Those who suffer will reign

We suffer, we shall also reign with him... (2, Tim. 2:12)

Dear brothers and sisters,

When the Soviet army invaded my homeland, Romania, a Russian officer entered into the house of a priest and shouted him:

He said,

The Russian officer took out his revolver, pointed it at the pastor and said,

The priest did not know what would happen. He thought in a minute he could be shot; but he was a faithful priest and said,

The officer put back his revolver, embraced the priest, and said,

In Communist and Islamic countries so many Christians have been given the choice to live, denying the Gospel; and then to go to hell (2, Tim. 2:12). Or better to die affirming the truth of the Gospel and go to heaven. We have the Gospel. We have also the duty to witness its truth to others. If we neglect this our responsability, will we not be in the situation of the men in Beth-shemesh who had the Ark of the Covenant? (1, Sam.6:19). They could have had so many blessings, not only heavenly, but earthly blessings because the Ark of the Covenant was with them. They did not understand their privilege.

I speak in the name of The Voice of the Martyrs. We smuggle Gospels into Communist and Islamic countries. Here was a great debate when we started smuggling. Christians were divided. Some said you should not smuggle. Others said nobody can forbid the Word of God in the world of God. So some were for and some were against. We never entered into the debate. We did not say a word for it. We did not say a word against it. We smuggled.

We continue today to bring Gospels into closed countries.

Our mission sent a Canadian to Russia. He was of Russian descent and spoke fluent Russian. He was in a train and opposite him was a Russian farmer. The Russian farmer saw he was a foreigner, and asked him where he was from. The man replied . He was asked if he had ever read a Gospel. Our courrier said,

Then the farmer asked him a hard gripping question, he said,

“I have been told 20 years ago such a verse exists. The sun gives light. It gives warmth. It gives life. I would like that my life should not be thrown away. It should be useful as the sun is useful to every living being. I would like to shine like the sun, but I have been told the promise is only to the righteous. The righteous will shine like the sun and I don’t know how to become righteous. Could you please tell me how I can become righteous?”

Then our brother said, Then the Russian asked,

There are so many in this world who thirst after the Word of God. We have it. We have it in all its richness. We can have many Gospels. Much of mankind cannot have a Gospel. Is it right? Does the Gospel not say that we should be the light of the world? The light communicates itself to others. Go, be My witness. Teach. Spread the Word. We have not done it and over half the population of the world is under Godless government.

We are very much like the men in Beth-shemesh who had what nobody else in the whole world had. They were the only ones to have the Ark of the Covenant with the Ten Commandments and the blessing of God connected with it. They scorned what they had. They did not know to use well their privilege. In the end they lost it as we might lose it.

How great this gift is. We have 1200 pages in all kinds of translations and interpretations. Nations are starving for the Word of God. We have it. We don’t value it. We are like those in Beth-shemesh. Value your Gospel. When you ponder it, see that it speaks about the eternal faith of souls.

The Russians have souls. The Chinese have souls and the Mongolians, the Koreans, Vietnamese and Sudanese. Ask yourself,

In our body we have also one of the smallest glands - the lacrymal gland. The gland which gives tears. Probably God wishes us to weep. To weep is a Christian obligation. In Romans 12 it is written, That is a commandment of God. Weep.

When strive to do this, but the same God who has said these things has said,

There are so many who weep to have a Gospel. Weep together with them and join hands with us to help them.

In Christ,

Richard Wurmbrand

Preparing for suffering

Suffering cannot be avoided in the Underground Church, whatever measures are taken, but suffering should be reduced to the minimum.

What happens in a country when oppressive powers take over? In some countries the terror starts at once, as in Mozambique and Cambodia. In other places religious liberty follows as never before. And so it begins. Some regimes come to power without having real power. They do not have the people on their side. They have not necessarily organized their police and their staff of the army yet.

In Russia, the Communists gave immediately great liberty to the Protestants in order to destroy the Orthodox. When they had destroyed the Orthodox, the turn came for the Protestants. The initial situation does not last long. During that time they infiltrate the churches, putting their men in leadership. They find out the weaknesses of pastors. Some might be ambitious men; some might be entrapped with the love of money.

