1967 Phoenix FGBMF Regional Conference

Romania's most widely known Protestant minister. He pastored for many years one of the largest Protestant churches in the nation of Romania. He had as members of his congregation generals, cabinet officers, high-ranking government officials.

His was one of the largest churches. His name was one of the most widely known of all pastors of that nation. He's Romania's most widely published Protestant author, a seminary professor, a gentleman who speaks 14 languages, a man who has been looked upon as a spiritual giant and has been called this by Lutherans and many many others who know him intimately.

His name has is today keeping faith alive in many many hearts. It is a symbol of Christian courage in the country of Romania and very rapidly becoming so in other countries. In 1945, Reverend Worm Brand saw freedom of religion extinguished in his homeland.

One million Russian soldiers came in flooding the country. Romania's most widely known Protestant minister immediately launched an underground secret missionary ministry to the one million Russian soldiers. This was highly dangerous and it took the form of boarding passenger trains for no other purpose than to sit next to Russians and pass the miles and the hours by in telling them of Jesus Christ in Russian.

Many times countless soldiers got on the trains with the darkness of atheism in their hearts and debarked a few hundred miles down the way with the light of Jesus Christ burning brightly. When the passenger train would come to a terminal Reverend Worm Brand and his workers would get off the train go to the ticket window and buy a ticket on the next train out caring not whether it went east, west, north, or south just to sit next to Russians and tell them about the saving grace of Christ. He was able to preach the gospel inside the military barracks of the army by going on to the military bases as a Romanian laborer as one who had official business.

There he made contact with Russian Christians and in the barrack buildings they assembled many many young Russian soldiers and there he began to minister to them the Word of God in such dangerous circumstances. Now I'd like to interrupt my introduction to ask we'll have more chairs put back there. May I have your attention there are two right over there.

May I resume the introduction. Reverend Worm Brand in a military barracks was told now preach the gospel by a Russian. The Russian said now whenever I see anything suspicious I'll put my hand on your knee.

Stop speaking about Christ and talk about watches, weather, anything. When my hand is removed from your knee the danger has passed and you may resume your gospel ministry. And then the ministry began to expand underground from the one million invading Russian soldiers to the 18 million enslaved peoples of communist Romania.

And may I tell you that darkness had fallen across this land as the midnight comes each day. Darkness would fall and terror had broken out. Christianity was being persecuted.

The Bibles were being burned. Sunday schools were banned and across the face of this darkened land Reverend Worm Brand and many of his workers not he alone but many of his workers moved across the face of the land keeping the faith of the peoples alive. He was carrying forth the torch of the gospel and keeping it brightly.

In every village stopping and ministering for a short time. In some villages he was known as Georgi always using a fictitious name. In others Istvan, in another Mikhai, in another by no name simply as the man who speaks of God.

In other villages he was called a gospel phantom. One who appeared ministered in a basement, an attic, a barn, a hay field, a forest clearing and then disappeared a few hours to reappear a few miles down the road in another village keeping the faith of the peoples of his homeland alive. Reverend Worm Brand is perhaps the only man who has ever had printed on a communist printing press gospel literature.

May I say this this afternoon. Could I have your full attention please forward. He prepared a gospel book entitled Religion is the Opium of the People.

Now what a wonderful title for a gospel book. Religion is the Opium of the People. The book had on the cover a picture not of the bearded figure of Christ but the bearded figure of Karl Marx.

The communist censor looked at this book. The first ten pages of the book were filled with quotations from Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin against Christianity. All these statements that God is foolishness.

Anyone who believes in God is poison. The book was taken to the communist censor. He perused it.

He looked at the title, the cover, the first few pages and said excellent we need at least 20,000 copies of this book. Well I can tell you he should have read further because on page 10 the atheistic poison ceased and page 11 began by saying now everything you've read is stupid and foolish and wrong and here's the truth the Word of God. He put his stamp of approval for 20,000 copies to be printed on a communist printing press with communist ink, with communist paper, with communist labor and the Word of God was spread.

These were given out in street demonstrations and communists would vie with one another to take this book. I'll have three comrade. Give me one.

I'll have two and by the time their true message was revealed Reverend Wurmbren and the workers of the underground church were long since gone. But sooner or later the inevitable happened and on a beautiful Sunday morning, somewhat like this morning perhaps, Reverend Wurmbren was walking on the street and the van of a secret police pulled up in front of him, four burly guards jumped out, threw him onto the floor of the van and he roared off down the road to disappear from the face of the earth for 14 years. When I talk about him I'm not referring to one man.

He's only the one who came out. There are thousands who did this that did not come out who are in communist graves or imprisonment today and as the van roared down the road 14 years of imprisonment and torture faced him. The first three years were in solitary confinement seeing not a living soul, not a star, nor sun, not moon, not any man except the communist guards who came with their hot irons, their pokers, red hot, their knives, their instruments of torture, their 50 pounds of chains, their one slice of bread a week.

These are the only living human beings. But in solitary confinement late at night if you'd listen carefully you could hear a tapping and using prison morse code Reverend Wurmbren tapped the gospel in prison morse code on the walls to the unseen prisoners in the next cell. There as the gospel was tapped, what about your soul? Quoting John 316, the other prisoner began to understand the rhythmical tapping and tapped back.

I'm not a conversation. Tapping together as they prayed together the sinner's prayer. Praying together by tapping as they were they as he led this man to Christ.

Years later Reverend Wurmbren met such men as who had been won for Christ through tapping the gospel on the walls and morse code. And after three years of solitary confinement his wife was told he was dead. His wife who is with us this afternoon was given his official death certificate.

Three guards came dressed as prisoners saying Mrs. Wurmbren we saw your husband lowered into the grave. We saw him dead. Give up.

There's no hope. But she continued praying and she never gave up hope for one hour that in some prison he was still alive. And after three years he was brought out of a solitary confinement cell and there as he stood facing the people, facing a communist guard, I want to describe the scene.

There was no, he had no water for three years to wash his faith with. Had never washed for three years. A crust of dirt covered his face and the communist officer was resplendent arrogant young man in his beautiful uniform gave him a pencil and a paper and said now I guess you've learned your lesson after three years of never seeing anyone.

