Persecution Under Communist Rule - Part 1

If you have good eyes, you see there a nice photo. On top of it, it's my name, Joseph Tan. But the photo is not mine because the photo is Karl Marx.

And I don't like the combination, but Joseph Tan, the speaker from Romania, Marxism, the Faded Dream. Now, inside, it says that it was published first in 77 and then in 1983. This is 83 edition.

And I'll tell you the story of the book tonight because this is the starting point. Before that, let me just tell you that it was in 2001. There was a big conference, pastor's conference, at John Piper's church in Minneapolis.

1,100 pastors there, two or three famous speakers. The ones who stunned us explaining how Marxists are preparing for a persecution of the Christians in America. I was listening, not believing, but anyhow, I was the last speaker.

And they gave me the title, Sources of Strength in Persecution. So, two days of preparation for persecution, and then it was my turn. Sources of Strength in Persecution.

I think it was one of the best received sermons I ever had, addressed to 1,100 pastors. Wow. Now, coming back to this book.

As you heard, the Lord blessed me with a long life. It was in 1948 when Romania became a communist country. We didn't ask for it.

It was the Russian armies that imposed communism on us. 1948. In 1951, I went to be a student at the University of Cluj, C-L-U-J, in central Transylvania.

And as soon as the school started, a young man caught me and said, You've been at the church, Baptist Church, last Sunday? Yes. Are you a Christian? Yes. Then let's talk.

And he took me for a walk, and he told me that they were going to brainwash us and stuff our minds with communism. But we should not give them our minds. Now, for these words, that man would have gone to a labor camp, no doubt.

That's why he took me out in the street, because there were not mics there. Anyhow, he was a medical student, was three years older than me, and he prepared my mind for Marxist indoctrination. And we got it.

For four years, we had special courses on Marxism every year. But I was prepared. And I went out of that victorious.

So victorious that when I finished and I got my BA in literature and languages, instead of going to get a good job, I went to the Baptist Seminary to become a preacher. Now, when I was in the seminary, somebody gave me a liberal book, liberal theology book, a British who was pouring contempt on the blood of Jesus. I wasn't prepared for that.

And I tumbled, and I lost my faith. Later on, I put it this way. Four years in a Marxist school, I came out stronger for the Lord.

In the Baptist Seminary, meeting liberal theology, I lost my faith. In 1981, 1982, some of you remember, there was a Congress on the Bible where they proclaimed the inerrancy of the scripture. I was there as a speaker telling this story, how in a Marxist school, I came out victorious and how in meeting the liberal theology in a seminary, I lost my faith.

Well, now I lost my faith. I left the seminary. I went and I got a job as a professor, high school teacher in the city of Cluj.

Very good job, but the price was I denied my Lord. I was a few years in total darkness, an apostate, and then somehow the Lord started to work in me. And I came back to the Lord, but I heard good Christians saying there is no forgiveness for a man like this.

Was he right? It hurt me. What if he's right? And how can I know? I was in the greatest agony of my life. On the 21st of January, 1968, in the morning, early in the morning, the Lord showed himself to me, literally.

He appeared there, and I tell you, that's the most real thing I ever experienced in my life. It was that real. Amen.

Very interesting. As soon as I saw him, I said, Lord, but is there forgiveness for a man like me? He looked to me, kind, kind, smiling, Joseph. I died for all your sins, and he disappeared.

It was the happiest event of my life. Amen. I told my dear wife, look what happened.

I am forgiven. I can start a new life. And then I said, now listen, the one who saved me, bought me.

I am no more my own. I belong to him, literally. So whatever he wants me to do, I'll do.

Whatever he tells me to go to, I'll go. I'll do everything he asks me because I belong to him. And you just should know that.

I went back to the Lord. Now, Lord, I made this promise. What do you expect me to do? And I heard in my inner voice, I don't like sacred Christians.

You have to go public. Public? I'm a teacher in a high school. The moment I go public, that's finished.

No, I didn't think that. I only said, yes, Lord. And he told me specifically, you go to that church, the Baptist church, where you've been a member before you fell.

I went and told the pastor. He just simply said, you come before the elders and see what happens. I went knowing that they will search my life mercilessly.

You know how these deacons are. And the pastor introduced me. And then the chairman of the board just said, Brother Joseph, if you join us, you lose your job.

