This sermon shares the powerful testimony of a man who endured 14 years in communist jails, highlighting the joy of seeing children, the physical challenges faced in prison, the struggle to remember prayers, the importance of focusing on the heart of God, and the miraculous transformation experienced through faith and love. It emphasizes the need to preserve and honor the Word of God, the impact of suffering and persecution on believers, and the call to support and remember those still facing persecution in communist and Muslim countries.

Dear brethren and sisters, and to very, very beloved children, to brethren I say only dear, to children I say very, very beloved, because during my 14 years in communist jails I have never seen a child, and for me it is a special joy to see these beautiful, beautiful children, some of them old and old friends of mine already. First of all I have to apologize for speaking to you being seated. During these years in jail we almost never walked. We had sometimes heavy chains at our feet, up to 50 pounds. There were beatings with rubber truncheons on the soles of the feet, and now it is difficult for me to stand a long time. You will have guessed already that I intend to speak a long time, but I can't stay any longer. Secondly, I have to speak, I have to apologize for something else. You will have some difficulty in understanding me, because Americans have such a strange manner of speaking English. I speak the real English, but you will understand, I hope. Before speaking to you, I wish to introduce other two jailbirds, and not the only jailbird. There's one who honors me greatly with his friendship, a man of God, his priest Streza, who has been with me in the same prison cell in Romania. Please stand up, Vassilis Streza, many years there. Please make his acquaintance at the end. And then there is another jailbird here, a very beautiful one, that is my wife Sabina. She's been in jail at the same time when I was in jail, but in another jail. I did not hear all these 14 years. Did I say it right, my beautiful wife Sabina? And before speaking to you, I wish to read Psalm 12, which contains a very strange verse. To the chief musician, on an eighth-stringed harp, a psalm of David. Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak idly, everyone with his neighbor, with fluttering lips and a double harp they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things. They have said, with our tongue we will prevail, our lips are our own. Who is the Lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord. I will set him in the safety for which he yearns. Now be attentive. The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them, who is this them? The words of the Lord. You shall keep them, O Lord, you shall preserve them from the generation forever. We all think about spreading the word, and here we read that we have to preserve the word from the world, because the world may harm the word of God. About this, I wish to speak to you a few words. When I preach, nobody has to look to the watch, because I do it myself, to be very sure I don't preach too shortly, so you don't have to. I'm a Jewish Christian, and therefore I will start with an old, old Jewish legend. It is said that King Saul, the first Jewish king, had at his court a boy with the name of David. He loved him very much. David had defeated the giant Goliath, and he was very, very beloved at court. And one day, the king sat on his throne, and around him all his counselors, and the king had near his throne a beautiful harp. And David, who was a musician, begged the king, allow me to play on that harp. The king said, no, it has no sense. I have been cheated. I paid big money for this harp, but nobody was able to play on it. I brought the biggest harpist, the biggest musicians of the world. They could not play on it. So ugly, you can't, you can't bear to listen. I've been cheated. The, David said, allow me just to try. And now, as King Saul loved David, he said, all right, do it. You will see, you can't play on this harp. But when David put his little fingers on the strings, at once there was such a joy. The harp, you saw the harp jubilated, that it found the right musician. And according to his command, the harp rejoiced, and the harp wept, and the the harp rejoiced again. There was light in this holy music. When he finished, everybody in the room was in tears. And King Saul asked him, how is it that the greatest musicians did not succeed to play on this harp, and you succeeded to play such a masterpiece? And then David said, all the other harpists have tried to play on this harp their own song, and the harp refused to play their song. I played to the harp the song of the harp. I reminded it how beautiful it was when she was a young tree in the forest, and birds were in its branches, and children played under the tree, and there was such a joy in the beams of the sun, and you heard how the harp jubilated when I reminded her of her beautiful youth. Then I played to the harp about the dark day when evil men came and cut the tree. He died, and you heard how the harp wept remembering this evil day. But then I played to the harp, but with this things were not finished. You died as a tree, but you were born again as a harp. Now from your wood a harp has been made which can play the glory of God, and you heard the harp jubilating again. When the Messiah, when the Savior will come, many will try to play on his harp their own songs, and the songs will be very, very ugly. On the harp of the Savior, we must sing his song, not our song. We must sing to him about his glory in heaven before he came to earth, when archangels and angels and the whole creation bowed to him. Then about his humiliation when he was a little babe in a