Richard Wurmbrand emphasizes the profound nature of prayer, contrasting prayers from the depths, which often focus on personal needs and desires, with prayers from the heights that seek God's will and the well-being of others. He illustrates this through the Hebrew term 'Hoshana,' meaning 'please help,' and encourages believers to move beyond self-centered prayers to a place of self-denial and communal concern. Wurmbrand shares personal experiences from his time in prison, highlighting the importance of seeing others' needs and suffering, and the transformative power of prayer that transcends individual ego. He calls for a collective approach to prayer, urging the congregation to embrace a spirit of unity and compassion, reflecting the heart of Jesus in their supplications. Ultimately, Wurmbrand's message is a call to elevate our prayers to align with God's purposes and to love others as Christ loves us.

Dear brothers and sisters and dear children, I always say dear children because I have never seen a child in prison for 14 years. And for me it is a special joy to see children. In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 11, we are given the example of a prayer. Today is a day of prayer. How do you pray? Praying is a great art, for which a lifetime is not enough to learn it. But we can learn something from this art. Here is a very interesting prayer that each of us has already said. Let the kingdom of our father David be praised, which comes in the name of the Lord. And then comes the interesting prayer in four words. Hosanna in the highest. What does Hosanna mean in the highest? If you asked the average German believer, what does the word Hosanna mean? So praise God, that's one opinion. Who knows something else? What is Hosanna? Blessed is he who comes. Who knows something else about the word Hosanna? Hosanna is a summary of two Hebrew words, which are still sung in the synagogue today. Hoshana. Hoshana means help. And Na means please. Hoshana is a prayer. Hoshana means please help. Now, here it says Hoshana or in German Hosiana. Hosiana in the highest. What does that mean? God please help, but in the highest. How can one get help in the highest? In the first book of Moses, chapter 49, verse 25, I am glad that so few people know the Bible. Most people here know the Bible by heart. In the first book of Moses, chapter 49, verse 25, it says, Jacob, bless your son. Your father's God has helped you, and you have been blessed by the Almighty, with blessings from above and blessings from below. There are two kinds of blessings. Blessings from above and blessings from below. And the Jews had both kinds of blessings. And now that they knew both, they made a choice and said, we choose the blessing from above. Hoshana, please help, but in the highest. Please help in the highest. Hoshana in the highest. What is this hoshana, this help in the highest? The circumstances of my life were such that for many years, I knew the world of thieves, robbers, murderers. My wife knew the world of prostitutes and thieves well. If someone wants to see hardworking beggars, he should look for them among the thieves. What a thief prays. Before every thief, the really classic thieves, those who are worthy of this name, before every big thief or bank robber, they pray. I have seen them pray all night long, but according to the orthodox way, if you know it, you throw yourself to the ground in front of the Lord, then you get up again, you hit big crosses, then you throw yourself down again for nights. You go, if you are orthodox, as it is with us, or Catholic, you go to church and light candles, and pay for mass, and say the rosary, you pray for blessings in the depths, you pray that your theft succeeds, and if someone does not give the tenth, but gives abundantly, for God's sake they are thieves. After they have stolen, they give a lot to the church, and they also give to the poor. They live in a blessing in the depths. It should not be a word, an ugly word about religion, about Jesus, or even more about Mary, to speak in front of prostitutes. They do not allow that. They lead their own lives, but have reverence for God. There is such a prayer in the depths. I was a lot in playhouses. You will be surprised, I still go to playhouses. In America there are very large playhouses, and I immediately direct the attention to me, they surround me, what are you doing here? I have never seen a priest in a playhouse. They answer, maybe we have seen, but he did not wear such a collar. And then I can talk to them about the Lord. In the playhouses a lot is prayed, when money is placed on the roulette. One prays, oh, may the number 34 come out, and the other prays for number 8, and even the loving God can not make that this ball is held at several numbers at once. And businessmen do not always pray for pure business. In the war a lot was prayed, not only in Catholic or Evangelical churches, but also in free communities. In French communities for the victory of France, in the Russian church for the victory of Russia, and in German churches, of course, for the victory of Germany. And here the loving God could not make that everyone should win