Another might have a hidden sin somewhere, wherewith he may be blackmailed. They explain that they would make it known and thus put their men in leadership. Then, at a certain moment the great persecution begins. In Romania such a clamp-down happened in one day. All the Catholic bishops went to prison, along with innumerable priests, monks and nuns. Then many Protestant pastors of all denominations were arrested. Many died in prison.

"Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Thy saints at Jerusalem: But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake "-(Acts 9:13, 15 and 16).

Jesus, our Lord, told Ananias: "Meet Saul of Tarsus. He will be My underground pastor, My underground worker." That is what St. Paul was - a pastor of an Underground Church. Jesus started a crash course for this underground pastor. He started it with the words, "I will show (him) how great things he must suffer..."

Preparation for underground work begins by studying sufferology, martyrology. Later, we will look at the technical side of underground work, but first of all there must be a certain spiritual preparation for it.

In a free country, to be a member of a church, it is enough to believe and to be baptized. In the Church underground it is not enough to be a member in it. You can be baptized and you can believe, but you will not be a member of the Underground Church unless you know how to suffer.

You might have the mightiest faith in the world, but if you are not prepared to suffer, then when you are taken by the police, you will get two slaps and you will declare anything. So the preparation for suffering is one of the essentials of the preparation of underground work.

Richard Wurmbrand

Your journey is too great

By Richard Wurmbrand

"Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee." (1 Kings 19:7)


Dear brothers and sisters,

To begin a new year is somehow like contemplating a journey. We have come so far - perhaps the journey has been tiring. Who knows what is ahead? Will we have the strength and the courage to meet whatever lies in our path and to reach our objective?

We have put our trust in Christ! He has paid on the cross for all our sins. By faith in His sacrifice we have been considered righteous by God. By Him we are today what He is: the light of the world. (Mt 5:14).

"It is impossible but that offences will come" - said the Saviour (Luke 17:1). These offences came even to the most reliable men of God. They come to us, on our journey through life too. These do not disqualify us from being the light of the world.

Elijah the prophet passed one day through a very intense crisis for his soul. He wished to die. He was angry with God. He revolted against Him and didn’t agree with His plans. And in this state of mind, terribly furious, he fell asleep. How will God deal with his rebelliousness now... His servant deprived totally of hope?

He sent an angel.

Woe, what a damning message will this messenger of God bring to him? But instead, the angel awoke Elijah from his sleep. It must have been something very important if God took such trouble to send an angel from Heaven for this purpose. «Arise and eat!» the angel said to Elijah, and gave him a cake (1 Kings 19:5-6).

It seemed not too costly to God to send an angel for the rebellious Elijah. He was still His child, His prophet. Even if he passed now through a great spiritual crisis, he still remained Elijah the prophet. Even though he rebelled for a while, wishing to die, and seemed as if he didn’t want to know any more about God.

Elijah woke up and ate. But the bitterness he felt was not over. As it happens often with ourselves when we pass through a great crisis of our soul and suffering, we feel the need to sleep in order to forget. So Elijah did nothing else after that: he fell asleep again!

The angel of God came to him the second time. Now we would have surely expected that the angel would rebuke Elijah for his attitude that lacked gratitude. But no! To our surprise, the whole message brought to Elijah by the angel is again this: «Awake and eat, for the journey is too great for thee.»

God had not rejected Elijah. On the contrary, in His eyes, he still remained His prophet, the same man of God to whom such an important task had been entrusted, that it surpassed the natural strength of a mere man. The way prepared by God for Elijah, as a prophet, was too long and difficult for a simple man.

This journey of such great responsibility God has entrusted to the man who just then had passed through moments of difficult spiritual crisis - who was even in rebellion.

Do such moments also come over us? Have we, too, known hopelessness and rebellion? We can look back over a year and see where we have succeeded, but perhaps this backwards view is clouded with the memory of disappointment and failure. Never mind. Those do not annul the gifts and the calling to which God has called us.

