Where is the Truth?

Novi Sad (Neusatz) in Serbia on what used to be the Austro-Hungarian side of the River Danube in south-eastern Europe. The place where Dejan Jevremov, the brother we heard about in last week's letter, grew up amongst Anabaptist Nazarene believers.

Brother Dejan on his trip to Australia, early this year, where he visited his children and grandchildren, the Isakovs and Augustinovs in Queensland. Reminiscing on his long colourful journey with the Lord he has written a story he has entitled, Where is the Truth? The first chapter draws parallels with the wanderings of Abraham, and from here he moves on to personal experiences and reflections. Without question, as you follow his story, you will be encouraged and uplifted as I also was:

1. Where is the Truth?

And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. But Sarai was barren; she had no child. And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. (Genesis 11:26 - 12:4)

If these lines in Genesis eleven and twelve would have been written in chronological order, could it be that Abram was not aware of the fact that God was leading him out of Ur of the Chaldees even before God's call was revealed to him?

After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.

And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.

And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. (Genesis 15:1-7)

Much later, Jesus said:

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

The amazing influence of our Lord's Spirit in a man's life can be outside our human awareness—especially the early drawing, the channelling of the Holy Spirit. We humans know only a tiny part of our God's infinite wisdom.

Looking eastward to the sunrise over Novi Sad from Petrovaradin in what used to be Croatia. The place where a large group of Austrian prisoners -- the Kleinsassers, the Wurtzes, the Müllers, the Glanzers, the Hofers and others -- awaited their final banishment to Siebenbürgen in what is now Romania, in the late 1700s.

2. Where is the Truth?

In the years from 1947 to 1948 I was an eight-year-old child. The socialist (communist) regime was holding an iron-fisted control over our country of Yugoslavia. Much of the private business and property was already confiscated. Educational institutions, the economy and entertainment was controlled by the Red government.

I was one of about thirty or thirty-two children in the first grade of the elementary school. One day the teacher, whose husband was an officer in the People's Liberating Army, started her session with a question: “Children, what do you think about the blue colour we see way up high above the ground on a clear day?”

Most of the children were from families with an Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic tradition and they might have been aware of what was to follow. All of them were silent. But I, an ignorant child of my Nazarene parents, was fairly free and open toward this very kind of encouragement given to us by our young teacher. With my arm raised up, I volunteered to share my opinion—for which I still cannot manage to find the basis or source until this day. (I am only seventy-six years old now.)

This was my little story about the universe: “If we could go very, very high,” I said, “we could see the First Heaven. A very large sphere that is like a prison for the souls of all the people that ended their life in this world in sin, and in disobedience to God. All of them are waiting for God's final judgement.”

“Higher above,” I continued, “is the Second Heaven. A beautiful large place where the souls of the faithful may be found. All of those who lived in a godly way. They are waiting in peace and joy until the end of this world, when all redeemed souls will be gathered together. The Lord God will take them into His everlasting adoration. Until that time, they will wait in safety in the Second Heaven.”

“Then,” I continued, “High above the Second Heaven, is the Third Heaven. It is beautiful beyond description! The joyful angels and heavenly Spirits live there. In the centre of that Kingdom is a glorious throne and on that great throne is . . .” I paused for a moment and my classmates in chorus said loud and clear, all in unison, “GOD!”

I jubilantly sat down. My soaring imagination allowed me to return to this life—into the country of our modern slavery.

The teacher laboured hard and long to explain the teachings of renowned scientists and explorers of the atmosphere, the stratosphere and even the ionosphere. She told us of the newest technical advances and amazing instruments that reached one way or another to other planets, stars and galaxies. “These enormously wise and educated people,” she said, “have joined their efforts with others like geologists and anthropologists of ancient cities to prove that the world is millions of years old and nowhere has anything ever been detected, and no evidence has ever been proven that indicates any super-natural power. All that has been found so far was mythology and the ignorant imagination of primitive human beings.”