stable, in a stable despised by men, and his mother had to flee with him to Egypt because the king wished to kill him. And then a whole life of poverty and of oppression despised by men, and how many times they tried to kill him, and how they insulted him. And then we will have to play on the harp of Jesus the sad day when he was arrested, when his hands which have done only good were bound, when he was brought before unjust judges, and they will spit on him, they will mock him, then they will drive nails in his hands and in his feet. He will see a holy mother weeping at the foot of the cross, and then he will die on the cross shouting, a lie, a lie, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But then we have to play on his heart, the story of his resurrection, and the story of his glorification, but also the story of his compassion for us, and his participation in all our sufferings, in all our afflictions, he is afflicted too. Even something more terrible is written in the Bible, that when a believer sins, I will not tell you where it is written, because you would look up in the Bible, the chapter and the verse about which I tell you, I tell you what is written there, you read the whole Bible and you will find what I tell you, it is written that when a believer sins, he is crucified a freak. Do you remember that it is written in the Bible? So he suffers again and again in all our falling away, in our coming back, in all the tragedies through which we pass, it is also his tragedy, and when the Savior will come, we will have to play on his heart his own song, not ours, and then the song will be beautiful. I also wish tonight not to play my own song, but to play his song, who has done such wonderful things for every one of us. Nobody can describe how much he took upon himself, not only that he died on Golgotha for us, that would have been too little. What did he do after Golgotha? Who knows what he did after Golgotha? He went to hell! He went to hell! No, I have not been in hell, but this is my good friend Brother Streisand, and I, and my beautiful wife too, we've been in the anti-chamber of hell, we've been in communist prison. It was so terrible there, that there had been nights when during the night, I looked to the cup of water which I had in the cell, to convince myself that it is not hell yet. I knew from the Bible that in hell there is no water, and so I became quiet. I have water, it is not hell yet, but it looks like hell. In the Romanian prison of Pitești, Brother Streisand also knows, Christians, and also other prisoners, have been compelled during years, every day, by unspeakable tortures, to eat every day their own offal, and to drink urine day after day. Hell! And the communists were not satisfied with this. A Catholic priest, a friend of mine, who was heart-mad already because of the tortures, he did not know what he does, and on a Sunday morning, they gave him on one hand, a plate, this human excrement, and in another hand, a cup stolen from a church, this human urine, and they put him to save the mass over these elements. Now you know that there's a Catholic mass, I mean, the author of Little D, the same words are said, which are said in our evangelical meetings, the same things are said. The holy verse of Jesus before, which angels shouted, take and eat, this is my body, broken for you, and take, drink, this is my blood, shed for you, for remission of sins. These holy words were said about dirt, upon dirt, and upon urine, and it will not tell you all the things which happened, but terrible things happened. With any health, I can describe to you the stench, and the dirt, and the suffering, and the tears, and the cries, and the howling which were there. Now we were there because we had been put there, I did not choose to go there, but Jesus chose to be there. He left a heaven, a heaven. If he would have only been whipped at somewhere in Jerusalem, it would have been a great thing, a son of God who allows himself to be whipped for us. No, but he was crucified, he died. Then he thought, perhaps that is too little, I will go further, I will go, perhaps there are some sinners who have done such terrible crimes, and can't believe that I can be saved. What I've done is too terrible. I will show him what terrible sufferings I've taken upon myself in order to save him, that he should be free. I will take the worst of suffering, and he went to hell, and then he resurrected, but even in heaven, it's written in Hebrews chapter 6, he suffers as often as we sin, he suffers times like those of crucifixion. Now why does he take all these things upon himself? Because he has a very big purpose, a purpose about which I would not dare to speak if it would not be said verbatim, just like this in the Bible, it is very little known, but in Revelation chapter 3 it is written, that those who will conquer, conquer their own sinful nature, and conquer the devil, and conquer the influences of the world, I will give them, I will give them, he says, what will you give us? I will give them two seats, very nice, I will have also a little chair, there will be Jesus, there will be God, and I will also sit on a little chair, it's very nice, no, I will give them two seats, he says, who knows how it goes further, I will give them two seats on my throne, that's right, I will give them two seats, says Jesus, on my throne, as I have conquered, and I sit on the throne with my father, to rule forever, there exists somewhere in this universe, a throne from which words are created, and from which words are ruled, and I and you are called to become persons who will sit on that throne, in John 10, Jesus says a word which again I would not dare to pronounce, if Jesus would not have said them just like this, ye are, how many