Kingdom Come

“His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, His Kingship shall not be destroyed.” Daniel 7:14

It may seem like kingdoms here on earth are all powerful and will last forever. The way kings and dictators rule, it is as if they will never be judged for their actions. But at the end of time, Jesus will be Judge and it will be the comparatively insignificant people who are building God’s Kingdom here on earth whom Jesus will point out and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” 

I am sure that one of those people will be Andrew van dee Bijl, or Brother Andrew as he is called. He was born in 1928 and he is still alive today. As a young boy he dreamed of derring-do, and when he was old enough started smuggling Bibles into the Iron Curtain. It was usually difficult to find the Christians and their underground churches because the State did all it could to snuff out religion and religious activities. 

During one trip to Sofia, Bulgaria, Andrew had memorized the address of Petroff, a Christian. He was warned that he should not go around asking for Petroff as he was a foreigner and Petroff would surely get into trouble. Andrew then looked for a map of the city but the bookstore and hotel did not have any. 

In the hotel, there was a small decorative, hand painted street plan under glass. At first Andrew dismissed it because only the names of the biggest boulevards were shown. But as he bent over it, he saw the most amazing thing. The cartographer had only penned in the names of the major avenues, and there was only one tiny street a few blocks from the hotel that had a name. It was the street where Petroff lived. 

When Andrew visited Petroff in his one room apartment, Petroff showed him that he had 2 Bibles, one complete one, and one with missing pages. He was using a typewriter to fill in the missing parts so he could give it away to a little church in Plotiv where there was not a single Bible. Andrew was able to bring in cartons of Bibles for Petroff to distribute throughout Bulgaria through the years. 

And now, do not most people take for granted our Bibles on the shelf?