Reverend Wurmbrand: The Christians sustained me everywhere. I had no salary, I had no regular salary but the Christians everywhere sustained me. In Rumania the first question asked of a pastor or a priest of any denomination, is: Has he been in prison? [b][color=CC0000]If he has been in prison he is all right[/color][/b]. All the Christians sustain him.




am very insignificant and a very little man. I have been in prison among the weak ones and the little ones, but I speak for a suffering country and for a suffering church and for the heroes and the saints of the 20th century; we have had such saints in our prison to which I did not dare to lift my eyes.
I am a Protestant, but we have had near us Catholic bishops and monks and nuns about whom we felt that the touching of their garments heals. We were not worthy to untie their shoelaces. Such men have been mocked and tortured in our country. And even if it would mean to go back to a Rumanian prison, to be kidnaped by the Communists and going back and tortured again, I cannot be quiet.[b][color=FF0000]I owe it to those who have suffered there. [/color][/b]

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CHRISTIAN

"Where is the Bible Society? We have no Bible Society. [b]Show me one Bible printed in 20 years[/b]. We have no such thing. Tell me the name of one Christian who for 20 years could publish a book. Give me the name of one Christian professor of humanistic sciences in our country. Tell me on Sunday school in Bucharest where it can be attended."


"I have not read the Bible for 14 years."


"...when I came out of prison I saw Christianity is not dead. The [u]number of practicing Christians in Rumania[/u] according to the figures given by the Communists themselves in 20 years of Communist dictatorship [b]has grown 300 percent[/b]."



Something similar attested to here: [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=2399&forum=35&start=20&viewmode=flat&order=1]DVD set--- The Cross: Jesus in China[/url]

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Christopher Joel Dandrow

For years I have never seen sun, moon, flowers, snow, stars, no man except the interrogator who beat, but I can say I have seen heaven open, I have seen Jesus Christ, I have seen the angles and we were very happy there.

But the treatment was very bad. The purpose was to make us mad. You didn't hear a noise. A whisper you didn't hear in this cell. The guard had felt shoes. For years, not to hear anything. In all these years of prison we never had a book, we never had a but of paper, we never had a newspaper, nothing to distract our mind except that from time to time tape recorders were put on the corridor. I didn't know what a tape recorder is. I had not seen such a thing.
But at once we heard beautiful Rumanian music, and then we enjoyed it. We didn't know what has happened with the Communists that they make us enjoy, and after 10 or 15 minutes at once you heard, "Ha, ha, ha don't beat," the torturing of a woman. This lasted for half an hour the torturing of a woman. And of 100 prisoners who had been in that cell, in that corridor, everybody recognized that it is his wife or that it is his girl. I myself thought also that it is my wife.

Never will a Westerner understand, if I would not have the mark on my body, which are my credentials.

Senator Dodd: Excuse me, never will who understand? ...

Reverend Wurmbrand: A Westerner can't understand God is here and knows that I will not tell you the while truth because if I will tell you the while truth, you will faint and rush out of this room, not bearing to hear what things have happened. But I will tell you that in a prison they crucified a cat before ourselves.
They beat nails in the feet of the cat and the cat was hanging with the head down, and can you imagine how this cat screamed and the prisoners, mad, bead on the door, "Free the cat, free the cat, free the cat," and the Communists very polite, "Oh, surely we will free the cat, but give the statements which we ask from you and then the cat will be freed," and I have known men who have given statements against their wives, against their children, against their parents to free the cat.

They did it out of madness, and then the parents and the wives have been tortured like the cat. Such things have happened with us.

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Mike Balog

Brother Mike... glad to see this thread continue.


This really stands out to me for some reason, when he says

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Christopher Joel Dandrow

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Mike Balog

"Tortured for Christ"

From the forward;

"Many today believe that a martyr is simply someone who dies for his faith. Unfortunately, by this definition we have lost the true significance and depth of martyrdom. St. Augustine once stated, "The [i]cause[/i], not the [i]suffering[/i], makes a genuine martyr." In his play [i]Murder in he Cathedral[/i], T.S. Eliot describes a martyr as one "who has become an [i]instrument[/i] of God, who has [i]lost[/i] his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in [i]submission[/i] to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom."

