In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal experience of being imprisoned for 14 years under communism. They describe the hardships and challenges faced in prison, including hunger, longing, and mockery. Despite the difficult circumstances, the speaker finds strength and comfort in their faith in Jesus. They emphasize the importance of choosing to set Jesus free in every moment of our lives and how even in the darkest moments, Jesus reveals his beauty and provides strength to his followers.

I tried in my book, The Pastor's Wife, to bring the cry of those left behind. My sisters, my brethren, who are today in prison, tortured, beaten, mocked by the communists. The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his new creation. Together with my husband, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, we came to the free world, to the West. We came from Romania, a beautiful country, with snow, with sunshine, with mountains, with rivers. But Romania is one of the countries under communist dominion. And there, you don't know to laugh. People don't laugh there. So when we came from there to the free world, we told some of the things happening there. In communist countries, Christians are in prisons, in slave labor camps. But if you have read The Pastor's Wife, you know that I wrote there not only about these sad things. I spoke about having a wonderful God. I have a very famous God. The God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is my Heavenly Father, a very famous God. Then I have a Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of Israel, is my Savior, my Teacher, my Lord and my Friend. And then I have also a very famous book, the Bible. In prison cells where we didn't have any book, neither the Bible or any bit of paper, a word which we kept in our heart, a word from this famous book, from the Bible, could give new life and new hope to those in despair. When my husband came out after 14 years of communist prison, the very first hours when we were together, he told me, now I can understand perhaps much better many things described in the Bible. And then once Pilate stood before the people and asked, who would you like that I should free? Should I free Jesus or should I free Barabbas, the robber who was there? I, Richard said, now I understand that this question was not put only to the people then 2,000 years ago. Every second of our life is like a second when you have to choose, who would you like to set free? Would you like to set free Jesus, the Son of God, the famous, the wonderful Savior, or would you like to set free Barabbas? Every time when you choose sin, your own will, the will of this world, then you have chosen Barabbas and you have set him free just to go around on the streets of this world. Don't forget, choose Christ every second in your life. Choose righteousness, goodness. Whenever you are good, you have set free Christ and he will be the most famous in your life and in the hearts of those who are around you. You also have a story to tell. You're a slave labby yourself. How were you arrested and why did it happen? It is only in the free world that you could put such questions, how you were arrested. And the Communist bloc and the Soviet Union in Red China, you would rather ask how is it that you are not arrested for all those who would testify, who would witness for Christ, all those who are known as Christians, all those who would speak for God, they are put in prisons, in slave labor camps, and today there are one million Christians put in slave labor camps, in lunatic asylums, in prisons, only in the Soviet Union. In Red China, at least 100,000 are there. After many, many others, perhaps one million in Red China have been put to death, and not only that they were killed, but they were buried alive. They pass horrible tortures as we could not describe it in human words. Our sisters, our brethren in China, in the Soviet Union, and the new African Communist countries, and the satellite Communist countries in the eastern of Europe are today starving, weeping for hunger. They are mocked, deprived of their children. The Communists are fighting against God. They don't believe. They would like that everyone should not believe that there is a God. There is no God, no Christ, no soul. Man is only matter. So they are in a hurry to make what they like, and they are in a hurry to torture, and to punish, and to put to death, and to put in slave labor camps all those who would speak for God and for Christ. If I would try just to say in a few words what I have seen in the Communist countries inside the prisons, the slave labor camp, the prison is a very hard place, and the days in prison could not be counted in years as it is usually. I say my husband has made 14 years of Communist prison. Every day has 24 hours, and every hour has 60 minutes, and you make prison minute by minute and day by day. It is a very hard time, and the human heart is so frail, and we very quickly lose our vision of God. We very quickly see the dark prison cell, the longing, the hunger, the mockery of the Communists. But God knows how we are, and He knows every one of those who are His. In dark prison cells where no man could help, where human help could not reach the Christians, Jesus Himself would make know us that He is the Lord. And sometimes when it was very, very heavy, hungry, beaten, mocked, and forsaken by all men, Jesus Himself would lift the veil for a fraction of a second and show us His beauty, let us hear the beauties of paradise. And so we got new strength. And even those who did not know God saw the glory of God shining over the faces of the children of God. And those in despair who didn't know God got strength from the children of God who were comforted by their own Savior. What was the treatment like? Could you tell us something about what happened to you? My dear Christian brethren, my dear, dear mothers, and dear wives in the free world, there are no human words that could describe what I appeal to your heart, and perhaps you could understand much more than human words could express. Can you imagine what it means a mother deprived of her children behind locked doors and iron bars? One day my husband tried to describe his feeling about the children whom we left behind, and he said, during cold winter nights, we, the men, pressed our bare chest to the icy iron bars of the prison in order to quench the fire of longing after our children, and we were only fathers. But the mothers wept and cried, and often even when the women in the prison cell would sleep, you could hear the one and the other crying the name of their children, John, Mary, Paul, and tears filled their eyes even during the sleep, dreaming about their children and crying after them. And the communists knew it very well, so they tried to use this longing after our children. One day they called a Christian lady, the communist officer called a Christian lady in his office, and from his drawer he took out a little mirror and threw it to this Christian lady. Now you can imagine that when we were there, we didn't look as the ladies in the free world look. We were very thin with dark circles under our eyes. We didn't have a comb to comb ourselves. We were in rags, dirty. And so he took out the little mirror and threw it to this Christian lady and asked her, now do you see how you look like? The Christian lady was afraid seeing after many months the first time how she looks like. And then the communist officer continued, now look how you look like. Your children are in our hands. They don't believe anymore in God. We