Sign a statement against the brethren. He took the pencil and began to write. The guard grabbed the note and looked at it and saw not an accusation against the brethren but a message that said we who are tortured love even you who torture us.

Now this is a strange statement but the communist officer realized that no man could love this had to come from a source other than man's source. He was so moved that he accepted Christ himself put down the rubber club he held in his hand became a Christian and was put in prison also for having accepted Christ as his Savior. And during this time when Reverend Wernbren was moved from one cell to another a white sack was put over his head so no guard or no prisoner could see him and recognize Romania's most widely known Protestant minister.

And in this way he was kept from going from one cell to another. After eight and a half years he was released for three years in which he resumed his secret ministry in forests and basements and attics. No longer the most renowned church in Romania but now in basements and attics.

And after three years of freedom he was rearrested and put in prison for 25 years. 25 years. This was in 1959.

The second time was worse than the first because in every communist prison they have a dying room for fatally ill prisoners. In this room prisoners who can never survive are thrown. It is 30 feet below the earth.

There it is so damp that moisture drips from the walls. There is no ventilation. The only air comes through a half inch tube from the ground.

And in this condition in the dying room Reverend Wimbrand was thrown in. Afflicted with tuberculosis which covered both lungs. Spinal tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis of the intestinal tract. And in this condition racked with tuberculosis was thrown into an underground pit with air through a half-inch tube. No prisoner had ever survived more than two weeks in the dying room.

He survived two and one half years in the communist dying room. Therefore it's a miracle that he's with us today. And for every miracle there is a reason.

And the reason I believe is that the church in one third of the world, the early church that has come alive in the 20th century might not continue to be forgotten as it has been forgotten. That it might not be written off. God has reached into the depths of a communist prison and has brought out a man who like Paul can say bears the marks in his body.

And I bring to you now a man who has been called the Iron Curtain Paul. The voice of the unyielding church in one third of the world enslaved under communism. Now it's a privilege and pleasure to bring to you, it's a great responsibility to bring to you a man who speaks as the voice of the dumb church.

The voice of the church that has no voice. And I pray the voice of the dumb church will not speak to a church that has no ear to hear. And I might add to you this afternoon, there'll be many things not said to you but in the most severe of tortures and the most desperate of prisons, Brother Wurmbrand and his workers made a decision that come what may if any of them survive they would reach the communist for Christ.

Therefore we bring to you now a man who's been called the voice of the unyielding church in the communist world, Reverend Richard Wurmbrand. Ladies and gentlemen and you very dear children, I have been in a sense a very privileged man. It is a great privilege to pass years in reclusion without ever seeing anybody.

We were 30 feet beneath the earth, everyone alone in a cell. We never were taken out. During years we never saw sun, moon, snow, flowers, stars.

Now I am like drunk when I see sun. 50 times a day my wife has also been in prison. We show to each other, look there is the sun, look there is the moon.

We touch the trees. We show to each other every flower. We stop by every child.

We have never seen children all these years. 14 years we have never seen a fruit. We had forgotten that fruits exist.

We have never had a book, not only that we didn't have the Bible, we had no book. We never had a bit of paper. When I had to write again I did not remember how to write.

I had to write a capital D and for nothing in the world could I remember how to write it. And I am perhaps the only man who has made the following prayer. I thank thee God that thou hast put in the minds of men when they compose the alphabet to make for every sign two letters.

So when you forget the capital one you have still another sign where to write the letter. But in these years of solitary confinement, when we never heard the slightest noise, the guards had closed shoes and you could not hear their approach. It was such a silence that you could have cut it with a knife.

In these years our minds not being distracted by anything outward, we could think about many things with a depth to which usually you don't arrive in such a world as the Americans. There is a TV and there is a radio and there is a golf party and there is I don't know what and you don't arrive to think about these things. And very often America has been in my thought and in our thought.

During the years of solitary confinement we never slept during the night. We slept only during the day and the whole night we passed in prayer and in spiritual exercises. When all the other prisoners went to bed, the Christian prisoners arose and passed their whole night in prayer.

And every night we prayed for America. I have seen prisoners with 50-pound chains at their feet praying for America. So it has arrived that some of you have come to Christ.

You have seen the blessings you didn't know that these blessings were brought on wings of angels from some subterranean Soviet jail. And we often thought about America. Now I am here since a very short time and I would like to say you first of all not about what happens behind the Iron Curtain but to tell you what I think about America.

I have a right to do this because America is mine too. I have prayed for it during many years. And it is very important for Americans to know what others think about them.

Jesus has been very great and Jesus asked his disciples, what do men say that I am? We are sometimes blasé and oh I don't mind what another one says about me. It is very important to know what another man thinks about you. And if I would have to summarize what I think about America, I would put it in a few words.

Please don't feel hurted. Remember that I am a man who have been 14 years with thieves and murderers and not with gentlemen. So I may have lost manners and be a little bit unpolite.

But I think that what Americans are missing more than everything else is the feeling that they have a mission in this world. The Jews knew very well that they have a mission in this world. They were at the beginning very simple people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they were nomads, shepherds.

But they knew we have a mission. And they have fulfilled this mission, they have given to the whole world the holy book. In their people was born the Messiah.

They have given great examples of holiness, Virgin Mary, the Apostles, the first Christians. And even now they play such an important role in the life of the world. The Jews are one half percent of the population of the world and 60% of the Nobel Prize winners.

That is a people who know that it has a mission and fulfills this mission. Once, heavenly Jerusalem will descend on earth. When it was written by St. John, it looked foolish.

How will a town descend from heaven on earth? But now we on earth speak about launching stations on the moon. So we can, from the earth, send a city to the moon, and God can't send a city from heaven to the earth. But when God will send a city from heaven to the earth, the name of the city will be the name of the chief town of the Jews, Jerusalem.

Because they were a people and are a people who believe, which believes we have a mission. A people is big only if it believes that it has a mission. The Chinese, now in their madness and backwardness, they believe that they have a mission.