of you are gods, would you please lift your hands, all those who are gods, well, if you are not a god, then Jesus is a sinner, a liar, because he has said, ye are gods, every caterpillar is a future butterfly, every caterpillar, a caterpillar is ugly, nothing, no, but it will be a multicolored butterfly, and every egg may contain a beautiful peacock, and I am here in nothing at all, a little man, but with me, in me there is a possibility to become a being which will sit on the throne of God, from which words are created and are ruled, so such a thing we have created, and he gave his life for us, to bring us to such a high state which we can't even comprehend, there we should be, and we should know all the privileges of heaven, and fulfill all the tasks of heaven, we are called to something very grand, and therefore, and we are on a very low level now, we are busy with so many little things which don't count, five minutes after this, they will not be, all my financial worries, and worries in the family, and worries about my health, and about my family, these will pass away, the existence great fight, will I ever to be with God on his throne, or will I be just a nothing at all, that is a great battle, and to show us the importance of this battle, and how he is on our side, he has taken upon himself our worst sins, our worst crimes, all our bad deeds, and all our neglects to do good, he has taken all these upon himself, and gives us a new life, he makes us to be whiter than snow, whiter than snow, whiter than snow, I did not say well, it doesn't say, the Bible doesn't say that he makes us whiter than snow, no, it just says otherwise, if your sins, not you, if your sins would be red as scarlet, I will make them, who is the dead, the sins, I will make them to be whiter than snow, indeed, I have committed sins, he will so clean them, he will make them the sins, to be whiter than, to be whiter than snow, he, he prepares for us beauties which can't be put in words, and therefore to play on the harp of Jesus, all our little ideas and conceptions and denominations is worthless, on the harp of David, of Jesus, we should play only his song, now being Jewish, I can tell you a secret of the Hebrew, and also the Greek Bible, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the New Testament is in Greek, in the Bible, as it was written in the beginning, not the translations which we have in the beginning, there exists no punctuation, the Bible has no comma, has no stop, has no question marks, has no semicolon, has none of these things, you know, which we have, just the verse, because all these commas, and all these stops, and all these marks, make you to stop in your speaking, here I have to stop a little bit, it is a comma, and here I have again to stop a little bit more, because there is a stop, no, like, like a torrent, like a river of fire and of love, so must the words of a preacher stream, if I don't stop at any commas, at any signs of anything, I love Jesus, I have met Jesus, he has saved me, and I wish you and the whole world to serve him wholeheartedly, without any commas, without any stops, without any question marks, there is no question mark in the whole Bible, in our translations there is a question mark, therefore you find so many doubters, but in the Bible as it was given by God, there was not one single question mark, what should I question, God has spoken, and I should question, I would be stupid about it, and I would like to speak with you in such a way, when I became a young preacher, more than 50 years ago, my ambition was to become a Red Spurgeon, and movie, and all these, and I desired very much to be a fiery preacher, who should speak so from all the heart, and people around me should catch this flame, and the fire should burn in them, I have not become yet such a preacher, but I'm not scared, because I'm only 82, so I still have time, I can become this year, or tomorrow, or something, but that is to play on the heart of Jesus, the song of Jesus, and now it is written here in Psalm 12, that God may preserve his words from this generation, from these men, but what harm can men do to the words of God, they can do very much harm, first of all, they can burn the Bibles, I come from Romania, now I have been to Russia, just been to Russia, millions of Bibles, and in China, and everywhere, millions of Bibles have been burned, millions of Bibles have been burned, have been torn in pieces, men have been put in Bibles, in prison for years, for having spread the word of God, so the world has an enmity towards the word of God, but there exists also something else, in America, nobody burns a Bible, nobody burns your Bible, nobody puts you in prison for having the Bible, and reading it, and spreading it, but you can minimize the Bible, you can have it, and you can read it, and you can spread it, and not give to it the due honor which you have to give to it, you don't give to it, you treat it well, there are so many books, that's also a book like other books, and I don't give it much attention, the most of that in America, I so wondered when I came to America, I found out how many kinds of Bibles you have, we in Romania, we had one Bible, and we did not have it, it was secret, we had to spread it secretly, and when it was found out, you went to prison, and so on, but even I came, I found King James version, another King's version, a Republic's version, a living Bible, a dead Bible, all kind of translations, okay, and we pass from one translation to the other, I know only one Bible, the Bible which I have decided to study, and to follow, that is the Bible, in vain I have 20 translations, which I study again and again, and I don't follow them, and we minimize, we make out of the Bible a subject of discussion, and