يسوع للعالم الشيوعي

Jesus to the Communist World

When the Soviet armies entered Romania in 1944, the government invited the priests, church leaders, and shepherds to the Parliament building, where over 4,000 priests and pastors attended. One after another, they offered words of praise and admiration for communism and declared their allegiance to the new regime. Their reports on unity and propaganda for communism were broadcast live on the radio from the Parliament building to all corners of the world.

The speeches continued, all of them crudely praising and terrifying, as communism aimed to destroy religion, as had happened in Russia at that time. Yet, bishops and church leaders stood up to declare that communism and Christianity agreed in principles and can coexist. Thus, out of fear, those who were called men of God denied their faith and filled the world with hypocrisy and lies, as if they were spitting in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sabina Wurmbrand, the wife of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand who was among the attendees, could not bear this hypocrisy. She whispered in her husband’s ear, saying, “Richard, stand up and wash this shame off the face of Christ.” Richard knew what could happen, saying to her, “If I speak up, you will lose your husband.” She replied, “I do not want a coward for a husband.”

Pastor Richard stepped forward and ascended the podium, and to everyone’s surprise, he began to preach. Suddenly, a great silence fell over the entire hall: “Ladies and gentlemen, members of parliament, and all attendees, it is our duty not to praise the earthly authorities that come and go, but to glorify God the Creator and Christ the Savior, who died on the cross for us.”

Immediately, a communist officer jumped at the pastor’s feet. How could this happen without being silenced?! The entire country, even the world, was hearing the message of Christ broadcast live on the air from the communist Parliament Hall! The officer shouted in Pastor Richard’s face, saying, “Your privilege to speak has been withdrawn.”

But Richard ignored him and continued speaking. The general atmosphere of the meeting changed completely, as all attendees began to applaud, saying what they all wanted to say but were afraid to. The officer yelled, “Turn off the microphone!”

The crowd shouted back, “We want the pastor! We want the pastor!” They began to chant in unison, and the screaming and applause continued even after the microphone was disconnected and its wires cut. Richard descended from the podium, and the meeting ended for that day. Since then, Richard became a distinguished figure. However, on Sunday, February 29, 1948, as Richard was on his way to church, he was arrested by a group from the secret police. Richard later recounted what happened to him:

They took me to a prison 30 meters underground, where I was held in solitary confinement. For several years, I was detained alone in a cell. I never saw the sun, the moon, the stars, nor flowers. I never saw any human being except those who interrogated and tortured me. I had no book or even a piece of paper, to the point that after many years, I almost forgot how to write and found it difficult to distinguish between the letters of the alphabet. To make my sense of isolation more severe, the prison was surrounded by deep silence; even the guards wore a type of shoe that made no sound.

When we (I and others) were initially placed in solitary confinement, it seemed as if we had been sentenced to death, as each of us lived remembering our past sins and what we had neglected of spiritual duties. Thus, we all suffered unimaginable pain, feeling deep regret and pain in our hearts, pondering that we had fallen short in our duty to our God who gave His life for us. Then suddenly, the prison walls around me shone, sparkling like jewels. I had seen many beautiful things in the past, but I had never seen such wondrous beauty as I saw in that dark cell, nor had I ever heard such mesmerizing music as I heard that day.

Jesus, the King of Kings, was with us. We saw His providence and His eyes filled with love. He wiped our tears and spread words of love and forgiveness in our hearts, teaching us that everything bad in our lives had ended and was forgiven by the Lord, and now forgotten. Now, after experiencing wondrous days, we were in the embrace of Christ, and we no longer felt that we were in prison. Sometimes, when we were beaten and tortured, we felt as if we were like Saint Stephen, who, while being stoned, did not see his killers or the stones, but the open heavens and Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father.

Thus, we no longer saw our communist torturers, and we no longer felt that we were in prison. We were surrounded by angels as we were with God. Our faith in God, Christ, and the angels was no longer derived from the verses of the Gospel, but from our personal experience that we live every day.

After years of solitary confinement, we were placed together in rooms that housed between 200 to 300 prisoners in each room. I cannot describe the entire truth to you because you would not be able to bear it. The Christian prisoners were beaten, then hung tied up on crosses for four straight days and nights. The communists stood around them mocking and ridiculing them. Then they would kick the other prisoners and force them to kneel and worship these living, blood-stained crosses.

The most difficult times I experienced were the times of brainwashing. If you haven’t gone through this experience, you can’t imagine the torture that brainwashing brings to a person. From five in the morning until ten at night, we had to sit up straight, and it was forbidden for us to lean or bend our heads or to close our eyelids. Throughout the 17 hours, we heard all day: “Communism is good, communism is beneficial, communism is good… Christianity is foolishness, Christianity is foolishness… No one believes in Christ anymore, no one believes in Christ anymore… Surrender, surrender…” We had to listen to these lies for days, weeks, and months.

In the end, the worst came. The communists tortured those who believed in God. They used in their torture red-hot iron rods, rubber clubs, sticks, and all sorts of torture devices, to refine their art of torturing Christians.

Then the miracle happened, for when the torture reached its peak, and when we suffered from persecution harsher than we had ever experienced before, then we began to taste love for those who tortured us. As we were tortured and mocked, we grew more compassionate and overflowed with love for our torturers.

Many asked Richard Wurmbrand in amazement, “How can you love someone who is torturing you?” He would reply, saying, “When I look at them, not as they are, but as they will be later. I was able to see in our torturers Saul of Tarsus, who later became Paul the Apostle. There are many officers from the secret police to whom we witnessed about Christ, who became Christians and were happy to be imprisoned like us because they came to know our Christ!”

In prison, we found hope in the salvation of those communists, as a sense of responsibility towards them burst within us, and the idea of preaching Christianity to the communists was born. We asked ourselves, “What can we do to win these people for Christ? The doors of heaven are not closed in their faces, nor has the light disappeared from their eyes. They can repent like any other person, and we must call them to repentance. Love alone is capable of changing the communist and the terrorist.” But we must pray for them.

When Pastor Wurmbrand was released in 1956, he resumed his service in the underground church. In 1959, he was arrested again, then released again in 1964 and resumed his service once more. In 1965, some of his friends paid a ransom of ten thousand dollars to the Romanian government, allowing the Wurmbrand family to migrate from Romania. They traveled to the Scandinavian countries, then to England, and finally to the United States. In 1967, they began their service to the communists under the name “Jesus to the Communist World.” Their service continued until communism fell in 1992, and light triumphed over darkness, and love over hatred.

Food of the Strong.

A verse to memorize:

✝ “Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you” (1 John 3:13).