They have to show the world the happiness of communism. It is a wrong sense of mission, but it is a sense of mission. The Russians have a sense of mission, that they have to bring socialism to the whole world.

And very often when we spoke with communists, contradicting them and showing them that their ideal was wrong, they asked us, well our ideal may be wrong. Could you please tell us what is the ideal of America? And we were very embarrassed what to answer them. Is it money making? Is it sex craziness? Is it baseball? What is the ideal of America? A young Romanian has asked me once, tell me pastor, are the Americans very, very poor? I asked him, how do you put such a foolish question? They are the richest nation in the world.

And he said, I have heard it too, but I can't believe it, because I have seen American periodicals and American movie pictures. They are so poor that they have no money to buy clothes for their women. All their women are naked.

Now it may look to you just a joke, but it is very dramatic. Now the fact is that the American women are not naked. They are usually very decently dressed.

And it is not true that America consists in money making, in golf parties, in sex craziness, and in gangsterism. America is something entirely else. I don't allow myself to be duped by appearances.

I have studied American history. I have studied what Washington and Franklin and Lincoln and the others have said. And I know that America has been constructed upon the Bible.

If the Bible would not have been, the United States of America would not have been. These, the founders of your nation said, that is why we have founded these states. As a bastion of freedom and as a bastion of Christianity.

Therefore, America has been created. Therefore, God has put in the mind of Columbus to discover it. And I am simply amazed about how many saints I have met in America.

Filled churches with men and women who really worship God as you don't see in Western European countries. But somehow, this ideal of America is not on the surface. If you peruse the newspapers and so, you get the wrong impression.

On the first page, there is the last crime which has happened. On the third page, there is something about stripteases. On the fifth page, there is something about baseball.

I have read Los Angeles Times, New York Times, New York Herald. You never see anything about the gospel, anything upon what America is really constructed. America needs, first of all, a sense of mission.

We have something to give to the world which the world has not. America needs, again, heroes. You have choirs.

In a choir, 50 sing. But what is needed are heroes who should be conscious. We have something to give to the world.

In American churches, they sing the song, I don't know exactly how it is in English, All Hail the Name of Jesus. And then it ends with crown him, crown him king of all. Now, if these words are earnest, the only ones who can crown Jesus as king of all are only the Americans.

Denmark can't make it that Jesus should be crowned the king of everybody. Sweden can't do it. Western Germany can't do it.

Russia can't do it. Today, China can't do it. The only power in the world which can make these words to become a reality, that Jesus should be the king of all, only the Americans can.

They have the organization for this. They have the power for this. They have all the means to attain this end.

If only they will become conscious of this mission which they have. The Greeks have given to the whole world their philosophy. The Romans have given to the whole world their sense of justice.

The Germans have given to the whole world their great music, Beethoven and Bach and Mozart and Handel. And the Americans are those who in this century can make the gospel of Jesus Christ to be triumphant in the whole world. Usually, different missionary organizations call meetings like this to tell the people what they can give.

We are a poor missionary organization and you can give us and then sometimes you put your hands in your pockets and you give a few dollars or sometimes a check of a few hundreds of dollars and with this you feel released. We are a mission who have not to ask from you, but we can give you from the experience of the underground church behind the Iron Curtain. We can bring you blessings because hands which have worn chains for Christ are hands which can bless very much.

And we have to tell you out of our experience, out of thoughts which have been thought in great bitterness and in great suffering, what you Americans can do to fulfill your mission, how you Americans could make out of the words which you sing to make Jesus and by making Jesus you make love and truth and justice and liberty to make them king of all. Never will words be able to say what communists have done to Christians. A pastor should say the whole truth.

I have never said it. Because if I would say everything which happens in communist countries, some of you would faint, some of you would rush out of this room closing their ears and say, no, no, stop, stop, we can't bear to listen anymore to these things. With us Christians we are tied to crosses.

Four days, four nights, the crosses were put on the floor and hundreds of other prisoners were obliged by beating to fulfill their necessities upon the faces and the bodies of the crucified ones. Then the crosses were erected again and the communists stood around jeering, mocking, look your Christ, look your Christ, how beautiful he is, what fragrances he brings from heaven. You take Holy Communion in your churches, don't forget that in this same time in communist countries, in prisons, priests and pastors are obliged to give Holy Communion in the form of excrements and of urine.

And some half-men of the tortures through which they have passed comply to what the communists ask from them. When I spoke once with a Catholic priest who has done this and have told him, but father, you are a man who believe in God and in eternal life, why have you not preferred to die and to go to heaven than to participate at this devilish liturgy? He rested upon my shoulder, his very head and said, brother, don't judge me, I have suffered more than Christ. Christians were put in cells with 40, 50 hungry rats which did not allow them to sleep a little bit.

The rats all the time jumped around. Young Christians have put in a cell with two specially trained dogs. As long as you stood still, the dogs made you nothing.

But at the slightest movement, the dogs were trained to jump to your throat and imagine only the terror to have before you the whole time such dogs. And it was not only with men that these things happened, with women much worse things have happened. I have asked so often my wife, tell me a little bit about the things through which you have passed in prison.

She begins to weep, she begins to weep, and with this it is finished. There are things which can't be said. But I must say that the worst thing in prison were not the physical tortures to which Christians were submitted.

The worst thing were our remorses, because we had been Christians, and we had had a mission from God, and we remembered that we have not fulfilled this mission to the last, to the utmost. And to be put in a communist prison is something like dying. On a day, on a Sunday, while going to church, I was kidnapped from the street, pushed in a van of the secret police, and I disappeared for 14 years.

You also will be kidnapped once. If not by the communists, but by the angel of death, you will be kidnapped. It may happen today, even if you are healthy.

And then you will leave behind everything, as I have left everything behind, and you will remain alone with the remembrances of how much good you could have done, and of how you have neglected your duty. And out of this deep suffering of the underground church behind the iron curtain, we feel our duty to share with you. The suffering has done to us one good.

We have lost a lie in which we had been wrapped until then. The lie of the being I, I, you, you, and he, he. The lie of not understanding that we are all one single body, and that when one member suffers, everybody suffers.