have our children and even our children look to you as fools. Don't be anymore so foolish to speak about God and about your Christ, because even your children laugh about you. Now there could not be a greater mockery and a greater pain than to tell to a Christian mother that her own child looks to her like to a fool. A second the Christian did not know what to answer, but afterwards she said, God, our God, has written in his book that there will be a time when every knee will bow before him and forever I remain his and even my children will be together with me, with my God. The communist officer was very angry and with a slap he dismissed this lady. She went back to her cell, but afterwards, when after a year she was freed, she could see that the communist officer was not right. He just used this in order to make us Christians to lose our faith and to get in despair. But God, our God, remains forever famous and wonderful and he kept our children for him. How did you feel when you were separated from your son Mihai? Did you lose your faith in God? Did it make you doubt? The names of our children often in prison, we did not dare to pronounce them. So big was the pain in our heart and the longing so great. And the communists sometimes, when we were in prison cells one day, they brought some eight or ten children together in a cell near us. We were some five or six mothers altogether and they started to beat the children and the children cried and wept. When we heard them, the first mother said, Oh, this is my Mary, this is my Mary, and they beat my Mary. And she tried to beat, to bang on the door and to call the warden, but nobody would come. The other mothers, everyone was convinced, It is my, it is my child who cries. And every one of us, we started to cry and to weep and to call our God to help us. They were not our children whom they have beaten, but they knew what it means for a mother, what it means for a mother to be in communist prisons. Then we had another concern. Perhaps, dear mothers who listen to me, you would understand our concern. We were together Christians, but not only Christians. We were together thieves and murderers and political fighters who would not believe in God. And when we saw what it means, somebody without God, without hope, without a savior, somebody with his sins left alone, without a heavenly friend, then we thought what will be our children. They will become communists. And one day when we were allowed to see somebody from our relatives, from our family, and we thought our children will come and we will see them. Every one of us, we thought, what could we give them? We are not with them. They are alone. What could we give them? But we were terribly poor. Everyone, we have been taken from our home without anything. We had nothing. And we were dirty and in rags. And so we prepared ourselves to arrange. We were ashamed to appear so before our children. We tried to put on a scarf, something on us, to wash ourselves somehow and to appear before them. And during nights and days, we would not sleep and we would not eat, trying to compose the words which we would tell our children, words which should be for them, just like a friend for the years to come when we were far from them. Now the great day arrived when we should see one of our children, and I was taken out to see my son Mihai. When I saw him first time after so long weeks and months and years, standing in between the guards of the prison, looking to me, he was so pale. I looked to him and at once all I had composed was forgotten. I did not remember one word. I just looked to him and as I was not allowed to embrace him, I embraced him with my eyes, with my tears running down, and the minutes passed without saying one word, neither did he remember a word to say to me. And the minutes passed, the guards were ready to take my son. It was finished. So in a second I cried out, Mihai, love Jesus from all your heart. It was the best I could give him. He was taken out, and two guards took me with their rifles, brought me back to the prison cell, and for a long time I had to remain there in hunger, in pain, and in longing after my children. But many years afterwards I could see how these few words have given to Mihai his faith and his hope back, and it is a great joy now to have a son who is himself a pastor. He's in California and leads our mission, Jesus to the communist world, the Christian mission to the communists, and he's working now, he himself, to help those who today, like him then, are on the street without mother and without father. Now the Christian mission to the communist world is smuggling in Bibles and Christian literature and the communist countries. We try to arrive with this Christian literature through the maritime currents who bring these, they are dropped from a plane in the sea. Mihai himself has studied the currents in order that we could bring to the shores of Red China, of the Soviet Union, the Christian literature to those who are without Bible and without gospel. And then we help those in communist countries to print the word of God. They themselves print it there in secret printing presses where they are entombed, the men who print the gospel there in order not to be betrayed, live in the cellars there where they print. There they eat, there they sleep, and here they don't go out in order to be able to give the word of God to the hungry souls in communist countries where there are no Bibles. Then we try to bring help to the Christian families, to the martyrs. The father is in prison, the children are starving. Often even mother and father is in prison, so we try to help the children. In communist countries, I must tell you also some of the victories of the children of God. The suffering is very great, the hunger is great, the tortures, the mockery, but also our famous and wonderful God gives victories to his children. He makes the great miracles and he gives victories to all those who are his, who stand up for Christ. I can tell you just one scene. In a communist school, the professor entered and told the children, Now, dear children, we are in the 20th century and our astronauts went to the moon. They looked around all over. They did not find any God. And here in our school, in the communist school, you are no more allowed to mention even the name of God or the name of Christ. Not one of the children dared to answer to this professor because, you know, in a communist country, in the Soviet Union, if you as a child speak for God, you are taken away from your parents and you are put far away in a communist boarding school so you could never see your parents again. But still, one of the children, a Christian child, stood up and asked, Comrade professor, but did our astronauts have a pure heart? Because it is written that blessed are those pure in heart, they will see God. And I am here in a communist school, but my heart has been made pure, has been washed by the blood of Christ. And even sitting here, I can see the glory of God and the glory of my beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. The children are punished after this for such words, but they love their Lord from all their heart and they know that the famous Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, is worthwhile to fight for Him, to love Him from all your heart, and they do it gladly and with joy. And therefore also, our Savior makes great miracles and shows that He is a mighty Savior. He knows His own, loves them, and knows how to make them holy, preparing them for the everlasting joys in paradise. May God bless you.