sometimes of quarrel, that is interpretation, the other one is interpretation, Jesus did not say to interpret, but to follow, but to do what is written there, and the way of using the Bible in such a low manner, now I will tell you how the Bible can be received, I speak Russian as well as English, you will say as bad as English, that's my opinion about your English too, so we are on the same level, but I speak a good Russian, and at the end of World War II, we had one million Soviet soldiers entered our country, they were invaded, we did not invite them, they just came and took over our country, and a new Russian, and we immediately started a missionary work among these Soviet soldiers, they've been brought up like it was, under communism, we had it also afterwards in our country, there is no God, there is no Christ, there is no nothing, Bible is not true, and religion is an invention of the American imperialists, and so on, they've invented this whole thing, and everything is nothing, so they knew nothing, nothing about threat, and one day I had before me a young Russian lieutenant, he had gone, he felt that he has sinned, and he did not know what to do about his sins, and he saw we still had the Orthodox churches, so he entered in that church, and wished to tell a priest, he wished to confess to the priest, but the priest did not know Russian, and he did not know Romanian, so he told the priest what he had, the priest did not understand, he did not understand the absolution of the priest, but the priest, knowing that I speak Russian, he sent him to me, he gave him my address, and that is how I arrived in my home, and I had a young man before me, who had never heard of God, about Christ, only bad things, he had heard about that, and I feared to speak to him, because I feared he, I will say something wrong, so I said, instead of speaking, I will just read to him from the New Testament, and I read to him the Sermon on the Mount, I read to him a few of the parables of Jesus, a few of the miracles of Jesus, a few of his major sayings, and to my great amazement, he began to dance around in the room, he was not a Pentecostal, he did not know that Pentecostal existed in this world, but he danced around in the room, you can be, without being a Pentecostal, you can dance, why did Miriam dance, was she a Pentecostal, she was not even a Baptist, and she danced, and why did David dance, he was not even a Lutheran, why did he dance, he danced because he had the joy of the Lord, and he began to dance around in the room, and shouted, what a fairy beauty, what a fairy beauty, how could I live without knowing this, and I admired him, and I learned from him, that is how this Bible gives you splendid news, that I can become a being who will sit on the throne of God, amazing, I will have a role in creating worlds, and making them happy, and spreading around me love and truth, and bringing joy to nations, and call to something very great, and he has given his life for me, he when he heard these things, he danced for joy, without ever having been at any Christian meeting, he knew nothing about Christianity, only the news made him, that is how the Bible should be handled, if you don't understand it exists, it's written in Psalm 12, may the Bible, the word of God be preserved from this generation, we just don't know how to receive it, and then I said to him, you sit down, I still have to read, to read to you something, and they read about the arrest of Jesus, he was not very affected, he thought, well it happens that by mistake the police arrest somebody innocent, they will immediately, they will free him, but he found out they did not free him, they sentenced him to death, and the sentence to death has been confirmed, and then they whipped him to the blood, how can it be, he has done no harm, he has done only good, I told him how, I had read to him how he carried the children, and how he wiped away tears from the eyes of men, and how he fed the hungry, and how he comforted the sad, and how he forgave sinners, and why in the world do they whip him like this, and they drove nails into his hands and into his feet, when I read to him, they crucified him, and so how the Bible has to be received, it was as if nails entered into his hands and into his feet, he suffered together with Jesus, what has happened, and then crowned with a crown of thorns and spat upon him everything, and his holy mother weeping, now he was a child who loved his mother and honored her, it must have been for him another pain to see her weeping like this, a good mother, and all that has happened, one of the robbers even despising him and mocking him while he was in suffering, and then he heard that people who stood around the cross said, if you are the son of God, very simple, prove it, descend from the cross, and he said to himself, well that is logical, if he's the son of God, that's very logical, he can descend and he can prove that he's the son of God, he did not know that if Jesus would have descended from the cross, we would not be saved, and all mankind would be in great trouble, we have salvation only because he remained on the cross to the very end, he did not know, but he had, he hoped that something will happen, and then when I arrived to the words that Jesus died on the cross, he was like crushed, he began to weep, I have the image that I saw Mary Magdalene weeping near the tomb of Jesus, that is how the Bible should be treated, it is a story of the most lovable person in the world, of the one who wishes you the most good, who has done the greatest things for you, of your greatest benefactor, of the son of the creator, and here is a cup of coffee near me, here I tell my wife give me another piece of pie, and I read a little bit, and I make a