Richard Wurmbrand

Today we are going to be traveling to Romania, and the person we will be talking about is Richard Wurmbrand who was born in 1909, so we are traveling a little way back in time. 

Richard Wurmbrand had a very difficult childhood. He was from a Jewish background. and he was orphaned at the age of nine, and, being born in 1909, this meant that he lived most of his childhood through the First World War. His family, after he was orphaned, didn't bring him up as a Jew, even though he came from a Jewish background. They brought him up pretty much as an atheist - they had no religion at home. So he had no real connection to his Jewish background, and as a youngster, because of the poverty that he lived in, and because of the hardness of his childhood, he really found it difficult to even consider that there could be a god. In fact, the image of God that he had in his early life was of a taskmaster who demanded obedience all the time, and so he really disliked the idea of religion, full stop. 

Richard was a very gifted student - he excelled at school and at college. He could speak nine languages fluently. During his early years he was married to Sabina, who was also Jewish, and the two of them were the life and soul of the party, so to speak. They were intelligent people and they were successful, but little did they know that right at that point, when they were young and newly wed, there was an old man living in a village, in the mountains of Romania. This old carpenter and his wife were very elderly, but this man had a desire, and he said, "Lord, before I die, please, can You give me some earthly reward, and my earthly reward is this, that I will bring someone else to Christ, and make that person a Jew, one of Your chosen people. I want to bring that person to Christ." The problem was, this old carpenter lived in a village with no Jews in it at all. And so he added on to the end of that prayer, "Lord, You will have to bring the Jew, because I won't be able to go and find one." And so this elderly couple prayed that a Jew would come to their village, and that they would be able to bring this person to Christ. 

Richard suddenly got sick - he had some sort of lung trouble - and because of that, and as was common in those days, they said, "You need to go to the mountains to get some good fresh air", and he chose to go to this particular village to live for a few months. And so he and Sabina moved to this village. They were living there for a while and the old carpenter realized that this new and fashionable couple from Bucharest had moved to his village, and, he discovered, they were Jewish. He was overwhelmed, because he thought, "Here is the Lord's answer to our prayer." And so for hours, this couple prayed and prayed, and soon they had a chance to meet them and they presented Richard and Sabina with a Bible. 

Now Richard wasn't so interested - he had enough of religion and he and Sabina didn't really want much to do with religion. And so when he got this Bible, he thought, "Well, it's a good educational experience perhaps, it's good literature." So he did read it. He flipped through the Gospels, and he started to read, and he was totally and completely changed by what he read in the Scripture. But Sabina wasn't. But Richard was converted and so transformed by what he read, he started praying for his wife, and he wanted her desperately to see this man, Jesus, who was there in the Gospels. And so soon enough both of them were Christians - they were dramatically saved and completely transformed. Very soon afterwards, Richard wanted to become a pastor and he soon did all the studies and became a pastor, and started to preach in a church there in Romania.

So around this time - this was around the time of World War Two, Romania, being in Eastern Europe, was invaded by the Nazis. This was horrendous because when the Nazis came through, Christians were persecuted. You were not allowed to preach and Richard and many others were also beaten by the Nazi soldiers. During this time Christians had to go underground and so began the underground church in Romania. 

Richard and Sabina had at this time their little boy, Mihai. They named him Mihai because it was not a common Jewish name, and they thought that would hide his Jewish heritage. 

Now they thought the Nazi regime was pretty bad, but after the war, when they expected that things would be a whole lot better, it was absolutely the opposite. Romania is in Eastern Europe, and the Russians swept down into Eastern Europe. Russia at that time was communist. In 1944, there was a huge Russian invasion of Romania. People at the time thought, "This will be okay. The Russians won the war too." But with the Russian invasion came communism and one million Russian troops came into Romania at that time, and they spread out through the country to ensured that the communist government that they were going to enforce would be installed without any drama whatsoever. 

Now the Russians had been living under communism for many years, and, if you know anything about communism, you know that atheism and communism go hand in hand - you cannot be a communist and believe in God, or have any religion. And so with the spread of communism there was no freedom to worship. The communists really did believe, and they actively conveyed this to their people, that religion was fairy tales. It was not something for grown men or thinking adults. It was very clear - most of the soldiers who came through would have only ever lived under communism, and so they had no understanding of religion. 