It is not so all those in Russia, yes, those in China, they are persecuted. The Red Guards in China have cut the ears, the tongues, and the legs of Christian prisoners in jails. One who has passed through this ordeal is Watchman Ni, the renowned Chinese evangelical writer.

All these are things somewhere far away in China, somewhere far in Russia, they don't concern me. We have lost this conscience of being personalities apart. If you could ask a cell of my body, my body is composed of millions of cells, they don't know that they compose together a body.

Every cell would consider that it is something apart. And the cells are composed of molecules, and if you would ask every molecule, they would not know that they are composing cells. And so we believe that we are something apart.

It is not so. We are all one body. What happens to me happens to you.

When Christ appeared to Saul of Tars, the great persecutor of Christians, he asked him, Saul, Saul, why does thou persecute me? Saul could have answered, I have never persecuted you, I have never touched you, I have touched your disciples, but Jesus does not know the difference between him and his disciples. His disciples are he himself. He is the head and we are his body.

Whosoever touches a disciple touches him. And so it is between us, brethren and sisters in Christ. And even if some of you are not Christians, perhaps Jews, or atheists, or I have heard that you have here agnostics.

Agnostics in our country such a thing does not exist. I know in Greek agnostic means an ignorant. I met once a university professor here and he told me that he is an agnostic.

I asked him, do you know Greek? No. So I told him in Greek agnostic means an ignorant. So you university professor are an ignorant.

So whatever you are here, we are united. We are united. We are one body.

In the years of solitary confinement we had the advantage to be able to think. And now I thought and I could analyze my thoughts. And I tried to discover in my thoughts what is I, what is myself in my thoughts.

First of all I thought in Romanian, in a language which I had not composed. I thought according to the rules of logic which were not from me. I could identify every thought, oh yes, this I have it from the Old Testament, not from me.

That I have from the New Testament. This I have from Shakespeare. This I have from Byron.

This I have read once in a newspaper. This I have heard over the radio. This I have heard from a friend.

And I desperately sought something from me in me. And I discovered how little this me is who bores so much and considers himself to be the center of the universe. Jesus, when he calls disciples, begins by this to say whosoever wishes to follow me should deny himself, should leave aside the illusion I am myself.

I am I and you are you and I am not concerned about you. In the Hebrew language, whereas in the English language the first person is I, the second person is you, and the third person is he. In the Hebrew language the first person is he, the second person is you, and I is only the third person.

And that is the language which God has chosen to give his revelation in. And we became there depersonalized. We didn't think any more about our person.

We thought about this great universe of God and about the suffering of his creature. We tried to identify ourselves with the creator and with everything which he has done. And then a new life began in us, this life which America needs, we think.

During the night, I was interrogated by a coronel of the secret police. His name was Dulgeru. Dulgeru means in Romanian, the carpenter.

Now, it was not the carpenter of Nazareth, it was another carpenter, an officer of the secret police. I, not wishing to give the information against my brethren which he asked from me, he at a certain moment threatened, I will give the order that you should be shot. At that time they shot people just at random like this without any sentence.

I said to him, Mr. Cornell, you said that you will give the order I should be killed and I know that an order of yours is enough for this. And now you have the occasion of an extraordinary experiment. Please put your hand upon my heart.

If my heart beats frightened, unrhythmically, then know that there is no God and no eternal life. But if my heart beats quietly, confidently, tic-a-tac-a, tic-a-tac-a, I go to my beloved one and does not fear at all your threatenings, then know that there exists an eternal life, know that there exists a God. He entered in rage and began to cry, nevermore will you be released.

Let him release you. What is his name? He didn't wish even to pronounce the name of Jesus. Never will you see Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey is a great cathedral in London and I don't know how it came into his mind just to speak about this Westminster Abbey that I will never see it. I answered his name is Jesus and he is the son of God and if he wishes, I will see Westminster Abbey. I was not keen to see it, but because he mentioned it, I said also that I will see Westminster Abbey.

14 years passed, I was released from prison. He was put in prison by his own comrades and I saw Westminster Abbey. And when I was in London in the Westminster Abbey, I remembered this scene and I sent to him a postcard, Mr. Cornell, do you remember what we spoke 14 years ago? I am now in Westminster Abbey.

These are the works of God. There are no more persons here. God does his mighty works.

That I am here is a result of prayers. I didn't know how it passed, that from a room for dying ones, how it happened from a room for dying ones, that I was released, that I could come to the West. When I came out from Romania, I went first to Norway and I preached there in Oslo that exists the American Lutheran Church.

And when I preached there on the first of Sundays, I saw an old woman weeping very much. I went to her at the end of the service and I asked her, why did you weep so much? And she said, how not weep? I will show you the cause of my tears and she took out of her bag my picture and the picture of my wife and she says, since 15 years I have this picture in my bag. I have seen it in a Norwegian newspaper about a Christian who is in prison.

Since 15 years I have prayed for this Christian without ever having known him. Then afterwards the newspapers published that this Christian has died in prison. I continued to pray for him not knowing if these news are true.

For the first time I entered in this church this Sunday not knowing who will preach in this church. It just happened. I entered in this church then I heard it announced that a Pastor Wurmbrand will preach, but there can be many who have this name.

And out of your sermon I knew that you are the man for whom I have prayed. I have not prayed in vain. This prayer we have come from words about God.

We have come to such realities. There exists a reality like you tow with a rope somebody. These ropes of prayer have drawn us not only out of prison but have drawn us out of moments of doubt, out of moments of despair.

In these conditions the real children of God, those who participate at the sphere of life, at the sphere of God, have passed from the region where there are only words, they have passed to reality. I must say share with you an experience which we have had there. With you you have God is the truth.

The Bible is the truth about the truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the truth. You have now many wrong theologies.

You have in America even a theology that God is dead. I have spoken with him half an hour ago and he was not even sick. He doesn't drive with a car so he can have no accidents.

I don't know how he arrives to be dead. But supposing that you have the right theology, the fundamentalist theology, then you have the truth about the truth about the truth about the truth. And because of the scaffolding around the truth you very often live outside the truth.