joke in the midst of it, that is the question, the question is solved then, if you will sit on the throne of God, together with God, if you will be a blessing for mankind, and for the angels you will be a blessing, it's written in the Bible that when the word of God is preached, angels are listening, they also have to learn from us, we are the angel's university, the university of angels, but great things, and we take them so easily, we don't treat the Bible with due honor, and now he wept hearing that Jesus had died, he had believed in his savior, can you understand my English, can you understand, yeah, and he now wept because he had believed in his savior, he had believed for a quarter of an hour, and I found out that the savior is dead, so even a savior is of no help to you, he is dead, and he was just crushed, he did not know that the story of the resurrection followed, he did not know that the story of the resurrection followed, and then when I read to him that Jesus resurrected, again he danced around his room, so I have him, I have him, I have him, he's alive, he was so happy, and I wondered, I was a pastor, I was a pastor, and I did not dance, I read every day such stories of resurrection, and a part of the Bible, but I did not dance, why, because I was not a Pentecostal, but a Lutheran can also dance, a Catholic, everybody can dance, an atheist can dance if you make the acquaintance of Jesus, everybody can dance, a criminal who is converted, he can begin to dance, angels dance, and by the way, the Jerusalem translation of the Bible in Stephania, Stephania 317, speaks about God dancing, where it is written in our Bibles, in King James, he rejoices over us singing, the Jerusalem translation says he dances, God, as a joy, but even if he would be only like in our Bibles, he rejoices singing, and I think God, he looks to us, and at a certain moment, the angels are around him, and God begins to clap his hands, and his face shines, and as he claps his hands, the angels ask him, what has happened with you, have you become a Pentecostal? And he says, no, God is not a Pentecostal, I just rejoice about my children, and we should rejoice about him, so I saw this man rejoicing about the news that Jesus resurrected, and then I said to him, let us pray, now he did not know what prayer is, he has never been at a prayer meeting in his home, there was no prayer, he saw me kneeling, so he knelt too, I said a few words of prayer, and I said, you also pray, and he said, the most amazing prayer, oh God, what a nice chap you are, if I would be you, and you would be I, I would not have forgiven you your sins, but really, you are a very nice guy, and I love you from all my heart, that was one of the most reverential prayers which I have ever heard in my life. That is how we have to receive the word of God, God speaks, the creator of the universe, of galaxies, of billions of stars, all the beauties come from him, and other beauties have to come, and the sufferings also come, but sufferings are also for our good, we get so much suffering as we need to be prepared for this great challenge which we have, and to this we are called, and the Bible should be taken with this respect, and this importance which it has, and then we went to prison, many of us, hundreds, if not, say perhaps thousands of Christians were put in jail, of all denominations, as you call them here in America, I would call them damnations, because there should not be denominations, we should be just Christians, but we were in jail, Orthodox, and Catholic, and Lutherans, and Baptists, and Pentecostals, and Seventh-day Adventists, and whatever you like, we were all in jail, and some of us who were considered to be more dangerous for them, they kept us, everyone alone in a cell, during years alone in a cell, 30 feet beneath the earth, never seeing sun, moon, flowers, snow, butterflies, birds, this is the time we forgot that nature exists, 14 years I, and other years this brother, I have not been in jail much, 14 years, only 14 years, which is very little, because in communist Albania, our brother Meshkala died recently at the age of 84, after 43 years in jail, can you imagine at 84 in jail, now there are here a few elderly people, and you know that after 70 always something aches, the back, or the legs, or something, and you need somebody to be helpful, and so on, to be in jail, to be slave laborer at the age of 84, and 43 years in jail, and in China, was 41 years in jail, and recently, and now in Albania, you know, also a change has happened, like under Gorbachev, into Chicago, came an Albanian lady, who has been arrested 39 years ago, with a bait of six months, for her conviction, for the faith which she said, 39 years, and she was in jail 39 years, and her baby was 39 years in jail, when she was, to be a Christian is a crime, so for this they kept, but where did they keep the baby, they kept the baby too, 39 years, the baby, only now he has seen, he has seen something outside the walls of the prison, and there's been all this terrible suffering, and during the years of solitude, and then my health broke down, and I had tuberculosis of both, of the surface of both lungs, and backbone tuberculosis, and intestinal tuberculosis, and heart failure, and jaundice, and everything all together, so, and something very interesting happened, neither this dear brother Streisand, nor my wife, nor I, we have never seen a Bible in prison, any book, never a printed page of no kind, but Bible, who can, who can imagine a Bible in a communist prison without a print? In the beginning, this was not a problem, we, because we knew quite a part of the Bible by heart, we did not know the whole Bible, but the main passages and so we knew, but we were very, very hungry, there were times