But during this time, the Christians realized that these soldiers who were coming down into Eastern Europe, although they were completely blind, brainwashed, and knew nothing at all about God, yet there was something about these men - they were far away from home and they were doing something that they, perhaps, didn't want to do. In the world in which they had grown up there was no God, nothing, there was only the state and Stalin, their great leader. These men were thirsting for something, and perhaps they didn't even know what it was. 

At this time, Wurmbrand realized that his gift with languages was very helpful - he could speak Russian fluently. He had some amazing experiences speaking to these soldiers and bringing them the gospel. It was an incredible time because these Russian soldiers were desperate for the Word of God without realizing it. 

Richard talked about one experience when he spoke to a soldier about God. He started from the beginning of the Gospels and he came to the Sermon on the Mount, and he started to explain the Sermon on the Mount. The man stopped him and said, "This is a completely new way of living." He said, "This is beauty." And then Richard continued talking and told about Jesus and the miracles and then came to the point where Jesus was crucified, and the soldier fell to the ground and he wept. And he said, "What? How can you have told me all of this and given me such hope, only to tell me that he died!" And he said, "How did this man allow himself to get arrested and killed? Why, after all you've told me?" And Richard said, "But I haven't finished." And then he continued and talked about how the Lord had risen again and conquered death, and the man jumped up and danced around the room. He was so overwhelmed and so dramatically converted. And Richard said to the man, "You must pray." Well the man didn't know anything about prayer. He'd never seen anyone pray. And so he knelt there on the floor, and he looked up at the ceiling, and he said, "God, you're a really fine chap. And if I were you, and you were me, then I wouldn't be forgiving you for all the bad things you've done. But you, you are a really, really fine chap. And so, thank you, and I love you with all my heart." That was his prayer. That was one of the experiences that Richard had with the Russians, who had no understanding of God, and yet a great thirst for Him. 

Now other Christians realized at this time that the harvest was definitely ready - these soldiers needed Christ. And so many Christians started working, but it was very dangerous to do this. As the communist regime was taking hold in Romania it became illegal - you couldn't say you were a Christian, let alone evangelize or preach to people, and particularly to the Russian soldiers - that was really illegal. You would have definitely been caught, beaten, arrested, dragged off to a labor camp or something like that. But they knew that God's work had to be done here and so the Christians banded together and looked for any possible way they could get the gospel to the soldiers. 

They discovered that there was one really effective method. The Bible had been banned - it had been taken away - so the Scripture was very hard to come by. But still, many people had a Bible. And so they would print Christian literature, extracts from the Gospels, whole gospels, in little tracts, and they would get their children - and for Richard and Sabina it was little Mihai, who would have been about seven or eight at the time - and all these little kids under the age of maybe 10 of the Christians would take the tracts and they would go and talk to the Russian soldiers. And because many of these soldiers were fathers themselves who had left their children in Russia and hadn't seen them for ages, they were eager to talk to the kids and often gave them little candies. So the kids would talk to the soldiers, admire their guns and all that kind of thing, and then hand them a tract, and the Russians couldn't refuse that, so they took it. And that's how the gospel started to get into the Russian army barracks, and the kids were rarely caught because they were children, and no one really suspected children of doing the work of God. 

There was another thing. In Russia at that time, there was a huge shortage of watches, - they were very hard to come by - and so when these soldiers traveled down through Europe they discovered watches. And so sometimes, the less polite ones, they would stop people in the street, demand they take off their watch, and take it from them. Other people were swapping watches, bartering watches, and you would often see soldiers with one or two watches on each arm, which they would send back to Russia. 

