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 MUST HEAR: The Beauty of Nothing by Richard Wurmbrand

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Saints,

Pastor Wurmbrand shares his experiences in jail for 14 years by the communists. He shares a specific facet of his testimony which was the nothingness they were faced with in jail. No bibles, No fellowship, No communion, No sound. But admist this all the Lord Jesus Christ revealed himself to the prisoners and allowed them to experience him and even take communion. This message will stir you out of apathy and grumbling over our little issues in life that are nothing in comparision with what this brother went through. May this message show us the needs to pray and support the persecuted church. "It is a shame to be a luke-warm Christian".

[b]The Beauty of Nothing by Richard Wurmbrand[/b]
https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=4529&commentView=itemComments


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2009/7/12 16:34Profile
ChrisJD
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Joined: 2006/2/11
Posts: 2895
Philadelphia PA

 Re: MUST HEAR: The Beauty of Nothing by Richard Wurmbrand

Greg, I was really surprised and happy to see this message featured today! It is a message that has encouraged and inspired me.

For some time now I had wanted to write down some things from this message to share in another thread, maybe I can do that here.



After listening to this message several times, I've wanted to maybe even erase the comments that I left about it because I feel unworthy to have commented on it and I think my comments were inadaquate(I don't mean to discourage anyone else I only mean this for myself!).



I hope others will be encouraged. I think there are some deep things there that I missed before.


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Christopher Joel Dandrow

 2009/7/12 22:16Profile
JoanM
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Joined: 2008/4/7
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 Re: MUST HEAR: The Beauty of Nothing by Richard Wurmbrand

I left the following comment after hearing this message earlier today and continued with the Lord in this.

[i]This IS a wonderful meditation. The value of nothing. It is so rich this message, this exhortation. One tiny example: When you are nothing, and are broken, there is no resistance. He touched on the moments when "the walls shown like diamonds in the light of Christ. How beautiful are his feet.[/i]

A neighbor called inviting me to eat with her (believer) and her husband (awakened but ...). Our conversation was filled with the Truth Wurmbrand shared on the value of nothing. The whole continuum from "nothing of this world matters, is of value" to "the great value of being nothing in His hands".

When he asked, "How does that happen!", we were in Isa 6.

Now I am back and this thread is again on the front page. How I am rejoicing in what God is doing this very moment in that home and heart. And I will get to hear and witness it.

How this informs intercession. The heart of God is in this. How I love His ways.

 2009/7/12 23:34Profile









 Re: MUST HEAR: The Beauty of Nothing by Richard Wurmbrand

This is a good message. Thanks for featuring it.

 2009/7/12 23:36
roadsign
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Joined: 2005/5/2
Posts: 3777


 Re: Wurmbrand's sermon

This is a heartwarming message. It demonstrates not only God’s amazing ways of revealing his presence to believers who suffered in solitary confinement, but also the ingenious ways they had of maintaining meaningful fellowship. Wurmbrand’s message causes me to reflect on the ways we humans try so hard to “create” fellowship from the products of our own hands - with limited effectiveness. Wurmbrand shows that it is possible to celebrate the beauty of “nothing” – because that is the very ingredient God used to create the entire world! Amazing!

I believe that Wurmbrand wished to use his sermons to do more than warm hearts of those in free nations. He calls for a response to the plight of the suffering Christians.

Some direction can be found here:

[url=http://www.persecution.com/]Voice of the Martyrs[/url] (an organization which Wurmbrand founded).


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Diane

 2009/7/13 10:11Profile
ChrisJD
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Joined: 2006/2/11
Posts: 2895
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 Re:

Hi again everyone.


Diane, I wonder if I can relate something in regards to what you pointed out. I mentioned earlier that I've listened to this several times and think that I've missed many things of significance. I think it is starting to come together.


After listening again last night and meditating on these things afterwards and this morning along with something that JoanM pointed out, I think I've put something together:



"...the beauty of “nothing” – because that is the very ingredient God used to create the entire world! Amazing!"



JoanM also pointed out how [i]When you are nothing, and are broken, there is no resistance.[/i].


Before the description of the commuinon, he calls to mind the passage in Job where it says the Lord hangs the Earth upon nothing(Job 26:7). He says that 'nothing' in that context, is the most resistant substance and suggests that if the Lord would have hung the world upon a thick cable of steel, it would have broken!

And then, as JoanM pointed out, he suggests how in communion, 'the nothing' oppossed or offered no resistance, unlike the communion wafer which would make a 'pock' sound when you broke it.


Putting these together, what comes to mind is that he is making this point to us:

the attitude of being nothing, enabled them to resist the terrible conitions and treatment that they were put under.

And also, to submit to God.


I think this is why he begins the message with Paul's declaration, saying, 'though, I am nothing'.



I hope it was ok to share this and that it might be useful.


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Christopher Joel Dandrow

 2009/7/13 16:36Profile
JoanM
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Joined: 2008/4/7
Posts: 797


 Re: The faces of God

O Brother ChrisJD. God is ministering so deeply to me through Brother Richard. I feel a little strange to put it on a thread that is maybe not intended for discussion, but so what.