when we got one slice of bread a week, otherwise, otherwise, soup of potato peels, the communists, our comrades, they ate the potatoes, and we ate the peels, and cabbage with unwashed intestines, and other sorts of things, we were very, very hungry, and because of the hunger, and there was one thing more, we were doped with drugs, which would destroy our minds, in every soup, if you can call it soup, it was something, and in every cup of coffee, it wasn't coffee, it was black, but in every soup, they gave us, they were drugs, we smelled them, but we had no choice, that was the only food which we had, we had to eat it, and because, and there were beatings, and there were tortures, and there was a solitude, and everything else, and because of this, we forgot more and more, we forgot more and more, with the time, I forgot all the books which I've ever read in my life, believe me, I've read many books, but I forgot them, I had written and printed books before going to prison, I had forgotten the books which I had written, then I forgot more and more the Bible, I forgot more and more, one evening, I vaguely remembered that I'm a Lutheran pastor, but I could not remember who Luther had been, I could not remember who was Luther, I saw, humiliated on that evening, I've made a big discovery, you can be a Christian without knowing about Luther, many have been Christians 15 centuries without knowing about Luther, and the others forgot about Calvin, and the others forgot about the Pope, and the others forgot about the Patriarch, and there was one name we never forgot, the other names we forgot, and we forgot more and more, and I was very near to death in prison, and it was difficult to pray, because for prayer, you need to concentrate your mind, you speak, if President Bush would call me to speak with me, who am I, who is President Bush, so I would think it over, but when I speak, half an hour which he gives me, but if I speak with God, I can't just at random, but it was impossible to concentrate in your mind, then one evening I said, I will not recite prayers, I will just say our father, that will be all, I can't concentrate my mind, and they began all right, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy, thy, thy, what comes after that, I could not remember the lost prayer, I was so sad, so sad, I said, what kind of a Christian am I, and what kind of a pastor, how will I ever be in a church where children know the lost prayer, and now I'm the pastor, and I don't know even the lost prayer, so everything is gone with me, and I did not remember the prayer, but the sadness did not last long, I had the comfort, I knew I had forgotten the prayer, but I knew what prayer I had forgotten, I had forgotten a prayer which starts with an assertion, that the one who rules in heaven is my daddy, he is my father, so what if I don't know the formula, if my child or my grandchild comes to me, does he send attention and say, my most honored grandfather, very respectfully I dare to ask from you, to have the kindness and the goodness to give perhaps a piece of chocolate, he doesn't say things like this, he puts his hands in his pocket and takes it out himself, but when you have to do with your father, what if you don't know any formula like this, you just talk what you have on your heart, and I folded my hands and I said, our father who art in heaven, I have forgotten the prayer, but you surely know it by heart by now, you have heard this so many thousands of times, so we just leave it, and I will tell you so much, I love you, and that was all, and during a long time, during a long time, my only prayer, I was very sick as I told you, near to death, and prayer perhaps also of others like this, a long time my prayer has been so much, Jesus, I love you, and then after a time again, Jesus, I love you, and again after a time, Jesus, I love you, that was our only prayer, to repeat again and again, Jesus, I love you, but it should not become boresome, we did not say always on the same melody, I must tell you again, because I'm a Jew, and you might not know it, the Hebrew Bible has not only words, but also musical notes, the Bible, the original of the Bible, under every word, or above it, there is a note, as we have the Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti and so on, there are notes, how you have to sing, in the synagogue, the Bible is not read, it is sung, the same also in the Orthodox Church, in the Greek Catholic Church, it is sung, it has been given with a melody, and it must be so, because even in Isaiah 6, it is written that the angels sing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord, no, that's just mockery to say holy, holy, holy, my wife would not like it if I would tell her, I love you, I love you, I love you, you don't say it, but in the Bible it is not written, in the Hebrew Bible, holy, holy, holy is the Lord, in the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew word for holy is Kadosh, it is written, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, it is the same word, but not the same melody, no, and so I did not say to Jesus, I love you, I love you, I love you, I said, it is another melody, I love you, I love you, I love you, a different melody, and that was the whole, the whole thing, but then the doping continued, and the hunger continued, and the whole torture of prison continued, and it was difficult even to say these four words, Jesus, I love you, became more and more, I was very near to death, very near to death, I could not say even these four words, and then I have arrived, it is written here about, that the word of God is like silver, which has passed through the fire, which has been refined through the fire, we have forgotten the word, we have arrived to the