According to the original Greek, "martyr" means "witness." The writer of Hebrews states that "we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [martyrs]" (12:1), and Jesus instructs us in Acts 1:8, "You shall be witnesses [martyrs] to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

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Mike Balog

You may also be blessed and challenged as I was by the testimony of another man who has suffered tremendously for Christ, his name is Josef Tson and you can find some of his messages here on SI at the following link...

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=516]Josef Tson Sermons[/url]

In Christ,

Ron

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Ron Halverson

"For years I have never seen sun, moon, flowers, snow, stars, no man except the interrogator who beat, but I can say I have seen heaven open, I have seen Jesus Christ, I have seen the angles and we were very happy there."

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Christopher Joel Dandrow

[b]Mr. Sourwine[/b]:
You mentioned demonstrations by the Communists. Does Rumania have anything like the demonstrations that are so prevalent in this country, demonstrations against the Government's activities or against its policies?

[b]Reverend Wurmbrand[/b].:
Nobody can say a word of criticism. Such a thing doesn't even enter in the mind of somebody. I will tell you something of which may be laughable for you. It is very tragical with us. But the story is just as I tell you. I know the man. A man was in a barbershop in a little town, Sibiu. While the barber shaved him, he said to the barber: "What should I do? My hair falls." The barber said, "Very well, I will make you a friction but you must not be anxious about this. The most intelligent people of the world have been bald." On the other seat there was an officer of the secret police and he said to the barber, "What have you said now?"

"I have said that the most intelligent people of the world are bald."

"So, you assert that Stalin has not been intelligent." It is a question of laughter for you but it is tragical with us. Nobody dares to say a word.

I stopped in Newark, and in Philadelphia, a demonstration against the war in Vietnam. I had not this clerical suit on. I stopped the demonstrators and I undressed myself to the belt. Afterwards I heard that it is illegal here in the States, and that I could have gone to prison for this. I undressed myself.

[b]Senator Dodd[/b]:
It would have been all right on the bathing beach.

[b]Reverend Wurmbrand:[/b]
Yes; it was not on the beach. And I told them, "This have Communists done to me. Do you think that American Christians should fight against communism?" So they surrounded me and asked me, "Why have Communists done to you this?" I said to them, "Suppose that I am a murdered. Do you agree that a murderer should be tortured? Has Oswald been tortured? Has Ruby been tortured with you?" They all said, "No; murderers have not been tortured." I continued: "Then know that I have not be charged with murder. I am a clergyman." They stopped the demonstration. In Philadelphia there was again such a demonstration. I am not a man of politics. I can't speak for the war of Vietnam or against the war in Vietnam. I speak this general principle that Christians must be on the side of righteousness.. They must never be on the side of the inquisitors of Christians. They must be on the side of the victims of the inquisitors, they must be on the side of the Christians.

In Philadelphia there was a great meeting. A pastor with clerical suit, a Presbyterian pastor, delivered a speech in which he praised Communists and said that Communists are all right and it is stupid to fight against them. I have learned something from the Communists. In a minute - after - the pastor was no more in the pulpit, I was in the pulpit. I said: "Now I will speak about communism. What do you know about communism? And I will show you my credentials, how I have studied communism." I undressed myself to the belt. I did not know that all these bad reporters are there and took pictures. And I showed them my body. "That is what Communists do to Christians, and you, Pastor, why don't you make demonstrations, if you are a Christian and if you have youth in you and vigor, why don't you demonstrate before the Soviet and Rumanian Embassies and the other embassies against torturing Christians?" And then the public, which has been there booed him and shouted to him "Judas."

These are Judases. They may be all right innerly, I don't know their hearts, but I think that Christians, if they wish to demonstrate, they should demonstrate against those who have recently deported 150 Baptist pastors.

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The interview in it's entriety; [url=http://www.christianmonitor.org/Wurmbrand.html]TESTIMONY OF REV. RICHARD WURMBRAND[/url]

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Mike Balog