Now, the Romanians cottoned on to this pretty quickly, and they started looking at this as a good business opportunity, but the Christians noticed for a different reason. Richard would take a watch and walk into the army barracks. He would sit there, people would gather, and he would show them this watch. And then, just as a matter of conversation, he might say something like, "Ah, who's called Peter, around here, or Paul?" - common names. And often a soldier would say, "I'm Paul." And he would say, "Let me tell you who you're named after." And then he would talk about the apostle Paul, or the apostle Peter, and how they were disciples of Jesus. And some of these Russians would say, "You haven't come here to sell us watches. You've come here to give us religion - but go on," - because they were desperate, and even though they knew it was illegal, they really wanted to know about God. 

Soon this became a regular thing. Richard would come with maybe one or two watches, the soldiers would gather around and he would hold out these watches, and then he would teach them and talk about the gospel and tell them about God. And if the Russians saw an officer walking past, or someone that might betray them, one of them would just slide his hand onto his knee, and in mid sentence, Richard would start talking about watches. And so, as they walked past, it was just like, "Oh, yes, selling another watch." And then as they went away and the hand slipped off the knee, they would continue to talk about the gospel. And in this way, so many of the Russians who had come down through Romania, heard about the gospel for the very first time.

There was a young Russian soldier who sat with Richard, and Richard told him about the Lord's walking with the two men on the road to Emmaus. As he was telling him the story, he came to the part where it said that He acted as if he would go farther, but they urged him strongly saying "Stay with us." The soldier stopped Richard at that point and said, "What? Say that again!" And so Richard said, "Well, they urged him to stay with them." And the soldier said, "Wait a minute. Why didn't Jesus just stay with them? Why did He wait for them to ask him? Why did He wait? What? He shouldn't need to wait. He should have just stayed." And Richard hadn't thought about this, but he said, "Well, because Jesus is polite. He's not going to force Himself on anybody. He's not going to just barge in. He waits for an invitation. He stands at the door and knocks." The soldier was overwhelmed by this, and he said, "Your Jesus has won me by his politeness. The communists are not polite. They shove their ideas into your face - on the radio, the movies, posters everywhere - they shove it into your face through fear, through violence. But your Jesus, He waits for you to choose. He respects your choice." It was something that absolutely blew this soldier away. Well this young man was dramatically converted, and very soon after he started smuggling Bibles back into Russia, but he was caught, he was arrested, and nobody ever saw him again. 

The underground church also started to print the Gospels in different ways. They put a whole gospel, the Gospel of Luke, into a booklet where the cover of the booklet was a lovely picture of Stalin or Lenin or the Russian leaders and the great communist people. And then on the first few pages was typical stuff about "the great life of our wonderful leader", and things like that. But when you got to about page 10, it was suddenly the Gospel of Luke. So the underground church printed these booklets and they went to communist demonstrations and gatherings and they would sell these booklets to people. They would show them around, and as people liked to look good back then, and have these lovely booklets on the life of Lenin or someone like that, they would buy these booklets. By the time they flipped through and came to page 10, and saw that in their hands was part of the Bible, the Christians were long gone. That was another way that they got the gospel to Communist Party members. 

Around this time, when communism had taken root in Eastern Europe, there was a huge congress that was called as a parliament for Christians, and all the Christian organizations in Romania, 4000 pastors, ministers, priests, clergyman, were invited to attend this big gathering, and all the officials from the Communist Party were there as well. They were there to discuss how they would move forward. Richard was also invited - he was a pastor and fairly well known - so he was also there. When he and Sabina arrived, they listened as minister after minister, priest after priest, stood up and said how Christianity and communism can work hand in hand, how Stalin is "our first loyalty", how when it comes to Christianity, the basic principles of communism and Christianity are the same, and how "together, we can move forward and work for the good of the people". They listened as these leaders, these heads of denominations and churches across all of Romania, stood up and denied the Lord completely because of fear. 

Well, Sabina said to Richard, "Richard, you stand up and you wash the shame off the face of Christ." And Richard said to her, "If I do that here, you won't have a husband." And she said, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband." And so he stood up and he spoke to them. He said, "Communism and Christianity cannot work together because God must have a preeminent place. Stalin is not our first leader, it is only God - He is the One we need to serve, and He is our first loyalty." He spoke very clearly of God's preeminence and he also proclaimed the gospel. That sitting was broadcast across the whole country, and all the communist officials were there listening, as he boldly proclaimed the gospel. Some of the people in the audience clapped and cheered, because finally someone was brave enough to say what they had been thinking but hadn't had the guts to say. But other people became really scared. They thought, "Oh, no! I know this man. Maybe because of what he has said, people are going to come after me as well." And so some people were extremely scared - they knew that Wurmbrand would probably be killed for what he had just done. 