thoughts of God, which inspired the word, and from the thoughts of God, we have arrived to the heart of God, which thinks this such beautiful thought, John the evangelist, when Jesus spoke, he was with his head on the heart of Jesus, let Jesus talk for the others, for me it is enough to hear tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, he knew every heartbeat is a heartbeat of love for the whole of mankind, and for him too, and we had forgotten the words, but we had the word, we did not have the many words, but the tick-tock, the beating of the heart of God, we direct to the essential, and there was a peace and a joy in that prison, and such a jubilation, now I live, as an American live, in normal conditions and so on, and I long for the experiences which we have had there, when we arrive to the heart of God, but that should be our permanent, now no ballerina, ballet player, can stand on her tiptoes 24 hours a day, no, but that is, but you can, you know, and in our highest moment, that means to receive the word of God, to be in his embraces, to be in his embraces, may I tell you another secret of the Hebrew language, hallelujah, you know the word hallelujah, it means praise the Lord, it is written in the Hebrew Bible in three manners, in some places it is written hallelu, one word, yah, another word, praise the Lord, hallelujah, praise the Lord, in other places it is written still two words, but the two words have a line between them, a line which unites the two words, it's almost so that I, the worshipper, am one thing, and you are the other thing, we tend to unite, we come towards each other, and then there comes, there come other places in the Bible, that is one word, hallelujah, the praise, the one who praises, and the one who is praised, have become one, I live in him, and he lives in me, we have become one, God is in her, and we are in him, he is our life, so we should receive the Bibles, otherwise Saul says, beware the word of God, preserve the word of God, from man, from this generation, because we'll do out of it, I read the newspaper, I read the novel, I read I don't know what, and I read also some passage of the Bible, this word of God should become reality in me, and now I've spoken to you plenty, I wish just only one thing, if we live like this, the Bible, then amazing things happen in us, and happen around us, we were in these years in prison, and around us, other prisoners were converted, and became Christians, criminals became Christians, torturers became Christians, torturers became Christians, torturers became Christians, wardens became Christians, and in the end we did not use, they had tanks, and they had crackers, and they had everything, they had whips, and we had prayer, and we had love, and we had confidence, confidence in self, they did not make out of us Communists, the Communists are knocking now at the door of the church, would you receive us, and in Romania now there is such a freedom, in times before, they kept me alone in a cell, 30 feet beneath the earth, and the warden said the order not to speak with me, because my words were so dangerous, I might convert them, and now I came back to Romania, and they put me on state expense to speak on television, and do you know why they put me, and they put me to speak on television, for an hour I spoke on television, and we asked them why in the world do you put us on television, they are still Communists in Romania, a little bit more democratic politics, but still Communists, and they were asked why do you put the Christians on television, and they replied well we have heard Wurmanan preaching in churches, and he preaches about love toward the enemy, and he specifies not with an abstract enemy, but love the enemy who has done you the greatest harm, love the Communist, love the Communist torturer who has tortured you, love him, Wurmanan must be put to preach on marketplaces on the television, because if he does not preach things like this, people would tear us in pieces, we know that they are hated by the world, and they like it now that we speak about love, and in that same country in which we were put in jail for a Christian book, now we have our mission, the Christian mission to the Communist world to which I belong, we have opened a Christian bookstore in Bucharest, and a Christian printing shop, and they've given us, we needed, we needed a depository for this, so we applied for a depository, and the state gave us a depository, the seller of the house Ceausescu, or the Communist dictator, he built for himself a palace, he built a palace over what has been my underground prison, this is my formal underground prison, is the seller of his palace, and in that very place where my cell has been, and when I thought what books I will ever write if I go, in that sense, I'm now the depository for Bibles and for other books, God has made such miracles, and we've been in Russia now, and we've seen such miracles of God, I finish by telling you just one of the greatest miracles which I've ever heard, I was in the Soviet Union in the town of Kishinev, and I met a dear brother, with him I finish, I don't keep you longer, I met with a dear brother, his name is Viktor Belikh, Viktor means in Latin conqueror, his name is Viktor Belikh, he's been 24 years in jail, but in what jail, 20 years, 20 years he was kept alone in his cell, never a book, never radio, nothing, no parlors, no encounter with his family, no letters, no anything, 20 years kept alone in his cell, 20 years kept alone in his cell, seven hours a day, they would put a mattress in his room, and he could sleep, slow mattress, he would sleep, and the other 17 hours, he was not allowed to lie down even on the concrete of the cell, he was not allowed to sit on the concrete, he was