“The only real life anywhere,” she concluded, “may be found in matter.”

Yugoslav students on a May Day parade during the heyday of godless communism. "Kingdoms wax and kingdoms wane," they say, "but God stands sure forever."

3. Where is the Truth?

“Dictators and ruling classes,” our teacher said, “have long supported religions, the clergy, ceremonies and rituals to scare the population into submission.”

I think she was careful enough to mention that the formation of our solar system and the evolution of intelligent beings—like humans—are scientific theorems. But testing the “knowledge” of the pupils during subsequent classes she encouraged the children to talk about the theorems as if they were proven facts.

Next Sunday after the morning meeting in our local Nazarene meetinghouse, our mother and sisters were preparing lunch and my chore in the meantime was to walk to the nearest artesian well and bring fresh drinking water in a small three-litre can. There were a few women already in line for pumping water before me and I took my place behind the last one.

The two contradicting beliefs, those of our socialist regime and the one of my church, were still in my mind with the nagging question, “How can I know what is fact and what is deception?”

If I follow the teaching of the Holy Scriptures (against the claim that “Nothing Other Than Matter is Real”) I will be a Christian prisoner for many years of my life. And, if I survive, this may continue to the remainder of my time. I am going to be a very poor man, often without any income, and who knows what more will happen to me.

On the other hand, if I follow the the pattern of “evolution” and Communist party directives, I might prosper materially, socially and probably politically. I might be compelled to oppress—perhaps even very cruelly—some faithful believers. As terrifying as that could be, the most awful fact was the teaching of the Bible about everlasting fire. The only eternity left to all who refuse obedience to God’s Word.

Before my turn to pump water, I almost reached my decision. As miserable as life could be for the believers through the cruel persecution in our country, I knew I could not compare it with eternity in the Lake of Fire. So on my way home with the small can of fresh drinking water, I still had a major problem. I believed the Lord commanded me to believe His Word. Obedience without faith is not acceptable to Him and most likely is not possible at all.

At the end of my first grade in school I was already able to read simple text and books, just as well as I could talk, and book reading soon became my addiction. Then after my determination by the artesian well, I began to read the Bible much more and often oppressed my poor mother with difficult questions that at times not even the ministers and leading elders seemed able to answer.

The National Library in Novi Sad, Serbia, still an imposing institution today.

4. Where is the Truth?

During the summer holidays between the first and second grades I often walked through the town centre—the place in Novi Sad (Neu Satz) where stores and shops were located. A very imposing building with huge marble pillars and very tall narrow windows was the National Library (Biblioteka Matice Srpske).

Doctors, professors, engineers, lawyers and generally intellectuals and academics of all kinds were the users of this institution. I was doubtful that I would be allowed to enter in, but I was sure to try! I was eight, almost nine years old. I bravely walked in and approached the librarian: “My name is Dejan Jevremov,” I said. “I want to become a member of this library, to be able to use the reading hall and to borrow books.”

The librarian looked a little surprised, but within seconds she replied with a motherly tone, “You love to read, right? It is all yours! Just be careful not to damage any book and when you need help, come to me and I will help you.”

A very remote corner of the huge study hall was covered with thick dust—shelves upon shelves of books and files with the titles and names of authors and publishers. Something or, perhaps, Somebody, pulled me in that direction.

It was my first literal revelation! A whole group of national and international writers and poets presented the ancient human dilemma—God, Christ, soul, spirit, angels, believers, persecutions, suppressed history, and more. I found the translations into Croatian and Serbian were not exactly modern, just a little old fashion, but much more decent than the new socialist jargon. Through the turbulent years of the second World War and the invasion of the Soviet Union and Communist Independence, the beauty and wealth of Croatian and Serbian, as well as foreign literature, had been preserved here under its thick layer of dust.

I realized then that there were, and perhaps still are, a host of human minds searching for Truth.

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