{"id":36361,"date":"2022-08-25T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T18:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/soviet-spy-finds-new-country\/"},"modified":"2022-08-25T18:24:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T18:24:00","slug":"soviet-spy-finds-new-country","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/soviet-spy-finds-new-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Soviet Spy Finds a New Country"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The podcast, &ldquo;The Agent,&rdquo; tells the story of Jack Barsky, a Soviet-era KGB secret agent embedded in the US, beginning in the 1970s. Gradually, his loyalties shifted and in a remarkable turn of events, the FBI actually eventually helped him to secure US citizenship.<\/p>\n\n<p>Near the end of the podcast he says,<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I had a home again, an official home. &hellip; I&rsquo;d put East Germany out of my mind. I stopped thinking about the folks back there. &#8230; I put it away and put it in a part of my brain that I didn&rsquo;t want to access anymore. You always want to belong to something. This is one of the basic things that make us human. &hellip; Now I had a country again. That felt really good.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>You can listen to the podcast <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-agent\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Possible Preaching Angle:<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>The Christian&#39;s change of citizenship is far more dramatic, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, thanks to Christ Jesus, our King.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[405,411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[433],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3622,3689,3700,3733,4087,4324,4325,4326,4327,4375,4405,4517,4521,4541,4660,4782,4877],"tax_ctp_topics":[388],"class_list":["post-36361","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-citizenship","tax_ctp_tags-conversion","tax_ctp_tags-country","tax_ctp_tags-darkness","tax_ctp_tags-government","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-kingdom-of-heaven","tax_ctp_tags-light","tax_ctp_tags-loyalty","tax_ctp_tags-nation","tax_ctp_tags-nationalism","tax_ctp_tags-new-life","tax_ctp_tags-politics","tax_ctp_tags-redemption","tax_ctp_tags-salvation"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Soviet Spy Finds a New Country - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/soviet-spy-finds-new-country\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Soviet Spy Finds a New Country - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The podcast, &ldquo;The Agent,&rdquo; tells the story of Jack Barsky, a Soviet-era KGB secret agent embedded in the US, beginning in the 1970s. 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