Erik Tryggestad reports that the separatists claim that the Russian Orthodox Church is the region’s only true church and see other Christian groups, especially those planted by foreign missionaries, as tools for Western propaganda, full of spies.  Kozlovsky, a 63-year-old author, theology professor and preacher for Churches of Christ, was therefore viewed as one of those spies and taken captive.

In an interview with The Christian Chronicle, Kozlovsky recounted that at one point, his captors placed a cloth bag over his head, locked him in handcuffs and forced him to hold a pair of grenades, which they claimed they had found behind a bookshelf in his apartment.  For hours, they beat him with “something that felt like sticks,” he said, but he continually denied their charges.  After the beating, his arms and legs were swollen to “twice their normal size,” he said.  He couldn’t walk for days, according to Tryggestad.

Many fellow Christians of the Cup of Life Church of Christ in Donetsk fled to the west when militants took control of the region, but Kozlovsky and his wife, Valentina, stayed in Donetsk to care for their 37-year-old son, Slava.  Slava has Down Syndrome and is confined to a wheelchair due to partial paralysis.  Kozlovsky believed that the move would have been too traumatic for their son.  Yet Slava was terribly traumatized when his father was taken captive and he sat helplessly as militants rummaged through their apartment.

Kozlovsky endured brutal treatment and inhumane conditions as a prisoner, but he states that it was the separation from his family that would be the hardest part of his captivity.

Thankfully, on December 27, 2017, exactly 23 months after he was taken from his family, he and 74 other captives were freed in a prisoner exchange.  Kozlovsky was reunited with his family and he says that “he once again felt reborn.”

What was the first time he felt reborn?  It was when he was baptized into Christ several years earlier.

He had previously been held captive in the bondage of sin, a condition we all experience as sinners, and sinners are we all.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  Sin is a cruel master and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

But Kozlovsky was set free from sin – and we can, too.  How?  Through Jesus Christ.  Christ came into the world to save sinners by dying on the cross for our sins.  “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

God will set free from sin and give eternal life to those who place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Him before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  In baptism, we are reborn and set free from sin (see Romans 6).  Then, as we continue to walk in the light of His Word, the blood of Jesus continues to cleanse us from sin (1 John 1:7).

Jesus said, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32) and “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Won’t YOU submit your life to the Savior so that YOU can be reborn and set free from sin?