together in a war. There are prayers in the depths, when disputes arise in a family, or in a business, or in a community, or between different communities, or between different missions. Sometimes disputes occur, and then the mission directors pray. I have seen both sides praying. And each side prays that they should keep justice. But both cannot keep justice. And priests pray without having exactly checked if the religion they propagate is the real one. Even modernist priests pray. Even those who say that God is dead catch their service to God with prayers. You lie to the Bible, and you catch, and you close with prayer. Just like in communities where the Bible is really preached. There are prayers from the depths. There is a Hosean in the depths, a Hosean not in the heights. Help me God on this low level, on which I am. I don't want another level. I am satisfied with this, and help me on this level. Now there are other prayers as well. There are really saints who got rid of these things, but somehow kept the I. And they ask, what is wrong with a personal prayer, I have a husband, a drunkard, or a son, a drunkard. What a terrible tragedy this is. Or a woman who betrays me, or a man who beats me, or I don't know what. All kinds of things happen. And you pray for yourself. God, help me, so that my husband changes. Don't help the man, so that he changes. But help me, so that I don't get tormented by this man. Don't help him, so that his soul should be redeemed. But help me, so that I don't get tormented by his sinfulness. God, you see how difficult it is for me with my son. Not how difficult and dangerous for him his sinfulness is, but how much I torment myself, how much I cry. And please help me. This is also a prayer. In the Reformation, the Protestants abolished the holy images. And we are no longer used to praying for a picture of Jesus or a picture of Mary. But usually, in our prayer, we have a picture in front of us. My own picture. There I am, Richard Wurmbrand. I have my picture in front of me. And I ask Richard, what are your most urgent needs? What are your most urgent desires? And I pray to Richard Wurmbrand. And I bring to God what Richard Wurmbrand wants for himself. A Canaanite woman came to Jesus and complained to him that she was very tormented because her daughter was possessed by the devil. She did not say, the daughter is possessed by the devil, help her, but help me. It is, of course, a terrible torment to have a daughter possessed by the devil. But she did not think of the daughter. She thought of the I. And therefore, at the beginning, Jesus refused to grant her her request. We were asked this question in communist prisons, where there are still many prisoners today. There are probably some 10,000 prisoners today. 10,000 in Vietnam alone. 10,000 in Mozambique, in communist Africa. Nobody knows how many in Ethiopia, in Angola, in Red China, where Brother Wang Mingdao has been in prison for 34 years. We read in the newspapers about the liberalization in China. He has not yet learned about this liberalization. He is still in prison. And in Russia, Brother Mikhail Ershov has been in prison for 45 years. So, there are these many prisoners. And in prison life, there one is very pushed to a prayer from the depths, to a prayer for the I. If I can tell a personal experience, we were initially in solitary cells, in a prison called Malmaison. This was one of the most terrible prisons you can imagine. The terrible thing was that you were guarded by dogs. Big shepherd dogs. They took you to the bathroom, to the toilet, to an examination, or they transferred you from one cell to the other. Everywhere on the corridors, these big dogs guarded you. These dogs were very well trained. They jumped on the gurgles of the prisoners. They never bit. They only jumped on the gurgles. But imagine what it is like when such a dog... We did not know that he would not bite. You can train a dog so much, in the end he can still bite, right? And when such a dog jumps on your gurgles, it was so, so terrible. At that time I could not, and probably not the others either, I could not speak to the others because I was in the solitary cell. At that time I could not say, Our Father. I said, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as it is in heaven, as it is in earth, in all things except one. In one thing must my will be done. Out of this prison I must escape. If you want me in another prison, that is fine. But in this prison with the dogs, I do not want to stay. Your will be done in heaven. Do you want to push the devil out of heaven? Do you want to take him to heaven and not take the others to heaven? Do you want to take everyone to heaven? Do you want to take the others to heaven? Do with heaven what you want. On earth, whatever you want should happen. One should be rich, one should be poor, one should be ill, one should be healthy. Everything is fine for me, except one thing. In this one thing must my will be done. Out of this prison I must escape. Finally, this is the prayer of all people. This is the prayer of all people. Everyone has one thing, or two, or three, which he keeps on his own will. Everything else I