At that time, many of the churches in Romania bowed to communism, and they did that simply to avoid the persecution that they knew would follow. Soon the party members were picking the leaders of the church, and often these leaders were not Christians at all, there were Communist Party members. Soon you could have only 30 people in your church and no more - if you had 31 that was it - your church wasn't allowed to grow - and soon were weren't allowed to say this, you could only say that, you couldn't preach the Bible. The restrictions increased more and more over time, and many people realized that in going to these churches you heard only communist propaganda, and so the underground church started to grow. 

The underground church was just Christians who met in secret. Sometimes they met in basements - literally underground - sometimes they met in remote places, like woods. They were evangelizing in secret, doing different things like printing tracts that they could give out, and so on. Wurmbrand became a key figure in the underground church, but unfortunately, he was also very well known as a pastor, and very well known because of what he did at the Congress. 

On the 29th of February, 1948, Richard was walking to church - they didn't have a car - and as he was walking to the church as usual he noticed that there was a van following him quite slowly. Before he could run, two people hopped out of the van, grabbed him, pulled him into the back of the van, blindfolded him, and sped off. He had no idea where he was going. He didn't know if he was just going to be interrogated or executed - no idea. The first thought he had was that the most common command in the Scripture is "Do not be afraid", and so he remembered that, and he thought, "Here I'm totally out of control, I don't know anything about what's going to happen. But I do know one thing, and that the Lord said, 'Do not be afraid.'" 

Sabina waited, and the afternoon came, the evening came, and Richard didn't return. He didn't return the next morning either. And she waited and she waited, and a week passed, and another, and another. And soon she was visited by a man. This man claimed that he was a released prisoner, and that he had just attended Richard's burial - "He hanged himself, they said". Well she couldn't believe that. But she didn't have any assurance either way, she didn't know where he was, no one would tell her anything. She didn't know if he was dead or alive, if he had been executed. She really doubted that this released prisoner was genuine, and rightly so. 

We can't imagine what Richard was going through, but he was taken to a prison and our concept of prison is not anywhere close to what he was experiencing. The prisons in communist Europe at the time were designed to break people. They wanted information, they wanted you to betray other people, give names, give places, things like that. And also they were desperate for these Christians to be completely broken so that they no longer believed in Christ and so that they embraced communism wholeheartedly. That's what these prisons were designed for. In the West at this time, nothing was known about what was happening in communist Europe. In fact, communism almost became a cool kind of political thing. People were talking about it in America and England, and it became interesting, and nobody actually knew what was going on, and nobody had any concept of what was happening in these prisons. 

With communism, as I said, comes atheism, and with atheism, there is no restraint because there is no God. So in these prisons the Christians were tortured to the point where Richard, even in his book, says that he struggles to write it down because it brings back so many nightmares that he doesn't even want to talk about it fully. The Christians were tortured in the most horrible ways.  He had flesh cut out of him with knives, hot rods poked on him until he was burning, he was beaten so badly, he broke four vertebrae in his back, he was beaten on the soles of his feet, so he had nerve damage and he could hardly walk. They were hung upside down and beaten like boxing bags, and then placed in handcuffs with nails on the inside, so when they shivered in the freezing cold their wrists would be torn to shreds. They were placed in boxes with metal shards on the inside, so if you stood completely still you wouldn't be hurt, but after 12 hours of standing, you would start swaying with exhaustion, and so your body would be cut to shreds. 

But the worst of it was the brainwashing. That happened when the prisoners came and had to sit on stools - they had to sit completely straight, they couldn't nod their head from side to side, they couldn't rest their head on their hand, they had to keep their eyes open - and from 5am to 10pm they sat on these stools, and they heard over and over again, "Communism is good, Communism is good. Christianity is stupid. Give up. God does not exist. God does not exist. Communism is good." This was yelled at them repeatedly, until they wanted to go mad. 