We there have arrived at the truth itself. In prison we were unimaginably hungry. We had times when we had one slice of bread a week.

We had cabbage with unwashed intestines. Please cook it. Put it on your table.

I would not ask from you to eat it, but just smell it to know what your brethren behind the iron curtain eat. Sometimes unwashed potatoes full with dirt. All kinds of oats.

We were doped with drugs which should make us idiots and should break our power of will. Because of this we lost memory. I have forgotten all my theology with the time.

Then I have forgotten my Bible. The most tragical moment in these 14 years of prison has perhaps been the day when I knew, when I tried to praise the Lord's prayer and could not remember it anymore. Because of this loss of memory I said, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy, thy, and for nothing in the world could I remember what comes after the until simply, well there's a long story I will cut it very short, until in the end I said, I don't know the prayer but you know it.

So you say it for me, I can't say it anymore. And the more and more we forgot and forgot. And when I saw that darkness surrounds my mind and the mind of thousands of other Christians there in prison.

The last verse of the Bible which I remembered was of Saint Matthew chapter 24. The son of man will come in the hour when you will not think and on the day when you will not know. And my last prayer has been, Jesus now the hour has come when I can't think anymore.

Now the day has come when I know nothing more. Now it is for you the son of man to appear. And in that moment the dark cell became full with light.

The walls of the cell shone like diamonds. There were flames of love in the cell. The bride was in the embraces of the bridegroom and very far away below in the sphere of the body remained the torturers.

We could, we didn't even observe them anymore. As Saint Stephen when they threw stones towards him to kill him said, I see the heavens open. I see Jesus on the right hand of God.

He didn't see the murderers. They were very little ants in comparison with the realities of God. The suffering church behind the iron curtain has arrived to such a reality.

A reality of love towards God. A Chinese girl when the communists came to power she was a Christian. The Chinese, the communists lured her to become a backslider.

Pass on our side and then you will have everything. And she left Christ. Years passed.

She served the communists until she became very sick. She was near to death and when she was near to death she had a vision that hell opens below her feet. And then she cried to Jesus, Jesus save me.

In that moment she saw Jesus who told her, yes I forgive you and you will go back to this world to say about my grace. She re-entered in the underground church. She worked years in the underground church after having betrayed first.

And then when she was caught she was tortured to death and one of her torturers asked her while torturing, why, what do you think about us? Do you hate us who beat, who whip you, who do you all kind of evil things? She said, how should we hate you? We love you because you send us to Jesus. And there was an unnatural, an unhuman love in communist camps. A flower when you bruise her under your feet rewards you by giving you her perfume.

And so Christians loved in circumstances where humanly speaking nobody can love. Nobody besmeared with excrements hanging on crosses. He must have a resentment, he must have a bitterness if he is a man against those who have mocked him worse than Jesus has mocked.

And if there was not this resentment, there was not this bitterness, it is because they had identified themselves with Christ. Christ was no more a he. He is he and I am I. It was not no more I who love Christ, but it was the love of God shed in the hearts of Christians.

And this impressed the communists very much. With us a Christian was sentenced to death and he was allowed, before being brought to the fire squad, he was allowed to see his wife. A communist officer attended the discussion between the two and the last words of the Christian to his wife were, forgive and love the communists as I forgive them and love them and you should never have a bitterness in your heart against them.

These words so impressed the communist officer that he afterwards became a Christian. He came to prison and he told us about how he has been struck by this word of love. About Saint James, the apostle of old, it is told that those who had accused him and put him in prison were so impressed by his love, by his bright attitude, by his witness for Christ, that they demanded that they should be killed together with James in order to go with him to heaven.

These stories of the first church, we have seen them fulfilled in the church today, in the underground church behind the iron curtain. During many years I led the secret missionary work among the Russian soldiers. I have never met one single lukewarm Russian Christian.

Such a thing does not exist. They are Christians out and out. They have to decide either I go the way of the cross, either I accept Christ and with him I accept the death for the glory of God, I will be buried with him, crucified with him, or if not I don't go this way.

And we have had wonderful experiences with these Russians and even with communists, just as the three who have been in the furnace in Daniel's time, when they came out from there, did not smell like fire, so the Christians who have come out from communist prisons don't smell like bitterness against the communists. We hate the system, this cruel dictatorship of atheists who poison youth and childhood with hatred towards the notion of God and of Christ. Yes, this system we hate from all our heart.

We wish that it should be defeated and fight against it, but we love the man and wish him to be saved to know the joys in Christ which we have known. Christ has taught us to hate the sin and to love the sinner, and that is the attitude of the underground church. She hates the sin, she will never comply with communism, she will never pactize with it, she will never be neutral as we can't pactize with drug addiction, with theft, with gangsterism, so we will never unite in any council of churches with communists.

But we can, as the FBI, I hope, will never unite anywhere with gangsters, so we will never unite with their evil deeds. But we think that only to speak against communism is not useful. What we can do is to bring the communists to Christ.

The persecution of the first centuries in the Roman Empire has been liquidated, has been finished by the victory of the gospel. The horrors of the inquisition have been finished by the victory of the gospels through the reformations, and we hope that the underground church will be able to win the hearts of communists. We have won hearts of communists when it seemed humanly impossible.

We were three years, I never washed myself, some of the children here would like it probably, three years, I never had a drop of water on my face, we had shabby, thin uniforms of prisoners, we were hungry, thin, and we had before us beautifully clad communist officers and with rubber truncheons in their hands, and they beat, and at a certain moment, they threw away their rubber truncheons and they asked, what is it with you? How is it that your face shines? I'm a very old-fashioned Christian who believes the Bible as it is written, because I have seen myself transfigurations, faces shining through a crust of dirt. They asked, how can you love me? I see in your eyes that you look lovingly at me. I would never love a man who beats me, who tortures me.

How can you fulfill this foolish commandment of Christ? I have heard about it, to love your enemies. And the Christian answered, I have not this sentiment that I fulfill the commandment of Christ. It is not so that I would like to hate you, but love you, because Christ has told me to love you.

