspection lasting the longest. The
guard took a full hour to sift through it, including removing hubcaps, taking
the engine apart, and even removing the seats.
“Dear Lord,” Brother Andrew
remembers praying, “What am I going to do?”
As he prayed, a bold idea came to
Brother Andrew. “I know that no amount of cleverness on my part can get me
through this border search. Dare I ask
for a miracle? Let me take some of the Bibles out and leave them in the open
where they will be seen.”
Putting the Bibles out in the
open would truly be depending on God, rather than his intelligence, he thought.
So when the guards ushered Andrew forward, he did just this. “I handed him my
papers and started to get out. But his knee was against the door, holding it
closed.”
And then, the almost unbelievable
happened.
The guard looked at Brother
Andrew’s passport and abruptly waved him on. “Surely thirty seconds had not
passed,” he remembers.
Brother Andrew started the engine
and began pulling away, all the while wondering if he was supposed to pull over
so the car could be taken apart and examined. “I coasted forward, my foot
poised above the brake. Nothing happened. I looked out the rear mirror. The
guard was waving the next car to a stop, indicating to the driver that he had
to get out.”
God had cleared the way for
Brother Andrew to smuggle the Bible to Christians who had no access to God’s
Word.
From one border to the other, he
saw the hand of God helping him take bibles into hostile regions. Along the
way, Brother Andrew even developed a trademark prayer:
“Lord, in my luggage I have
Scripture I want to take to your children. When you were on earth, You made
blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do
not want them to see.”
This story hinges on;
The Power of Prayer: Bro Andrew’s story was a perfect reflection of
the Power of Prayer. This was the driving fuel for this dangerous work of serving
God under Communism’s oppression. Brother Andrew and his coworkers surrendered
their lives to a life of prayer.
The Power of Trust: He trusted God, day by day, to provide for his
needs, so long as He was following His call. His trust for provision is
incredible, and would probably be considered crazy by today’s standards. This
was evident on countless occasions when Brother Andrew should’ve been arrested,
killed, or stranded (you get the picture), but God intervened miraculously.
The Power of Sacrifice: The kind of life Bro Andrew lived is what
most today would deem unlivable. He sacrificed multiple chances for ‘the good
life' and gave up even the most basic items that we today take for granted, all
so that we could continue the work he felt called to.
Because of Brother Andrew, many
people behind the Iron Curtain received Bibles and were shown that God cared
about them. This story also reflects that God can use an ordinary man to change
the world as He did on many occasions in the Bible.
Find the book via the link below
https://d-pdf.com/book/gods-smuggler-by-brother-andrew-pdf-download
God bless you. 😊
Brother Andrew!
ReplyDelete