leave to God. What will happen to the devils in Iran? There is a great God, Inshallah, the Turks say. God should take care of these devils. In Cambodia, three million people are starving. I leave that to God. But there are one or two questions that oppress me. Should I be guarded by dogs? Or should my husband be harmed? Or should I do something else? My will should take place in this. And I and the others, we had a hard fight to get rid of this point. Who asked me to get out of this prison? I did. But how could there be such an I? Jesus taught us that if someone wants to follow me, he should deny himself. I should have given up long ago. There should not have been such an I. And it is always the lack of self-denial. It is the fact that we did not give up the I, which makes this I, this damned I, the root of every sin, the I, appear again and again. Our saviour taught us a prayer. In this prayer, the word I does not appear. This is the model of the prayer. He is not my father, he is our father. He is also the father of the one with whom I do not agree. He is also the father of the one with whom I am in dispute. He is also the father of the one with whom I do not agree in the interpretation of the Bible. He is our father. And then we say, give us, not give me, give us, this also means the Cambodians, and also the prisoners in the communist and Islamic camps, and also the American millionaires, and also the American revolutionaries, and every human being, give us our daily bread today, and do not forgive me my sins. I have really committed a great sin. I may have heard, and killed, and lied in my life, and done my part, but I am not the only one who has sinned. Forgive us our sins. I am strongly tempted, and can fight very hard against this temptation, but I do not say, do not lead me into temptation. There are still millions of people who are under the same circumstances. Do not lead us into temptation. And do not free me from the evil, from the evil of a bad man, or a bad woman, or bad children, or from the evil of communism, or Islam, or a false religion. There are hundreds of millions of people who are in this situation. One must, this image of the ego, that must disappear. And this ego is so great, that I have spoken to great Protestant preachers in America. I do not know how it is in Germany, but in America, there appear the magazines of Billy Graham, or Oral Roberts, or the great American preachers. They have in one or the same magazine, three or four times their own photograph. The photograph of Billy Graham, or Oral Roberts, and so on. And I have asked these great preachers, would you publish a picture of Mary, in your magazine? No way. Would you publish a picture of Jesus? Also not. But your picture. Was this poor young woman, Mary, not at least as holy and as good as you? And we have renounced the picture of Mary. We have renounced the picture of Jesus. And we all have replaced her with the picture of the ego. And in prayer, the center is the ego, which comes from the depths, which should have long since disappeared. And our song is Hoseana in the depths. I have the ego. I like this ego. I appreciate this ego very much. If this ego wants something, then it has to be right. If I strongly desire it, who can have better desires than the ego? And I pray to the ego. There is another Hoseana. This Hoseana in the Bible. Hoseana in the heights. There you forget the ego. For the benefit of others. We are all ready. For others, I give 10 marks, or 100 marks, or 1000 marks, or I don't know how much, or 1 mark. I can give that to him. But he should not give the ego, which exists. How much should I give? You should not give anything. He should not give the ego, which exists. The ego should have long since disappeared. Everything here is God. Everything here belongs to God. And God decides from his own budget how much he wants to give for this purpose, how much he wants to give for another purpose, or what he wants to keep for the good of this family, or this child, and so on. We have to get to this delusion of the ego and think of the others. In Russia, our brothers are being arrested recently, Yakunin and Velikanova. Not only that they are being arrested. Somehow, we belong to the same body. We believe in one holy church. If one member suffers, then all the others also suffer. But you can see that they do not suffer. If your back was hit, how would you scream? What kind of face would you make? Would you not scream? Would you not cry? But you are being hit today. In your brother, in Yakunin, in Velikanova, and in all the others, they are being hit. They are being held in forced jackets. And something worse is happening. We now have proof that in Soviet prisons young Christian prisoners are being locked in the same cell with bandits, so that they become homosexually raped. And there is such a terrible suffering. Children are being taken away from their parents. And even if you get out of prison. The Jews were in Egypt. They were freed from Egypt. They came out of Egypt, but Egypt never came out of them. After they were freed from Egypt, they still wore the golden Egyptian robe. And whoever spent many years in a