And what a good job do you have? Now, I didn't expect that question. And that question sort of hurt me. Brother, I know I lose my job, but Christ died for me.

And he even had mercy on a fallen man like me. Can I put now the two together? Brother, I am ready to die for him. He looked to the others and said, Brothers, I don't think we need to ask any other question.

I move that we go on our knees and praise the Lord with Brother Joseph. And everybody nodded. And all of a sudden we were on our knees and I cried.

What a happy moment. But now, as I was waiting, because, you know, they have informers everywhere. And I said, surely they know.

But a month, two, three passed. Nothing happened. Well, to make a long story short, that fall, I had a very special problem with my tongue.

And somebody recommended that I go to a special doctor in Austria, in Vienna. But that was a free country. I was in a communist country.

Well, I still made an application. And to my shock and surprise, somebody told me, You're going to get the passport. I got scared.

And I heard the voice. Now, this was a voice, clear voice. This is for you to go to England and to study theology in a first class seminary.

Brothers, I had no contacts in England. I had no visa for England. I didn't have money.

But I told my dear wife, I told a pastor, and two close friends, and they sensed this is of the Lord. This would be too long a story, but it's the most fascinating thing, how I met an Englishman five days before leaving for Vienna, who was my contact in England. I went to Vienna.

In Vienna, I met a man, a British pastor, who paid my fare to fly to London. That contact I got, he took me to Oxford so that I could make arrangements. I had only a visa for two weeks.

And there was a man who was working with the British Council for Romanian Affairs there in Oxford. So, they took me to that man. And I said, I should tell this man the entire story.

I told him the story. He said, Mr. Zorn, if that's the story, your place should be Regent's Park College. I said, what's that? Well, that's a Baptist college in this university.

You have such a thing here? He laughed. He picked up the telephone. I realized on the other side was the president of the Baptist college.

He told him what I told him. And that man said, well, send him here. I went there.

I told him all my story, how I saw the Lord and how the Lord guided me there. He asked me a few more questions. And then he called the other man, the British Council man, and said, now he is here.

I love his story. And I want him to be a student in my college. Make another long story short.

He gave me a scholarship for three years to study theology in Oxford University. Now, this was fine. But keep in mind that I promised my wife, that pastor, and the other two, I'll come back.

The Lord wants me here. Now you heard about Richard Wurmbrand. How many of you heard about Richard Wurmbrand? The Voice of the Martyrs.

Tortured for Christ. He was my mentor in the first year in Romania. Now he was out.

He was in the States. And he came to Oxford. He said, Joseph, I need you in America.

You know how to write? I first buy a passport for Elizabeth and then bring both of you to America. And you start writing books about communism. Brother Richard, I'm sorry.

I go back to Romania. What? You go back to Ceausescu? You go back to prison? Because certainly you will go straight to prison. It may be, but the Lord tells me clearly, I have to go back to my people.

He was very upset. But he said, okay, what shall I do? Now, before going back in 1972, I graduated BA in Theology. But before going back, I did a few more studies on Marxism.

Okay, I came equipped. Keep in mind, for me, being under communism is not just an accident of history. It was my choice to go back.

I went back to confront myself with Ceausescu. It was me knowing from the Lord that I have to go there. Now, it was about two years or three years after going back, starting to preach the gospel, that I wrote this booklet, which I entitled, The Place of the Christian in a Socialist Society.

It was smuggled out of the country, translated in English, because I wrote it in Romanian, and I went and I put a copy at the president's office, personal letter to Ceausescu. The man who translated it in English changed the title and called it The Christian Manifesto. Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto.

Mine was The Christian Manifesto. Here is the main message of My Christian Manifesto. When Lenin took the whole power in Russia, 1917, by 1919, he started to have a problem.

Very carefully, listen, because you should not miss this part. In 1919, Lenin had a problem, and here is what the problem was. Lenin was convinced that he could transform Russia with two conditions.

One was quick industrialization, and second, to have the new man. The new man is totally given to work, to be honest, to be self-giving, the perfect new man. Now, here is the problem.

Lenin, like Marx, was an atheist, a very strong atheist. He believed that man was a simple animal, a little bit more evolved than an animal, but still an animal. He believed that as an animal, man was a product of a social system.

Because the system was capitalist, that was evil, man was evil. Logic? Logic? Well, if I change the system, throw the capitalists out, install communism, a good system, automatically man will become good. Isn't it logical? Until two years passed, there was no change.