not allowed to stand on the concrete, 17 hours a day he had to run around, and through a peephole, they looked if the prisoners do it, and if they did not do it, they were beaten, 17 hours a day, during 20 years, 17 hours a day, you have to manage it for, you know, like they do with others, you have to run after, and after 20 years like this, they sent him to Kolyma, in the north of Siberia, where the ice never melts, and he would spend four hours there, four years there in prison, and they asked him, dear dear brother Belikh, but how after 20 years of that torture, how could you bear this four years in Siberia, and he replied singing, singing, singing, singing, he replied singing, with the fire of love in my heart, I made the ice of Siberia to melt, that is what God can do, and we, goodness me, dear brothers and sisters, I heard you singing, you sing to your husband when you are dressed, but when your husband misbehaves with you, do you sing on that day, when he yells at you, that's what husbands do, and when he yells at you, do you reply to him, with the fire of heart, in my, of love in my heart, I will melt also the indifference which you have in your heart, and to be just happy, when you get beaten, when you get, when they steal from you, when they take away your good name, and your money, and so on, can you, this man could pray, I heard you singing the song, this is the day, this is the day, which the Lord has made, now, we sang this song in prison, and we sang it, not like you, we would not sing without musical instruments, I wonder very much how you pray, can sing without musical instruments, we in communist prison, we sang always with musical instruments, the communists had been very nice to us, they knew we liked to praise God with musical instruments, if you can believe it, every one of us got a musical instrument, much better than in free America, here prisoners don't get musical instruments, we got them, not violins, not mandolins, it would have been too expensive for the communist state, but they put chains on our hands and on our feet, and we discovered that chains are splendid musical instruments, this is the day, this is the day, clink clank, clink clank, the Lord has made, clink clank, clink clank, the Lord has made, and there is something which can't be defeated in Christianity, they have everything, they have the state, and the police, and the weapons, whatever you like, and and we conquered them, but the church is free, the church is free, they are not free, we have done it through this joy and this love, which Christ gives, if you take the word of God earnestly, that is what I have to tell you, I've lost more than 60 percent, 50 percent of my lung capacity in jail, if this would not be, I would not spare you, I would keep you until midnight to tell you first, but I can't go alone, now just in a few words what I'm doing now, I belong to a mission, which is called Christian Mission to the Communist World, a secretary of this mission, stand up Steve, it's here, you can see, and this mission helps the persecuted Christians in communist countries, we create their printing shops, and printing machines, and bibles, and all kinds, our first team has gone already to Albania, Albania is free only two weeks, but our team is already there, and we have made printing shops in China, we have to make them secretly, we do such printing shops, we propagate the gospel in these languages, and we do one thing more, and with this I think, at this moment there are thousands of Christians still in jail, in China the jails are full with Christians, our brother Waifu, last week we got the news, our brother Waifu died being hung head down in China, others have been beaten, so China has many prisoners, Cuba has still many prisoners, and so on, and then we work also in Muslim countries, there's also very great persecution in Muslim countries, in Iran Christians have been stripped naked, and buried in the snow, until they froze in the snow, and this good Saddam Hussein, our friend, there's still thousands of Christians, and wherever we can we help these families, how many times did you eat today, all the snacks too, how many times do you think did the families of Christian prisoners eat today, they did not eat, my family hungered when I was in prison, and there's a measure in which we can, we send them a piece of bread, and clothing, and medicine, however, wherever it is, now you can help this work, and I hope you will help, it's not a question only of putting something in an offering tonight, because they have to eat also next week, and next month, and so on, but to think, as you think about your children, you should think about the children of Matthew, that they must be helped, you can help, and I hope you will, but this mission can help, this mission can bring you much more help than you can bring, than you can give them, you can give a few coins, a few dollars, you can give a big check, you can do whatever you can do, and everything is valuable, but they can give you the example, that you can suffer terribly, and have a shining face, we say at every service almost, the priest or the pastor says, may God shine his face upon you, now if God shines his face, how is it that my face does not shine, have you ever seen a girl to whom the boy whom she loves has told the first time, I love you, her face shines, or a child to whom you give a toy that she desires to have, his face shines, and the Lord shines his face upon you, God has made his face to shine upon me, you say with a sad face, we can bring you this message of shining faces, of beautiful smiles, I've seen very beautiful smiles in Christ, the smiles of victory, they are called to great things, to sit on the throne with God, that's all what I have to tell you.