Christ has given me a new heart, a new character, and if I would like to hate you, I can't do it anymore. A nightingale, how much ever she would strive to crow like a crow, she could not, because she's not a crow, she's a nightingale. And as much as a Christian would strive to hate, he can't hate anymore, because he has got a new heart.

There, behind the Iron Curtain, in one third of the world, Christianity has come back to her first love, to her first zeal, and from there, America could take its sense of mission. If America, with its possibilities, with its forces, would unite with the first love and zeal of the Christians from behind the Iron Curtain, instead of uniting with the oppressors from behind the Iron Curtain in the Organization of United Nations, if instead of uniting with the traitors of Christianity, the stooges of the communists, the bishops who come to the World Council and National Council of Churches, if we would unite with the true Christians from there, if we would unite with the martyrs, if we would unite with the saints and heroes of the 20th century, America would get from there a huge spiritual power, a power much bigger than the nuclear and the atomical power on which you can't rely. This is the Chinese.

The atomical power, the nuclear power, this the Chinese can have too. This the Bolsheviks can have too. But the power of the first love, of self-sacrifice for Christ, of self-sacrifice in the service of man, this only Christians can have.

And therefore, it is not that we ask something from you. We can bring you this message from the underground church. There is an immense reservoir of energy there, of spiritual health, of love, of truthfulness, men who simply throw away their lives, drunk of love towards Christ.

This is what America needs. America needs the underground church much more than the underground church needs America. Is it not inspiring? Some of you here may be Catholics, I don't know.

And in the Catholic church, you have always the reverence to the saints. I myself also revere the saints. But I don't know how it happens that you revere always the saints of 1500 years ago and you pass by the saints of today.

Today there are saints. Today there are martyrs. I will tell you just the case.

I don't know of so many cases which I know which to choose. Men who forget themselves. You remember that on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus was there.

Moses and Elijah appeared to him. It was on the top of a mountain. There are many rains and storms, perhaps even snow.

And Peter said, you can't remain like this. I must make three tents for you. Now, why three? If I would have asked Peter, why just three? He would have said, but there is Jesus and Moses and Elijah.

But you are also there. He didn't think that he also needs a tent. He had denied himself.

He thought only about God and only about the saints. We have seen such things happening in our country. We were in prison in a cell, 12 Christians.

Very hungry. It was a dying room. Many died.

Every day some died and others were brought in and so. A guard, which sympathized with us, had smuggled in into this room two pieces of sugar. We had never seen sugar there.

And now we had two pieces of sugar. And as often as somebody felt very, very bad, very evil, then these two pieces of sugar were given to him to strengthen him. But no one took these two pieces of sugar.

He thought perhaps one of the brethren will feel worse sometimes and let me keep these two pieces of sugar for him. And during two years, these two pieces of sugar circulated around the room. I myself have also had them twice.

And nobody dared to take them. Everyone thought about the brother near him. If any one of you would give a check of two million dollars, for I don't know what church or philanthropic association, it would not mean the same thing as to give away these two pieces of sugar.

These were really the two minds of the widow. Their Christianity with us has become real. And if this real Christianity, genuine, would unite with the force of the American church, with its organization, then there would no more be the song, let us crown Jesus as king of all.

But Jesus would, in this generation, be crowned the king of all. You have the organization. You have the power.

You swim in Bibles. Sometimes you don't even read them. If you read them, you don't believe them.

If you believe them, you don't love according to them. You make out of them matter of discussion instead of matter of love. The Bible exists to teach us love and not to quarrel about Bible verses.

And there, there exists the real love, but without a Bible. We have much bigger preachers than Billy Graham. I don't wish to belittle him at all, God beware.

But we have much bigger preachers. They have a background of suffering there. Only our preachers have never read a Bible.

They have had no Bibles. They have had perhaps a gospel, perhaps a few pages out of the Old Testament. With us, Russians, we have printed secretly for them.

We have distributed among them Christian literature. But we didn't have so much. They backed for one page of the Bible.

And they were so happy when one page was given to them. A page of Jeremiah. There was something about Nineveh and something about Babylon.

They understood nothing of this. But you saw them dancing around because on the beginning of the page it was written, God has spoken to Jeremiah. And they were so happy.

So God speaks. He is a living God. He speaks.

And they were very sure that the God who has spoken to Jeremiah will speak to Ivan or to Stepan. And they were very happy about it. You have what they don't have.

They have much more what you don't have. And it is essential for the life of the universal church. It is essential for the life of America.

It is essential for the well of the world that the underground church should unite its spiritual forces with you. I wish to finish telling you a vision which I have had in prison. Solitary confinement predisposes towards the opening of a spiritual sight, of spiritual senses.

I had not had the Bible since years. I felt it's missing. And once I said to God, I don't have the Bible.

I can't go to any church. I can't hear sermons. Would you not speak to me? I like to hear his voice.

And now I expected that he will speak to me. But instead of a word from him came a horrible cry. I imagine that this was the cry which Jesus shouted when he died.

You remember that it is written in the gospel that before dying he cried with a loud voice. This is the voice of God, a crying God. In that very moment I heard from cells near me these cries, those beaten ones.

The cry of the beaten ones was the cry of God. And I heard from below me it was as if the whole world would be full with this cry and I understood what is the voice of God. The voice of God, this voice of love, is the voice which identifies itself with all the suffering of the world, with all the suffering of those living and with the suffering of all those who have passed away without the knowledge of the gospel and are now punished for their sins.

There was this, don't you hear it? How can you leave one-third of the world in such horrible tortures? I have told you about ears cut, tongues cut, legs cut. I have told you about Christians besmeared with excrements hanging on crosses and your hearts are not moved yet. It is your God who cries about it.

It is your Christ, it is not somebody else. Jesus is the head and all Christians are his body. He, Christ, is tortured in these and you have all been in churches or perhaps in synagogues or wherever you have been this morning and you have chanted to God and told him praises and how much you love him but he cries because of the sufferings of all those who suffer for a righteous cause.