communist or Nazi prison, will never be freed from prison. You have nightmares. I still have nightmares. And there is this whole struggle. And this struggle is an attempt to get back to the self. I suffer so much. My children suffer. I heard something shocking from Mrs. Wintz. You know who she is. The General Secretary of the Russian Baptists, who was recently freed. And his wife told me. She came with her two children to prison. He had the children, and she had not seen him for a long time. Maybe half a year. And now the children came. And the children did not want to go to the father. They said, this is not our father. Our father is beautiful, but this man is ugly. We will not go to this man. And the lecture was over, and the children did not want to hug him. Can you imagine the pain that it must have been for Mrs. Wintz to see the children and not hug them? Now they love him. So there are other things that you can think about than about the self with its suffering and joy. You can also pray differently than Hosea in the depths. There is a famous personality in the church from the time of the Middle Ages, Katharina von Genua. At the end of her life, she said, Heiland, you know that for 30 years I have never asked for anything for myself. There is also such a self-denial. You should not only donate money, you should donate the I. The I should be given away for the benefit of others. For 30 years I have not asked for anything for myself. This is Hosea in the depths. And our brothers and sisters who go through difficult conquests, there are not only the external conquests. You are beaten, you are tortured. There is this inner conquest that you have to go through. And even if you are tortured, you should not force yourself to give up the I. With the I, I am ready for everything. And you can beat so much and you can starve me and I will never get the right to the I. And he was sure that he had a blessing from God. Hitler was very sure that he had a blessing from God. There were three or four attacks against him and none of them succeeded. And that gave him the strength. He knew that he was protected from the foresight. A communist investigator told me that if there is a God, then he is on our side. We conquer one country after another. He is not on your side. They are also blessed. Blessed from the depths. There is a blessing from the heights. And that is the meaning of the prayer Hosanna in the heights. And we should all learn today, because I am a Jew and I can speak a little Hebrew, I always try to say a little of Hebrew in my sermons. And let us therefore learn Hosanna in the heights Hosanna means help me God, but not in the depths. Help me in the heights. Help me to deny my self, to forget my own suffering. It is only a drop in the great sea of suffering in which Jesus suffered himself and all the saints. And I take this burden on me and I forget about my self. I have noticed from German songs, you probably know these songs, that every pulse would be a thank you and every breath a song. You all sang that, right? If you really mean that every pulse should be a thank you and every breath a song. Yes, where is the breath and the pulse for a lament? Where is the breath and the pulse for the bitter lament, look what is happening to me and God help me in this thing that oppresses me. You don't have time for that. Every breath a song and every pulse should be a thank you. Do you really want to live with Jesus? That is also from a German song. Do you really want to live with Jesus? Your own self has to go. Let's take our songs seriously and listen to the self as the center of our prayer. This self is also from the depths. How can you achieve that? You achieve that you see in other people something valuable, a small need. Even those who oppress you you have to see as a human being. And in this song I know, I have seen the scene in the film again, Martin Luther King, you probably heard about him, the famous black preacher who was killed in America. He preached once and many of the white chauvinists and racists hated him because he stood up for the rights of the black people. And once during the sermon a white young man jumped on the podium and slapped Martin Luther King in the face during the sermon. The other blacks were of course outraged and wanted to laugh at this white man. And Martin Luther King stood up in front of him and said wait a little bit, if you had been white and if you had been taught from an early age, this dirty nigger, if you had sowed this with your mother's milk and if you had been raised like this then you would also be like this white young man. We should understand him, we should love him. He didn't even allow him to be punished by the police. He forgave him. You can give up the I for the sake of the other and even for the sake of the one who insults you and who slaps you. May I once again tell an episode from my prison life? Not that I want to brag but somehow I know everything that happens to me from the first source. The other things have been told to me. And to be sure I tell from my own experience but it is exactly the same experience that other Christians have had in communist prisons. I