As we all know, in our tiny trials, there is a purification, a refining. In my puny experience, I have always called them furnace lessons (like the lesson, When you are in such a fiery furnace it does not matter how you got in there, the rights, the wrongs, the only thing that matters is Christ in the furnace). [u][b]There is such a purification this Brother communicates: The purity of his words in sharing[/u][/b].

It is the Love of God, God's Love. Do you hear a character of Truth in those words? The words “the Love of God” that is our Love for God AND ALSO there is right there “God's Love” that it is His Love of man, God's character, the face He shines on us, the Love that is shed abroad.

Even as I write this I am hearing what it is to say to the husband of my friend. It came from how full of God spoken words can be: Asking God “What do you make of me” yields much. Both His assessment of your heart and His eternal purpose for you. Ask Him.

If you are hearing this man of God listen and see
[url=http://media.sermonindex.net/10/SID10923.WMV] No Other God (video) by Richard Wurmbrand [/url]: God Shines His face upon us here. AND [url=http://media.sermonindex.net/10/SID10925.WMV]The faces of God (video) by Richard Wurmbrand[/url]

I know our Lord will minister tailor-made Truth and Grace to each of us. One tiny personal gift to me here was a thing I did not at all know about the Hebrew language. I thought it was only in the Greek because of the way I learned it. The simplest way to put it is that God revealed Himself to me as Jesus, the Christ while I was struggling to translate, perfectly into English, the Greek word logos. I was not studying the Bible, I had an assignment in my Greek class at a collage that is a fountain spewing out secular humanism in our country. What I had learned then was that in Greek, when you gave someone a word, you gave “the thing itself”. That was what I was laboring over, how to wrestle this word logos, the thing itself, into the language I understood. Brother Richard is the only person to whom such a thing is meaningful enough to speak of and he knows this through the Hebrew! O the riches in Christ that flow through that and the faces of God which he shares.

May we see every second of our life through Him, see as He sees. Respond as He responds.

 2009/7/13 22:44Profile
ChrisJD
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Posts: 2895
Philadelphia PA

 Re: the face He shines on us

JoanM, wow.


I do not want to take anything away from your precious thoughts.


I have been thinking more and more after living in this world how it is one of the greatest things that I as a creature can ever hear, is that God is love.



"the face He shines on us"

Your story about the Lord revealing himself to you when studying in a secular class about the word Logos, Joan that is tremendous!

Do you remember when Moses asked the Lord to show him His glory? And the Lord said he could not see His face but that He would make all His goodness pass before him and proclaim His name to him?


And later, well, much later, how John tells us that they beheld the glory of the Lord Jesus, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.



"What I had learned then was that in Greek, when you gave someone a word, you gave “the thing itself”."



Those shining shining faces.


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Christopher Joel Dandrow

 2009/7/14 6:21Profile
roadsign
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Joined: 2005/5/2
Posts: 3777


 Re: The "Something" in the Nothing

Quote:
".. in Greek, when you gave someone a word, you gave “the thing itself”.



Hi Joan, I think Wurmbrand would have been delighted with your little paint-brush stroke here added to his portrait of the “imaginary” Eucharist celebration. Those participants were deprived of the “Word of God” in that they had no Bibles – no created thing – letters and words on paper; not even audible words. But they did have the “Thing itself”: After all, the Word IS Christ.

I see an insightful lesson here: Our disdain for “nothing” as well as our reliance on that which is tangible to our senses may deprive us of the most substantive “something” that exists – outside the created order.

It occurs to me that suffering involves deprivation; so no wonder suffering is such a powerful tool for forging faith. Suffering nudges us beyond the tangible.

Wurmbrand’s “Nothing” sermon should be woven into all communion traditions – lest participants forget “the Thing itself”. It would be good in any Bible teaching context – where far more effort might be spent on words about “the real thing” than the experience of “the real thing” itself: knowing God.


Diane



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Diane

 2009/7/14 9:53Profile
roadsign
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Posts: 3777


 Re: The value of nothing

Quote:
suggests that if the Lord would have hung the world upon a thick cable of steel, it would have broken!



What an amazing thought – deeply philosophical too. What IS “nothing”? How does that relate to us personally? What does it mean for us to become “nothing”? How can our own emptying make us more fit for serving in God’s kingdom? Certainly “nothing” will not resist the free flow of divine grace, love, and mercy. “Nothing” is free from ulterior agendas, personal unmet needs, bones-to-pick – or whatever blocks us from freely serving Christ and others.

ChrisDJ, you may appreciate Wurmbrand’s book, “Alone with God” – sermons he thought up while in solitary confinement. He was able to remember them and wrote them afterwards. Wurmbrand was a brilliant man, a deep thinker, and was able to draw from his vast pool of knowledge to create sermons that keep us engaged. They have value in any culture or time period. His book Tortured for Christ is to me a masterpiece of Christian literature. (It’s free on Voice of the Martyr website)

For me, Wurmbrand is an ideal mentor because he was so emptied………. and yet so filled.


Diane


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Diane

 2009/7/14 10:13Profile





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