I have brought to you this suffering. God asks Cain, Cain, where is your brother Abel? And so I ask the American Christians, American Christians, where are your Russian brethren? Where are your Chinese brethren? Where are your Romanian brethren? Where are the Bulgarian ones? While you sit in your comfortable pews in churches, at the same time your brethren there are whipped. They are just delighted to torture us on Sunday, on Christmas, on such days.

Where is your brother Abel? You remember that Joseph keeps one of the brethren, one of his brothers, Simeon, he keeps him with him and he says to the other brothers, never will you see my face again if you don't come with my small brother Benjamin. And never believe that an American Christian will come before God without his little brother, the Russian, the Romanian, the Bulgarian, the Chinese. God will ask you about them.

One third of the world is martyrized. One third of the world suffers tortures, mocking. In one third of the world, I would never finish to tell you what happens.

Now is under print a book of mine, The Underground Church Tortured for Christ. It will be ready after a week or two perhaps. And there we publish excerpts of the Soviet press.

They say that they have sentenced innumerable mothers, that their children should be taken away from them because they have poisoned their children, where with do you think? With the gospel. They've poisoned their children with Christian education. Therefore the children are taken away from them, put in a communist boarding house, the families are not allowed to visit them, and the mother has to pay the fees for these children.

Now you probably have left your children with some babysitter or with somebody from the family. And while I speak, you think what is happening with your children whom you have left behind one hour. Think about Makrinkova.

The Soviet press speaks about her, a mother from whom six children have been taken away. I ask here the mothers, can you feel, I can't say it in words, feel a little bit her heart. I think that if you would lick her heart, you would be poisoned of the bitterness which is in her heart.

These brutes of the secret police entering in her house, tearing away by force six screaming children, leaving behind in a house which had been full with noise and with laughter and with kicking the children each other. And now at once there was a deep silence in this house, Makrinkova alone, hearing perhaps the first time the real voice of the Lord, I suffered and I continue to suffer. That is what happens behind the iron curtain.

Will you remain unmoved? In Jeremiah chapter 14, I am a pastor apart who doesn't know the Bible anymore. I have not read the Bible all these years, but faintly I remember a few things that God says to Jeremiah, go and tell this people that my eyes weep tears day and night. Have you ever thought about a weeping God? A God who weeps day and night.

This is an entirely new image of God. The image which we have seen on Golgotha. If it is said about the angels that they rejoice as often as a sinner is converted to Christ, what do the angels do when hundreds of millions of men are by force pulled away from Christ and made atheists? Then the angels weep.

We have a weeping heaven over our heads. And if we have fellowship with God, if we have fellowship with the spiritual world, we have fellowship with this suffering, which is not only suffering of man, but suffering of God. I finish, I must make it very clear.

We hate from all our heart, there exists a Christian hatred too. We hate from all our heart the communist system and the communist doctrine. We love from all our heart the communists.

And as for all other kinds of sin, there exists only one solution for sin, to bring the sinners to Christ. There are in America innumerable missions to the Jews, to the Muslims, to the Buddhists, and so on. Where is the mission to the communists? Must they not be brought to Christ? Must not Christ be the king of all? And where is the mission to those who are oppressed by the communists? To speak against communism in America may be right, but it brings no use.

In the Bible it is written that the head of the serpent must be bruised by the seed of the woman. The head of the serpent is in Moscow and in Peking. There we must attack communism by the powerful weapon of the gospel.

And that is what our mission is working at. We are doing as much as we can. As much as we can, we are supporting there and assisting those who run secret Sunday school for children, secret youth meeting, the secret church, underground church.

We will publish now what the Soviet press says about this underground church. They describe it, how they meet in houses, how there is a knock. When there is a knock, then everybody hides himself.

But if it is the right one, then he says, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, this is a sign of recognition. Then from inside they answer, Amen. We try to smuggle in Bibles, and we do it, Bibles and Christian literature.

The Soviet press says that they are smuggled in, in hidden compartments of cars or in all kinds of cases which have, how do you say, double, secret compartments. They are smuggled in, and one of the problems which is a measure of our possibilities we try to solve is to send relief to families of Christian martyrs. I can't tell you the distress of families of Christian martyrs.

I will tell you just one case, and I will put it very much upon your heart. Think about it. With us, a Christian was sentenced to 10 years of prison.

He left behind a sick wife and six children. The two older daughters, age 17 or 19, could get no job. With us, nobody has a factory or a shop or something.

Only the state gives jobs, and the state gives no jobs to families of Christian martyrs. And two daughters of a Christian martyr, Christians themselves, became harlots in order to support their family. The boy of 14 became mad seeing what his sisters do.

When after years, the brother came back from prison and saw this tragedy in his family, he asked from God, give me only one thing to go back to prison and not to see anymore this drama. He's in prison again because he preached Christ to children. It is not right that the families of Christian martyrs should suffer starvation.

That is for what our mission stands. It joins hands with the underground church. We give to the underground church very little.

We give her money. We give her Bibles, Christian literature, relief for families of Christian martyrs. They give to us very much.

They give to us blessings. They give to us a supernatural knowledge which has come to them in suffering. They give us their love.

And I think that the American Christians should open not so much. It is in America's habit when you speak about something, the man puts the hand in the pocket to solve this problem. There are problems which can't be solved by putting the hand in the pocket.

A very rich man came to the judgment of God and God asked him, did you love man on earth? And he said, oh God, how not? I have given one million for an orphanage, a million of dollars. God asked him, but did you love man? He said, but I have given a million for an orphanage. And God said to him again, but did you love man? He said, I gave a million for an orphanage.

Then God called Archangel Michael and said to him, give him back his million of dollars and send him to hell. I speak about love and he speaks about money. It is not a question of money.

What the Americans should open is not their pocket, neither their checks books. They should open their hearts for this cry of God, for the cry of the persecuted church behind the Iron Curtain. In a moment of emotion, you can give away I don't know what.

But to know that during years the eyes of God weep bitter tears seeing how his children are persecuted, how our youth is poisoned with atheism. And when you will hear the cry of God, when you will see Christ himself crucified again in his disciples in the communist countries, then the spirit of God will tell you what you have to do for the countries behind the Iron Curtain. God bless you.