was brought to a big cell after years we were there at the 100 prisoners and there is always the oldest cell who gives you the place where you will sleep and he tells me there and there they share the bed with this man I introduced myself to him, Wurmbrand Wurmbrand seems to be a good German name like Siegfried. I said my name is Wurmbrand and at that time I looked a bit German I had blond hair. He asked me what I was I said I was an evangelical priest Wurmbrand can't be anything else than a German. I asked him what his name was he told me his name I asked him how long he was sentenced he said lifelong I asked him what he did he said he killed 1432 Jews he was a war criminal I said to him you must suffer terribly you probably won't sleep at night regretting what happened he said I really don't sleep at night I'm sorry I didn't kill more Jews he was a man full of hatred the hatred was even angrier than the fact that I myself was a Jew and now we were several believers in the same cell as him we washed ourselves there very rarely once I didn't wash for three years some of the boys here would like that so we washed ourselves very rarely and when one washed himself the water in the basin remained very dirty and when this man washed himself the Christians followed him with the same dirty water to identify with him to break his ego to realize I'm not better than this man I experienced grace if it wasn't for grace I could have been like him he is also a man a man whom God loves if he didn't love him he wouldn't have created him a man for whom Jesus died on the cross and he is not just a man he has a guardian angel and the angel wants to see him and how beautiful it would be if he would come to heaven after so much murder and he was loved so much by people who forgot the ego who sang a hosanna in the heights and not a hosanna in the depths in the depths we could have prayed that he should be crucified after all that he did and that would have been a prayer there are many such prayers during the war it was prayed like this it wasn't expressed like this it was said with holy words the Frenchman should be crucified the Russian should be crucified and the Germans should be crucified there are also such prayers in the depths and the Christians didn't pray to get rid of the plague I should get rid of the plague to be in bed with such a person but he should get rid of the plague to appear before God with so much sin and this person really turned around there was a hosanna in the heights and after he turned around we in Romania and in Russia there are also brothers here who go to these countries and they kiss each other there is this holy kiss there are other customs in Germany but we don't have it without the kiss brothers and sisters meet so often they kiss each other three times one says the peace of God be with you and the other says the peace of God be with you I had a community in Romania with an average of 500 people every Sunday morning at the end of the service everyone kissed each other three times it took an hour we didn't have cars in front of the door I didn't even have a bicycle I had time to kiss my brothers why was the car outside we kissed each other three times and I got 1500 kisses every Sunday if it was an average sermon sometimes I managed to keep a sermon that was looked at particularly well then I got a supplement of kisses and then the jaws hurt afterwards I don't want to introduce any Russian customs the importance of the holy kiss Tertullian, one of the great Christian teachers from the 3rd century said that every service that ends without a kiss is not accepted by God what is the meaning of this holy kiss I once sat at a table with a young man he ate bacon and he said to me I love bacon with garlic but I'm going to my bride and there I will get kisses and therefore I can't eat garlic and Christians in Russia know when I go to the service I will be kissed by 500 saints I'm not allowed to eat garlic this mouth will be kissed by saints no bad word, no lying word no mean word, no word of quarrel no word of hatred you keep your mouth clean for the kisses that you will get from the brothers now you could do it without kissing but you shouldn't eat garlic when you know you are coming with brothers even if you don't kiss each other on the mouth and now to come back to this man this man turned around and then he kissed the brothers and he kissed me and he said to me I never imagined in my life that I would kiss a Jew but you will get an extra kiss there is the possibility not to stay in the depths there is an ocean in the heights you can be elevated to completely different areas than the ones you have known so far I just want to tell you very briefly some of you may know how I came to believe I am a Jew and in my parents' house I never heard a word about Jesus neither a good nor a bad word but two events occurred in my life that brought me to Jesus you can't describe everything in books I wrote several books I didn't describe everything there the books would be too long the first event was at the age of 7 or 8 I came from school with a friend he was standing in front of a church at that time I didn't know