Now, Richard would sometimes say to those torturers - those young guards who were beating them and doing all sorts of evil things to them -  "Have you no pity in your heart?" And they would quote from one of their Communist leaders, "You can't make a few omelets without breaking a few eggs." 

At this time, while Richard was experiencing all this in prison because he would not give any names of people in the underground church, and he would also not deny Christ, Sabina was also suffering hugely. It was only later that Richard found out what happened to Sabina. You see, originally the communists believed that they could just wipe out Christianity by plucking out the leaders - take them in, and then it will all crumble - that's what they thought. But when Richard left, Sabina stepped up, she started working. She realized that he wasn't coming back, and so she started working in the underground church and trying to do everything she could, and so did many other women. And soon the communists realized that they couldn't hold back the tide of Christianity. This underground church never stopped. These women were stepping up, and soon the women started to be arrested as well. 

Sabina was taken to a labor camp where she was forced to build a canal. This was really tough work for even a young man, let alone a starving woman, and the women were treated awfully. They were taken - remember it's really cold - they were often taken and, just for fun, the guards would throw them into the river, and then fish them out and watch them shiver and shake in the cold. They would be so starving that many of them tore bark from trees and ate that, or grass, like cattle, because it was the only way they could survive. For three years, she endured this. 

When Sabina was arrested, little Mihai was nine years old and he was literally thrown out on the street. A lady took him in and he lived with her for a while, but soon the secret police found out and they came, knocked down the door, and grabbed this lady ticked all her teeth in and broke both her legs because she was supporting a Christian family, and that was her punishment. Mihai saw this, and he saw so many awful things. This is what happened to people who protected Christian children. At this point, his faith was wavering. How could he possibly believe in the existence of God in the face of all this evil, and when this evil was winning? He started to question God as a young boy. Prior to this he had no question, he was, he felt, really sure about his faith. But now it was just too hard. By the time he was 11 years old, he had to work in order to just survive so that he could find something to eat. 

After two years of his mother's imprisonment, when he was 11, he finally found out where she was and he was taken to visit her. This was part of the communist strategy - they often brought the children and they showed the women the children and said, "You just need to deny the Lord Jesus and embrace communism, you need to give me some names, you need to do this and that, and then you can be with your child. And if you don't, who knows what's going to happen to your child?" And this kind of threat was how a lot of the women, who couldn't bear it any more, gave in. Well, Mihai was brought to the prison, and he was told that he could see his mother. And she came out - the guards dragged her out - and he was shocked. She was filthy and thin and shabby and beaten, and he could hardly recognize her. He was so shaken when he saw her. And her first words to him, were, "Mihai, believe in Jesus." This, of course, enraged the guards and they dragged her away and he could hear the beating. He was so shaken by this experience, because he thought, "If my mother has not forsaken Jesus in that place, then that is enough for me too." And in that moment he truly believed in the Lord Jesus. 

Mihai was totally transformed by that little incident, because he realized that the love of Christ surpassed everything that he had experienced. Soon, he was put into a boarding school. This was also another communist strategy - they take the young, they put them in these boarding schools and they brainwash them so that the young generation grow up without any concept of God and think only about communism. And so here was Mihai in this boarding school, alone, and in every single subject at school, somehow they came back to atheism, somehow they came back to God doesn't exist,  communism is good. These ideas were in every single subject. The children, if they did very well in some area, would receive a little red necktie - this necktie was like a reward - and if a child had a necktie like this, then they were given certain privileges because they were good communist members of the country. 

Well, when Mihai did very well in an exam he was offered a red necktie. It was at a big ceremony where he was offered this little necktie, and he stepped back, and he said, "I will never wear the red necktie of those who have put my mother and father into prison." Well the teacher dragged him out, he was taken to the principal, and the principal expelled him from the school, never to return. 

During these years, this young boy, on his own for three years, suffered so much more than any child should have. He had no food sometimes, he was expelled from a few schools, he witnessed people who took him in, arrested, beaten, dragged out into the street. But through all of this, and because of the love of his mother, he was so transformed. And in fact, its faith grew stronger and stronger. 