People whom he took and put in positions of leadership were more corrupt, more selfish, more robbers, in spite of the fact that they were working class. Why didn't they change? At that point, he heard about Pavlov. Now, most of you heard about Pavlov and the way he made experiments on the dogs, training the dogs.

If a blue light comes, food comes. So the dog immediately wags the tail and he salivates. If red light comes, a stick comes, and the dog will start yelling and dodging.

Conditional reflexes, Pavlov called them. Lenin called Pavlov to come to Kremlin and he said, explain to me what you do. Pavlov explained and then Lenin said, look, I need to train people, a whole society.

Could I use your method? Well, man is a little bit more evolved than a dog, but still an animal. So I can condition men to be whatever I want. How? Well, first of all, you have to introduce the reign of terror.

People have to become afraid of you and signal to them, if you obey me, you are rewarded. If you don't obey me, you perish. So create labor camps.

Throw there everybody who has signs that they don't obey you. Let fear goes in the heart of all people. Give them the signal, you obey me, you become what I want, you are rewarded.

I put you in positions and if not, I made them perish in the labor camp. Now, brothers, that's the essence of the terror that started in Soviet Union. It was the attempt to create the new man by Pavlovian method.

Darwinian method of changing man. You realize now, all that terror time, Lenin couldn't do too much, but Stalin came and he really installed the reign of terror. The result was 20 million people who perished in order that somehow the rest become the new man.

Now, in my book, I told these stories with Lenin, with Pavlov. Then I said, now, the problem that Lenin had was that man is not a dog. Man is not an animal.

So the method applied on dogs doesn't work. In fact, I continued, the very concept of new man is not a Marxist one. Christ coined this term.

Christ offered to make the new man, to change the man in such a way that is actually a new birth. That the new man can be produced only by Christ. Let Christ be free here and we can show you how he produces the new man.

I gave that to President Ceausescu. In a few weeks' time, I was charged with propaganda that endangers the security of the state. I was placed under house arrest and I was under heavy interrogation for six months.

Now, okay, I was told I can. Okay, thank you. Let me tell you a few other things.

First of all, in all those six months I was under house arrest I had to go every morning for interrogation from Monday to Friday night, sometimes 10, 12 hours of interrogation. They actually had the method of breaking a man. And they applied all of that on me, to break me.

Just to tell you, I had a friend, a Christian doctor, and at one point he visited me secretly in the night and I told him how tired I was. He said, Joseph, I'll take you to a neurologist because I want to see if you are still. So secretly he took me to a neurologist.

The neurologist examined me. This was three months in the interrogation. At the end of the examination, the psychologist or the doctor, neurologist, looked to me and said, Mr. Tso, you look surprisingly well.

Now, listen, at the end of this interrogation, if you look the same, your interrogator will need me. Because this is a battle of two minds. One of them has to crack.

Now, the interrogator was the most vicious interrogator the secret police had at that time. I didn't know almost anything. But right from the beginning, if he asked me a question or another, I would just say, Sir, your question reminds me of this issue.

And I would start telling him, practically preaching him a good sermon. But to my surprise, he would listen even for an hour. Then like waking up, I said, okay, okay, let's go back to our business.

Then I just tell you a few things here so that you understand. And they were always two, interrogator and assistant who would watch because they couldn't trust each other. Good, thank you.

Now, sometimes one would have to go. And one day, towards the end of the interrogation, the other man went out and he immediately said, Mr. Zorn, I want to tell you something. The people I interrogate hate me.

They hate me with all their being and justly so because I am not nice to them. But Mr. Zorn, with you, it's different. I don't know how to put it, but it's a delight for me to be with you.

I immediately said in myself, yes, but it's not a delight for me to be with you. Then I was sorry. I said, Lord, I am sorry for that thought.

Look, Lord, this is the greatest moment of my life. This man tells me that I don't hate him. I love him.

Lord, this is the greatest victory of my life. This man has to recognize that I love him. Thank you, Lord.

Now, not long after that, the interrogation was over. They decided there will be no trial, that I would be set free. And this time, the interrogator came alone just to tell me that it was all over.

And then he said to me, Mr. Zorn, it's all over. There will be no trial, so you go free. You know, I cannot comment on these things, but I want to tell you one thing.