the difference between a Catholic church and a Mormon church they were all the same he was standing in front of a church now I know it was a Catholic church and he said, wait for me my father said to me I should tell the priest something I said to him, I will go with you and so I came to a church for the first time it was a Catholic church I was very impressed I saw a crucified man my reason tells me I couldn't see a crucified man I probably saw a crucifix but what stayed in my memory was that I saw a crucified man and I couldn't understand why this man was beaten so hard you could see the wounds, the blood you could see the pierced heart you could see the head with the thorn crown and I had a feeling of compassion and love for this man I saw a young lady who looked at me with love probably it was a statue or a picture of Mary and then the priest came he quickly finished with this other man and then he came to me and stroked my hair which meant a lot to me I was an unkempt child I was an unkempt child since I was a child and I wasn't stroked I was a very poor child in all my childhood I only ate one and a half cakes I stole one, I got half of it but I can still see it in front of me I remember this one and a half cake there is a baker of mine he could compensate for what I didn't eat I didn't eat chocolate in all my childhood when rich children ate chocolate I put the paper behind them I was the most poorly dressed boy in the whole school and I was laughed at I was always beaten because I was a Jew and in Eastern Europe they beat Jews I didn't know what Jew meant but I was beaten and I wasn't used to someone stroking me he touched my head and stroked it children were brought to Jesus to be touched we bring children to Sunday school to teach them but they were brought to Jesus to be touched his touch taught them there was so much love in this touch this is what the prayer should be touch like a holy hand a holy hand now it's not like that I remember his touch it was so gentle and so loving and so deep more than 60 years have passed and I can still feel it and he asked me what can I do for you I didn't say anything he said I am a younger Jesus and he taught us to never let anyone pass us without doing him any good it's summer, it's very hot can I bring you a glass of cold water and he brought me a glass and Jesus turned this water into wine I went out of this church drunk for the first time I heard that there is such a mysterious being the name didn't tell me anything but he taught me that you should never let a Jewish ugly and weak orphan pass you I don't have money for the child I don't have chocolate for the child but I can stroke him and I can give him a glass of cold water if there is now the charity of the church of martyrs in 50 countries and with millions the underground church was helped here in this hall is someone who has decorated many more than 20,000 bibles and we have many such and if all this exists and families of martyrs are supported and if we can do for Vietnamese and if we can proclaim the word of God and if there are Jewish Christian communities in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa they all come from that a young man, Jesus, stroke a child and told him, I can't let anyone pass me without doing him any good a glass of water had this effect the priest probably died and said, I didn't do anything good in my life now you can learn his name was Giuseppe Cavani and then my second meeting which brought me to this height Hoseana in the height we talk to people and leave them in the depth or we talk to people and count them in the depth and I met people who swung me up in the height that was one, but I was a child and children forget quickly and later I remembered and when I was an adult I met in the Hitler time a German carpenter who prayed in the Hitler time he was 70 years old God, I have served you on earth and I want a reward here on earth that I don't die before I bring a Jew to faith because your son was born in the Jewish people but there are no Jews in my village I am old, I am sick, I am poor I can't go around looking for Jews bring a Jew to my village and I will do my best to bring him to faith now I am a special kind of priest I am a priest who believes that God never fulfills a prayer if you ask a Jew from him he will give you two but it is forbidden by God to get as much as you ask from him he will give you more or better there was not one Jew in this village I came with my wife and he brought us to the Lord a man at the age of 70 an uneducated carpenter in Kronstadt and he swung me and my wife to heaven let us pay attention to this when we meet a person he may not be a murderer or a thief but he is always bad enough he is an ego and this ego is bad enough and this ego should be denied should my meeting with him not be prosaic I can't teach him much I can't teach him philosophy I can't teach him the bible but I can give him a glass of water I can give him a word and this word can pull him out of the depth don't leave people in the depth and don't push them into the depth sometimes we do this through our sins but we lift them up in prayer the prayer and the beggar