Richard was still in prison - he was in prison for years - and he refused to stop preaching. There were times when he was taken into solitary confinement, where he was just on his own. But there were other times when he was in a cell, sometimes with maybe 100 or 200 prisoners, all crammed in. And so in those situations he would enjoy preaching to everybody. The Christians would take turns to stand up and they would preach, they would teach, they would talk about God. It wasn't just Christians in prison, there were also many communists in prison too, other Communist Party members who, maybe because of a policy change, or because somebody was very ambitious and needed that person out of the way. There were lots of political prisoners. There were also capitalists, professors and business owners who needed to be got out of the way as well. In these cells there was such a range of people, from peasants to university professors, and the Christians would preach and teach the people about God. But when the guards heard, they would drag Richard out, beat him and throw him back in the cell. Richard used to joke and say, "We have a nice arrangement; I preach, they beat, everyone's happy." When he was thrown back into the cell after being beaten, the other Christians would help him up and he would say, "Well, brothers, where was I?" and he would continue. 

There were also many orthodox priests thrown into prison at that time - the Russian Orthodox Church was very big, and had a long tradition. Suddenly these men, these dear old men, these priests, found themselves stripped of their icons, their ceremonies, their robes, their special bread, their buildings, and they had nothing. And many of these men realized that all they could do was pray, and many of these priests came to the Lord in prison, free from all the religious distraction, tradition and ceremony. They found God there. 

In all of this, and in the horrendous suffering, it's incredible to consider how these Christians managed to endure. But in the extraordinary situations they were in, with the torture as it was, there the Lord also provided extraordinary circumstances for them as well.

You see, Richard spoke of the fact that after years and years in prison, with no pen, no paper, no Bible, no access to anything, he actually started to forget the Bible, he couldn't remember verses, he couldn't remember things very clearly. Not only that, but you have to remember they were starving. They lived on one slice of bread per week, and some of these men were injected with drugs to blow their mind, so they couldn't even think straight. They were tortured, beaten, they were brainwashed day after day, and so many of them struggled to even organize their thoughts, to think clearly, after so long. But for Richard, he held on to four things. Throughout his time in prison, he couldn't remember much. He used to say, "I'm a pastor who doesn't know his Bible." He had none, and he was starting to forget. But he knew these four things. He knew, and he held on to the fact, that "God is real and true, Jesus is my Savior, there is a glorious hope of eternity, and God's love is always the way".  He held on to these four simple truths during his many years in prison. 

Now these prisoners experienced some extraordinary things, and of course, in extraordinary circumstances to warrant them. Sometimes when they felt so weak, and so exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally, so close to just giving it all in. There were times Richard talked about when, suddenly, the cell would just light up, and it was as if the walls were covered in diamond, and he remembered hearing the most incredible music, just suddenly, and it was like the cell was full of music and light. Then they forgot their hunger and their pain and everything, because they knew that God was with them. 

There was another experience that Richard had when he was in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement was awful - it was designed to break you mentally. The prisoners were put into a cell which was completely dark - it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. It had no windows and there was not even light under the door. These prisoners were put into the cell, they were alone, and there was no sound. In fact, the guards used to wear felt on the soles of their shoes, so you couldn't even hear a guard approach. It was so silent, you could almost hear the blood throbbing in your ears, that's how quiet it was. This was designed to break you emotionally. Day after day in these cells you had no concept of time, you didn't know if a day had passed or not. And there was nothing to break the monotony, except when you were dragged out to be tortured. And so, devoid of any of the senses, and only experiencing pain, so many of these prisoners gave in because they were broken. Richard was not immune to any of this and he really struggled. He spent three years in solitary confinement. 