Reverend Wurmbrand will be back in just a minute. He'll be returning in just a minute. He's going to rest a few minutes, his feet.

And I'd like to say this this afternoon. I've wondered as I've sat listening to him many times, he comes from a world, one third of the world that we've never even prayed for. One third of the world we've never even remembered.

One third of the world. And I've wondered what can we do? I mean, there's an Iron Curtain there. What can we do? Let me tell you this afternoon and may I have your attention.

We can do something. We can now do something in the communist world. Let me say that when Reverend Wurmbrand came out, he brought with him priceless knowledge of how to do secret missionary work and secret work in communist lands.

No longer can we say we don't do anything because we don't know what to do. Here is a man that has stands and tell us what we can do. And no longer can we have the excuse it can't be done.

It's impossible because he brought out the knowledge of how to penetrate the communist lands with the Word of God. For years, I've gone to churches and I've never heard anyone pray, God protect the martyrs in communist lands. When have you ever heard in your church a prayer for the gospel work in communist lands or for the families of Christian martyrs? It's been forgotten.

And but no longer can we say we could say till now, I can't, we couldn't do anything. There's an Iron Curtain, but now God has brought out a founder of the underground church to tell us how to broach, how to penetrate the communist countries with the gospel. And if we don't, if we don't do it, we're guilty.

If we don't do something, I personally think that we ought to make up for the years in which we haven't even prayed for the millions of people in communist lands for the years. Think back Christian friend to 1960, where were you in 1960? Think about it at that time, Reverend Wurmbrand was being tortured in communist prisons, the man you've heard now. Did you pray for him in 1960? In 1964, he was released and had not one Bible, not one gospel, not one page from a Bible.

Did we give him a gospel? Did we put a page of the Word of God in his hands? Did we pray for someone to give him a gospel? Not at all. The man you heard today was empty handed in 1964 without one page. There are thousands of people like that in communist countries today.

They're not here to stand. They're there. And we've said we couldn't do anything, but God's brought us a man to tell us what to do and how to do it.

And he is doing it with God's help. And I can tell you a burden that is so greatly on his heart this afternoon, and that is, that is to send the Word of God into every province of Russia, every corner, every province of Russia by Easter Sunday. There are, he knows what it is to try to talk to unsaved or are atheist about the Word of God and not even have a single torn page.

And there are thousands of his brethren. Some of them he knows very personally that are in the same spot right now with the difference that we know what we can do about it. And I'm going to ask you to join your hearts with a burden that's on brother Wurmbrand's heart.

He is burdened not to stand and speak. And I'm going to ask your attention this afternoon. If he's poured out his heart here, I want you to sit and listen to what this burden is.

And that is that in every corner of Russia between now and Easter, God's Word will be sent. Brother Wurmbrand is doing this now. This is his goal.

His objective and Easter Sunday is coming up soon. There are thousands of his brethren there without a gospel, without a single torn page. He knows how to get them, get them there.

He's already sent several thousand. He knows the way. And I'm going to ask you to help give him the gospels to send into Russia, to his brethren there.

This offering this afternoon, before he comes back, will go 100% to send gospels, the Word of God, into every province of Russia by Easter Sunday. Listen to me, Christian friend. These Christians are as brother Wurmbrand.

They have the willingness to give their lives. But willingness is not enough. They need the tools to do the job.

I'm going to ask the ushers if they'd prepare to come in a few moments. And the offering this afternoon is going to go 100% to send, to help brother Wurmbrand, Reverend Wurmbrand, send God's Word into every province of Russia by Easter. Every province.

This is his project. It's in his hands and he's carrying it out. He knows the way.

No longer can we say, well, I've been doing something in Africa or Asia. We've forgotten for years, one third of the world. I think it's time we make up for that one third.

I think it's time we put into the hands of these heroes and saints. Now, I don't know whether you feel like it, but every time I hear him, I feel like I've heard a hero of faith. I feel like I've heard a saint of God.

We all, I feel this way. And it's not right that these men should suffer so much and not even have our prayers or a gospel or a Bible or a little help. This afternoon, I'm going to ask you to help Reverend Wurmbrand fulfill the burden that is so great on his heart.

Ushers, would you come forward please at this time, brethren? We're going to pray. Let me tell you something this afternoon. Listen carefully.

And I want to tell you this. Reverend Wurmbrand is sending these into the communist, into Russia. They will be into every province of Russia by Easter, but we need, he needs the gospels, the Bibles.

These are not printed in America. They're printed overseas. And for every $100, 3,300, 3,300 gospels of John in Russian will be specially printed.

Now, when I say specially, it has to be done specially, no staples, no cover there a certain way. And 3,300 can be in the hands of 3,300 Richard Wurmbrand still in communist countries. And what, what, think what those men can do with that gospel.

One of them can lead many, many souls to Christ. One Bible in the village led 20, pardon me, 38 villagers to Christ. This is a report we received.

$50 would send 1,650, 20 would send 660. And I believe everybody, $10 would send 330. And this is going to go 100%.

Underground evangelism is paying for all the costs of this meeting. So this can go for brother Wurmbrand to send entirely in 100% in gospels into every province of Russia. And I urge you to pray about it.

How long have we forgotten? How long have we not prayed? I think it's time we make up for all that we haven't done. Now that God has sent us someone to show us how to do it. And we're going to ask you to pray with me at this time.

Our heavenly father, Lord, we've heard a remonstration. We've heard, we've heard a challenge, a sober challenge to join hands with the underground church, to put into their hands, the tools, the prayers, the encouragement to help them faithfully sustain the word of God in communist lands. We thank you, Lord, that you've brought to us this voice, but I pray that we will not hear the voice and soon forget.

May we do something. May we make up for the countless years. Father, you're 1960 when this servant of thine was suffering and we didn't know and we didn't pray, but now we do know.

Now we can do something. May we do so speak to each heart and made these thousands of Christians and others in Russia to whom these will be sent. May they know that help is on the way and they're not forgotten.

We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.