should become one we should rise up what does it mean to become one of the prayer and the beggar you know the verse in John 10 Jesus says you are gods to whom does God pray Jesus says you are gods and in Zechariah chapter 12 verse 8 at that time the Lord will send the people to Jerusalem and it will happen that whoever will be weak among you at that time will be like David and the house of David will be like God to whom does God pray there is the beggar and the prayer will become one it is a ocean in the height one has really swung to godhood and this is what I had to tell you this is the gospel we have a problem that we announce in communist countries the mission it is very difficult to announce in communist countries now the bible has to be translated into Chinese the old translations are no longer good first of all the letters have changed they have changed again for the second time new letters were printed but the words in the last 30 years in China got a new meaning we can not say in the new translation God is good also in the radio broadcasts because for 30 years in China the word good was only used on Mao Zedong and the communists and the young generation knows good means communist say to a young Chinese half China is under 15 years and you say to a young Chinese God is good, he understands God is a communist imagine the difficulties that exist you have to completely change also with the Russians it is very difficult to announce the gospel I speak fluent Russian and I spoke to Russians and I said to them a man had 100 sheep and he lost one and they said it is a lie it does not exist a man can not have 100 sheep I said a man had a vineyard and when he asked for money the workers rebelled he was a capitalist when I said Jesus is king we learned that in school all kings were bad guys I have already written a gospel in Marxist language it is a very difficult work we ask you to stand behind this work with your prayer you need a lot of wisdom in this underground work you have to know everything that a Christian has to know you have to know everything that a policeman has to know you have to know everything that a smuggler has to know I spend hours every week reading detective novels criminal novels to find new methods criminal novels drug smuggling jewelry smuggling every novel gives me new ideas a police novel how do the policemen find the thieves what mistakes can you avoid it is a very difficult work and it is enough a single man brought in 20.000 bibles I received a letter from England I am in prison for drug smuggling I turned myself in and I apply for the mission and when I become free I will serve in this mission he brought in 1200 bibles to Russia and I asked him how he did it he said it is my professional secret how I did it with drugs this is how I do it now it is a very difficult work but we hope that you will pray for this work that you will help that the word of God will be proclaimed and that the families of the murderers will be supported there are so many families who starve because their parents are in prison and then they will be punished for not being able to pay I close this was not my longest sermon the longest sermon in my life was 11 hours this is not the longest sermon but let us remember in prayer there has to be a hosanna in the heights a hosanna with the renunciation of the I we identify with God prayer and prayer should become one one should swing in the heights there should not be only words the last thought I want to conclude with something from the Hebrew in every language when I preach I can say this is the word of God when I preach in Hebrew I cannot say this is the word of God because the Hebrews do not have the word the word of God came through the Hebrews there is no line here that is not written by a Jew but a Jew cannot say that this is the word of God because in Hebrew there is no word for word the Hebrews say davar davar means thing the real thing davar is a thing if you read the prologue to the gospel of John in Hebrew it starts like this in the beginning it was davar, the real thing and the real thing was with God and God was the real thing we do not believe in words that are only words this is clear only words that are davar are real words a word should be a real thing why are Jews such good merchants because they believe in real things not in words they do not believe in promises they only believe in cash they only believe in reality this is a good merchant this is part of the Hebrew to not only believe in words words can deceive us even our own words can deceive us and can keep us in the depths a hosyanah in the heights is a hosyanah that does not exceed the words you come with your whole reality in front of the real God I do not know if I explained what I had to say well it is difficult for me to speak in German it is not my language maybe I did not explain well but you should not only listen to a preacher you should also look at him and you should look at his heart what he wants to tell you and can not tell you and when he looks at the heart then you know I love you from the bottom of my heart and I want your prayer to be and my prayer also hosyanah in the heights