There was one day when he thought to himself, "I can't do this." He felt so weak. He felt like he couldn't - he was exhausted in just trying to think, to hold on, to remember the Lord. He cried out to the Lord and said, "I have no one to talk to here. You must talk to me, You must speak to me." And so God did, but it wasn't what Richard expected at all. Richard heard a voice, he heard it with his ears, and he heard the voice say, "What is your name?" He was shocked, and he said, "Surely, Lord, You know my name. I know You know my name." But then he remembered that in Genesis the Lord had asked a question of Adam. He said, "Adam, where are you?" And of course God knew where Adam was, but that wasn't the point of the question. The point of the question was for Adam to think about where he was, for Adam to reflect that where he was wasn't a good place. So Richard realized that maybe this was the same. So he thought about it. "What is your name?" Well, he knew his name was Richard. And he knew from childhood that he was named after a martyr in England, and he knew that this person who his parents had originally named him after, had died for his faith and had boldly pronounced his faith, and been killed for it. When he thought, "I can't say my name is Richard, because I don't feel I can do that." And then he thought, "Who am I?" And then he said, "Maybe I'm a pastor, but at this point I'm not a pastor, I can't lead anyone." So he said, "Jesus, I have no name, but allow me to bear Your name." In that moment, he realized what the Lord wanted him to know. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me, and the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." These men and women, in the communist Soviet Union at that time, could really join with Paul and understand what it meant by "the light afflictions, which are but for a moment," because they saw eternity, and they experienced the presence of God.

After eight and a half years, Richard was released from prison. All the torture, the beating - nothing had worked - and so they freed him thinking that the freedom would be enough incentive to keep him out of prison. They told him that he was free to go, he was just not to preach, he was not to speak, or to do any religious activity at all. That was the condition, and if he did any of that, he would be immediately returned to prison. They thought that would be enough to keep him away. Well, when Richard came back and he was reunited with his wife and his son, after eight and a half years, he found that they had been very busy in the underground church, they had continued the work that he had left, and the underground church was flourishing - so many Christians had come to know the Lord, even in this situation. He knew, and he talked to his family, that he could not stop God's work, there was so much to be done, and so he continued. It was so dangerous for him, and he knew it was a huge risk. But he also knew that God's work needed to be done. 

In those days, the Christians couldn't meet - they were being hunted - and so they met in all sorts of places. They often met in woods around Romania, and they often met in a way that made it look like a birthday party, or some sort of celebration. So that if anyone was walking past - there were spies everywhere - it would just look like a birthday party, and they could easily break into "Happy birthday to you" or something like that, and nobody would know. This is how the Christians needed to meet. They often arranged different locations, and they tended to have birthday parties every Sunday. 

But after only a very short time another Christian betrayed Richard to the secret police and he was imprisoned again. This time it was worse than before because he knew exactly what to expect. But things were different now on the political front. There was more international pressure on the Soviet Union at this time, because people in countries like America started to realize that things were not always as they seemed, that Stalin was not the great leader that they thought he might have been, and behind the "iron curtain" of communism, there were all sorts of terrible things happening. At this time, missionaries were starting to sneak into places like Russia and they were seeing firsthand what was happening. 

Now because of this, and by some miracle, one day Richard was dragged out of his cell and he was blindfolded. He thought that he was going to be executed. He didn't know where he was going, nothing was said to him, and he was thrown to the floor, and he heard metal clanging, and then silence. He was waiting to be shot. But soon he realized that wasn't happening and he pulled off his blindfold and he was instantly blinded by color - when you're in prison, you don't see any colors. He realized, as he looked around, that he was free. He'd been taken out of the prison, and dumped outside the prison. He got up and soon, with the help of people who recognized his prison dress and realized he'd been released from prison, he traveled back to his home. And there again, he was reunited with his wife, and his little boy Mihai - or not so little anymore - that was after five and a half years this second time in prison. So he spent 14 years in prison. 

Now at that point Mihai and Sabina were so poor. Everything had been taken from them - they had absolutely nothing. And yet they were still hard at work in the underground church. There were missionaries there in Romania at the time, Americans, and they had heard that a few weeks earlier there had been a man released from prison after about 14 years, and they were eager to meet him and see what his experiences were. So these Americans met with Richard - they were smuggling Bibles to the underground church, because at that point there were so few Bibles that it was rare to have a Bible, and they desperately needed Bibles. These missionaries were bringing packages of Bibles into countries like Romania and so they got to know Richard, and from there they started to hear about what was happening, and the torture and experiences of so many Christians in communist Soviet Union. 