I'll miss you, Mr. Zorn. And he shook my hand, and he was gone. Now, I'm a preacher, and whenever a preacher goes through these kinds of things, what does he do? Makes a sermon.

So I made a sermon for my church there in the city of Ploiești, where this happened. And I entitled that sermon, The Aggression of Love. Do you imagine, I said, that these people jump on us? You think that they are the aggressors? No, no, no, no.

We are the aggressors here. We disturb them with the message of Christ, which is the message of love. And we come to them and tell them about the love of Christ, and then they want to jump on us.

And at that point, we step in and said, Sir, you want to kill me, but I still love you, and Christ loves you. So I'll keep loving you until I am alive. And somehow, we get with the love of Christ, at least to some.

But remember, our message is love, and we conquer with the love of Christ. This was the greatest understanding, but where did I get it? Only there. You know, there in those years, I actually fought the greatest battles of the Lord.

But I had the most beautiful experiences with the Lord, and I learned the biggest lessons of the Lord. Brothers, I went like that from 72 to 82. I tell you, politically, one thing.

Ceausescu understood that it was too costly to him to harm me. Because I had a few people in England who told me before I left for Romania, you go there with the gospel, with no guarantee that you will succeed. But we will do everything politically possible to get you out of trouble.

And so, whenever I was in trouble, those people started. I heard one person say to another, Joseph will get out because even the Queen of England intervened for him. Well, it wasn't the Queen.

It was one of her ministers who was a Christian and who got to know me. And he knew the value of the political intervention. So that's the defense that I had.

But you never know if that works or not. You go there ready for the sacrifice. Now, another point, and with this I will finish for tonight.

I send you as my father sent me. I send you as lambs to the wolves. I ask the question, why are we sent that way, totally defenseless? You don't send lambs to the wolves to have a great party with the wolves.

In fact, in Revelation 6, 9, the martyrs are told, wait until the brethren. Wow, it is a long time. Until anybody quickly reads to me.

that they should rest yet for a little season and tell their fellow servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled. Until your brethren who must be killed as you were will be completed, only then the end will come. Do you know what that means? If you want the end to come, you have to complete the number of the martyrs.

Who hurries to fulfill the number? But my question is, why does God have a fixed number of his children who must be killed for the gospel? Why does God have a fixed number of martyrs? Before I went back to Romania, I started to study the value of martyrdom. Now, I have 20 something books written in Romanian. I only have one book besides this one written in English entitled Suffering, Martyrdom, and Rewards in Heaven.

450 pages or so was my doctoral dissertation in fact. I am known in theology as the only man who ever wrote a theology of martyrdom. You can discover stories of martyrs, but not books about martyrdom.

Why martyrdom? Tomorrow and Sunday, I'll pick up from these books just as I did tonight. I don't want you just to have the story because we are going to study in the morning how come that Marxism is conquering America. And it is conquering America.

There are about 10,000 professors of Marxism in America. There is no country in the world with so many professors of Marxism. Nowhere in the world has Marxism succeeded as in the United States.

Then how are we going to defend ourselves? What are we going to do? But so there are so many problems involved here. My brothers, one of the things that I did and I'll tell you more tomorrow was the moment I arrived home from England was to train my dear wife. In the value of martyrdom, there came a day when she understood and accepted.

From that day, she was the strongest of the two. We are entering a battle unprepared. And I believe that what I am doing here is a little bit of the preparation for our confrontation with the Marxists on behalf of the Lord to conquer.

Let's bow our heads, please. Father, you only know why you choose this way to have so many of your children killed for the gospel. But that's what your word tells us.

Lord, teach us to understand where we are today and how are we going to tackle this problem. Lord, joy unspeakable and full of glory. This is what your apostle Peter tells us, that we accept our situation with joy, unspeakable and full of glory.

And Lord Jesus, right from the Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew five, you tell us, when they will revile you and when they will even kill you, rejoice for great is your reward in heaven. We are not going to be some morose people who go like this, but we are going to be happy, happy, happy as your soldiers, knowing that we are there to spread your love and to conquer evil by goodness. Don't be defeated, don't let evil defeat you, but conquer evil by goodness.

This is what Paul teaches us. So Lord, teach us these days how to fight with love and goodness and how to rejoice even in suffering, even in crucifixion. We love you, we praise you, we adore you.

In Jesus name, amen.