It is true that in those moments we were a «light of the world»; we were without hope, rebellious, but we were still God’s children.

It is important that we are built on the Rock of Ages that is Christ. The waves of despair have passed and will still pass over us; but the Rock will remain unmoved. With the Rock, we too will remain.

Jesus said about Himself «I am the Light of the World». Oh yes, with this we are all in agreement that He is the Light of the World! But we don’t believe that we are what He is. Let us look closer at this thing.

Jonah was also a prophet of God. The way of Jonah was not the way of obedience. On the contrary, Jonah fled from God. He did not agree with the plans of God, neither on behalf of others nor for himself. Jonah fled from Him. God did not flee from Jonah, but rather looked for him. He brought him back to Himself even with a strong hand. This not in order to punish him, but to tell him: «Your disobedience was only a parenthesis. Go on now and continue from where you left. You are a jight for the world.»

The world is mostly in darkness. Many of our brothers and sisters suffer trials and persecution. Through the days ahead we need to be like mirrors to reflect the light of Christ to needy people and to bring hope and encouragement to those in despair.

The journey is great but as we feed upon the Word of God we will find the grace and strength to fulfil His purposes.

Even we, too, have fled from God and have rebelled against His plans, He has not left us. We were and still remain His children. Not by our deeds or merit have we achieved this degree. Not by deeds, be those good or bad, shall we lose this honour. We are in Christ by His grace and mercy. By His grace we shall remain through to the end of the journey. We are the light of the world.

May He help us in this.

Sincerely in Christ,

Richard Wurmbrand

Joy at the Cross

Suffering is regularly related to trials, since suffering is what we usually allow trials to produce in us. But sometimes we suffer in ways which cannot be traced to our failure to face trials with faith and fortitude. What then? Suffering – especially if it is unjust or otherwise repugnant to reason – is often considered to be quite the opposite of joy. Yet is that how Scripture considers it? This time we will ask St. Paul to speak.

“I am overflowing with joy all the more because of all our afflictions,” sayeth sagacious Saul (2 Cor. 7:4). And again, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings…” (Col. 1:24). What is he, nuts? Well, maybe. He did call himself a fool for Christ, after all (1 Cor. 4:10).

It's the “for Christ” part, though, that should keep us from being too hasty in our judgment about the Apostle's sanity. James and Peter gave us spiritual growth unto perfection and hope for everlasting reward as reasons for enduring trials joyfully. Now Paul expands our horizon by adding the elements of mission and mystical union with Christ to our reasons for rejoicing.

The full text of the passage quoted above from Colossians reads: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body, which is the Church.” So we can rejoice in our sufferings because of our mission to others, for the sake of their salvation. It is not only our perfection and eternal life we are concerned with, it is also that of our brothers and sisters. In this we become more like Christ, who came to give His life as a ransom for the many (Mk. 10:45).

The more we put on the mind of Christ and begin to love as He loved (which is not an option, but a commandment; see Jn. 13:34 and 15:12), the more we will joyfully accept whatever sufferings God permits to befall us. This task is beyond human strength (as you will readily agree), but despair not, for here is the answer: "“he joy of the Lord is your strength" (Neh. 8:10).

This passage should make us realize, though, that the joy of the Lord cannot be identified with mere happy feelings. It has been said that joy is not found in the absence of suffering, but in the presence of God. Similarly, it has been said that Christ did not come to take away our suffering, but to fill it with His presence. But how can we be sure, since it is only His presence that makes suffering bearable (and even fruitful and meaningful), that we are in Him and He in us “This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us, that He has given us His Spirit” (1 Jn. 4:13).

The Holy Spirit’s gift of fortitude enables us to bear our crosses courageously (and dare I say even joyfully?) and to make our sufferings contribute to holiness, rather than create obstacles to it.