What ended up happening was a Christian organization in Norway realized that, although Richard had been released, he was probably going to get arrested again, and there was no way that they could just leave him alone. So this Christian organization paid the government $10,000, which in those days was a huge amount of money, probably equivalent to a million or so dollars now. They raised the money, and they paid for his family to come over to Norway. And the government said, "That's fine, take him." And so suddenly, Richard found that he was going to be taken out of his homeland, Romania, and start life again in Norway. The people in the underground church were really happy for this to happen. They said to him, "You must go, because you must tell those Christians in the West. You must tell them that we need their help. They don't know. And here we are - we don't have any Bibles and they have thousands sitting on shelves unused. You have to tell them and somehow they can work with us." And so that's what Richard did. He decided he would travel out and live in Norway - not that he had much choice now - and that he would spread the word and explain to people in America, in England, in Europe, what was really going on. 

Just before he left, the secret police came to visit him. They said to him, "If you dare say one word against communism, or if you tell anybody about your experiences in prison, so that they know what is happening in our prisons, then we have spies everywhere, and we will get you. We will kidnap you, we will bring you back, we will kill you, we will destroy your reputation with rumors. We can do anything we like. You just be warned." And with those comforting words, in December 1965, Richard, Sabina and Mihai left Romania and flew to Norway. Richard knew that it was not an empty threat, there were definitely spies. He knew of pastors who had disappeared, others who had been tortured in some way, and just randomly, when they were living in Austria. So he knew that this was not an empty threat, but he didn't heed it, because he knew he had a mission. 

Now his work for the Lord changed slightly. In 1967, only a few years later, he founded a organization which some of you might have heard of called Voice of the Martyrs. He wanted to encourage Christians in western countries to realize what was happening on the other side of the world. He used to say, "Give us the tools we need. The underground church needs you. Join us in fellowship. Give us Bibles." 

Bibles were the main thing they were asking for. It was crazy to think that he had seen a man take off his wedding ring and give it in exchange for a gospel. He'd seen two villagers, Russians, who had worked all the Russian winter breaking ice at a river to earn some extra money because they thought if they had a bit more money, they could buy a Bible. When he heard about that, he somehow found a Bible, and he gave it to them. And they were so overwhelmed that they had this Bible for free. They couldn't thank him enough. A few weeks later these two men sent a letter. Richard opened the letter and saw that it was signed by 30 villagers. That one Bible was for a whole village in the Romanian mountains somewhere. They had carefully divided the Bible into 30 sections, so that they could all read a portion at the same time and then swap it - it was that precious to them. 

When Richard came and saw in Norway, and then later in American, shelves of Bibles - the Bible for Women, the Bible for Men, the Children's Bible - he couldn't believe it. He wanted the Christians to know what was going on and how they could help their brethren overseas. 

Richard traveled throughout the whole world, he even came to Australia. On the first day he arrived in Australia they said, "You can stay in the hotel. Tomorrow we'll pick you up. Have a night off, you've been traveling." And so he put his bags down and headed out of the hotel, and he walked through the city, and he came to Kings Cross. He went into a pub and he preached to the people who were sitting there in the pub, in Kings Cross, in the city, and spoke to them about the love of God. That was the man he was. He was always an evangelist, wanting to bring the gospel to anyone, wherever they were. 

Communism in Eastern Europe fell in 1991. But since then, Christians have been persecuted in similar ways. We've had recently the rise of the Taliban, the Islamist group, for example, and Christians are suffering in the same way as Richard did, all across the world. Who knows what has been happening in communist North Korea to the Christians there? And who knows what will happen here in one, five, ten years time? We don't know what our future holds either. But for now, we here in a very comfortable country, in freedom, in comfort, in warmth, we have a lot to learn from our brethren overseas who have been refined by fire. 

Now, I'm going to finish with something Sabina said. She was asked about the wisdom of taking such great risks, especially as a mother, in her work in the underground church. Her answer was clear. She said, "Doing the work of God is dangerous, but not doing it is more dangerous." And that is perhaps a very clear warning for all of us.