Now what is holiness if not union with our Lord Jesus Christ (with all the implications thereof)? He was willing to suffer anything, if only he could be united to his beloved Lord. No price was too high, no affliction too discouraging a prospect. So what was his goal? “To know Him and the power of His resurrection, and to share His sufferings by being conformed to His death…”

St. Paul thus teaches us that suffering is not something to avoid, but something to embrace – not as something good in itself, but insofar as it draws us into the mystery of the Crucified One and helps prepare us for an eternity with the Risen One.

Those who believe in Christ are to live “no longer for themselves but for Him who for their sakes died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:15), and hence must follow in the footsteps of the Master and adopt His perspective, that which sees the ultimate good (see 2 Cor. 4:8 – 18 and 1 Pet. 2:21 and 4:12-16). Those who are most intimately in union with Jesus are those who share willingly in what was closest to Him – i. e. the Cross, for it was the means whereby He could express most fully His infinite love for us.

Fr. Joseph

Why All the Suffering?

Dear brothers and sisters,

“…that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2).

Reading the Gospel in a solitary cell, from memory, I was struck by the extent to which suffering pervades it. It begins with the catastrophe of mankind's expulsion from paradise, and it concludes with the majority of mankind entering hell.

Why do even saints have to suffer? Why are there sufferings in the animal kingdom? Why is a baby born with suffering? Is suffering God’s only educational method?

Why does evil exist? Why have Christians suffered for decades in Communist jails?

After dedicating forty years of his life to missionary work among the Australian aborigines, a pastor fell sick. He suffered greatly as he was barely able to breathe. He asked his family to sing and read to him from the Gospel. Finally, he said, “Stop the praises, I have served Him my whole life and He does not care for me.” He took the Gospel from his wife's hand and threw it into the bush. He could find no answer to the problem of suffering.

The only answer which, I believe, should be given is not to ask the question. Jesus, when He was on the Cross, asked God why He had forsaken even His only begotten Son. His question is followed only by a question mark. All that is revealed to us is that the question exists and that we can live with it.

A sufferer once came to a pastor and asked him many questions. The pastor answered, “Kneel here in church and ask Jesus for the answers.” The man replied, “Do you really think I will hear a voice from heaven?” “No,” said the pastor, “but by keeping quiet in prayer for several hours before God, you will realize that you can get along without answers to all your problems.

This would have been Jesus ”answer and it will quiet you.” You do not need more than His peace, which passes all understanding. You do not need both peace and understanding, for understanding presupposes qualifications which most of us do not have.

The Talmud (Haghiga) says that there were four men who ascended to the highest firmament, Ben Azai, Ben Zoma, Elisha ben Abuya and Rabbi Akiba. Ben Azai saw the glory of God and died. Ben Zoma saw and went mad. Elisha ben Abuya became irreligious. Only Rabbi Akiba returned unharmed.

Paul writes about a man who was caught up into paradise, but he could not communicate to anyone about what he experienced because the words he heard in paradise were unspeakable words (2 Cor. 12:2-4).

A legend says that Moses once sat near a well in meditation. A wayfarer stopped to drink from the well and when he did, his purse fell from his girdle into the sand. The man departed. Shortly afterwards another man passed near the well, saw the purse and picked it up. Later a third man stopped to assuage his thirst and went to sleep in the shadow of the well.

Meanwhile, the first man had discovered that his purse was missing and, assuming that he must have lost it at the well, returned, awoke the sleeper (who of course knew nothing) and demanded his money back. An argument followed, and irate, the first man killed the latter.

Whereupon Moses said to God, “You see? Therefore men do not believe in You. There is too much evil and injustice in the world. Why should the first man have lost his purse and then become a murderer? Why should the second have gotten a purse full of gold without having worked for it? The third was completely innocent. Why was he slain?”

God answered, “For once and only once, I will give you an explanation. I cannot do it at every step. The first man was a thief's son. The purse contained money stolen by his father from the father of the second, who, finding the purse, only found what was due him. The third was a murderer whose crime had never been revealed and who received from the first the punishment he deserved. In the future believe that there is sense and righteousness in what transpires even when you do not understand.”

Faith in God is the sole answer to the mystery of evil.

In Christ,

Richard Wurmbrand