What Is My Authority — Richard Wurmbrand

I was introduced as a disturbing pastor, which is not so bad. I have a Korean friend, his English is very poor, he had to preach in America, and he was introduced as a model of a warm pastor. So I went home and looked up in the dictionary what these words mean.

Model is a small reproduction of the real thing, and warm, well, somebody who is not very hot. So I understood he was introduced as a small reproduction of what a pastor should be, and not a very hot pastor.

So I fare well with disturbing pastors. When our Lord Jesus Christ chased the merchants from the temple, people put him as a Christian, a legitimate Christian. With what authority do you do these things?

Christ’s Authority and the Sign of Resurrection

What is the sign that you have the right to do things otherwise than everybody else? And men are in right to ask us, you the church, say you speak in the name of God. You individual Christians, when you witness about Christ, you do the same thing.

You ask us to change all our ways, to revolutionize our lives. With what right do you speak so? What is your sign? Our Lord gave a sign. He said, you will destroy this temple, my body, it will be resurrected.

What is the sign which we give? Nietzsche, a German philosopher, said, Christians should look much more saved if they wish we should believe in their Savior. We have to be somehow else. In America, not long ago, a very renowned Catholic bishop died, Fulton Sheen, and he tells the story that once he had to speak in Philadelphia in the town hall.

He walked, he lost somehow his way, he saw some boys playing, and he asked them for the way to the town hall. They showed him. And he said, boys, why don't you come with me? I will speak there about the way to heaven.

And the boys laughed. One of them said, how can you show us the way to heaven when you don't know even the way to the town hall? And Christians wish to show to other people the way to heaven. We show, first of all, that your life is not like our lives.

That it is a better, a more beautiful, a holier life. That you know to solve your problems in an entirely other manner than we do it. If not, you can't be believed. You can't be believed. Now, we Christians have our experiences with Jesus.

We can tell everybody we have been saved by Jesus. Saved from what? Saved from our sins. Yes, but every Sunday morning we gather again in churches. And we say, forgive our sins which we have made by words, deeds, and thoughts.

And the next Sunday we say it again, and in our homes we say it. So, it seems that we have not been fully saved by sin. From our sins. He has healed from sicknesses. I have been healed from many sicknesses.

My beautiful wife has been healed. We have had such experiences. But after having been healed from one sickness, after a time we had another sickness. Our Lord Jesus Christ has resurrected people from the dead.

A young girl, and the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus. But after a time, these again died. He has helped us in our business. We have had a bad time in our employment. Somehow these bad times passed.

We had it better. But then another wave came. And we again lost money, or we lost our employment, or I don't know what. Does not exist another salvation. A salvation higher than this. A salvation which should put me much above the ups and downs of human life.

Jesus gives us something much better than this. If I would ask you, are you God? I wonder how many of you would dare to say, yes, I am a God. Well, if you don't dare to say you are a God, you don't believe in Jesus.

Because Jesus says you are God. I don't feel at all like a God. If I look in a mirror, I see a human being. I am not a God. I don't think about myself as a God. Well, your thoughts are not right. And your feelings are not right.

And your mirror lies to you. Jesus knows better. And he says you are God. I will not tell you in what chapter, in what verse, because then you will look up that verse. Read the whole Bible and you will find the verse which I tell you.

Jesus says to those who belong to his people, you are God. You are far above the ups and downs of this life. In this life you are helped to get rid of a sin and to get rid of a sickness and to get rid of different problems.

But there is something much higher. You pass to another species. The difference between being human or being a child of God is much bigger than the difference between a monkey and a man. Because monkey and man are creatures.

But we belong to the family of God. It is written somewhere in the Bible, read the whole Bible and you will find it, that we have the divine nature. We have the nature of the creator. If we belong through Christ to God.

It is again written that we have the seed of God in us. Where there is the seed of a lily, a lily will arise from it. Where there is the seed of a carnation, there will be a carnation. And there are such strange verses in the Bible.

You would not dare to pronounce them if they were not written clearly there. Jesus promised that if you will defeat the devil and the world and your own flesh, I will give you, he says, what will he give me?

Many of us hope that we will stand once before the throne of God received. Who wishes to stand, let him stand. I don't wish to stand before the throne of God. Because the Bible says, I will give him to sit.

Not to stand. To sit. Where to sit? On my throne, says Jesus. I will give them to sit on my throne as I have conquered. And sit on the throne of the Father. Because there is somewhere a throne from which universes are created and ruled.

And we are called not to stand only in adoration before this throne. Now we stand in adoration. But we are called to develop and to sit on such a throne, co-creators and co-rulers. That is what is written clearly in the Bible.

It is very rarely mentioned in churches and in sermons. It is written that when he will appear, we will be, how? Somehow.

We will be something. We will be like him.

If you see somebody, you will be like the king. You will be like the president of the United States. You will be a genius like Einstein. It is a very big word. It is not said, well, you will also have a little bit of intelligence.

Einstein has a little bit more, you will have less. It is not said, well, the queen is a queen and you will be somewhere a policeman in the city. It is not at all. It says, Jesus is the king of kings and you will be like him.

You can be like him only because we have also the seed of Jesusness in us. As an embryo, we will be a full man once. We will be such a high being. Jesus saves us from the spiritual and bodily problems of our life here on earth.

Really, we get salvation from our sins. We get also daily salvation in the sorrows and troubles which we have. But there exists something entirely more. We can be saved from the misery, from the ups and downs of human life.

And become partakers of the divine nature. Really fulfilled. These three words which Jesus has said. Ye are God. Now, after this small introduction, I wish to tell you, this would be philosophy. I wish to tell you how this was fulfilled in the lives of Christians in communist countries.

Christian Persecution Under Communism

When the communists took over, first of all I must tell you something. I preached in this church 18 years ago. I had just come out from Romania. And I asked a gentleman who had been here 18 years ago.

What did I preach? And to my great amazement, he knew. He said, 18 years ago you told us that a communist officer had come to torture you. With his implements of torture. They had rubber truncheons. They had red-hot irons to burn.

They had knives. And you looked into his eyes. You admired his eyes. And you told him what beautiful eyes you had. I never hated the communists. I loved them. And my speech will not be an anti-communist speech.

I love them from all my heart. And I wish they should be saved. This should be clear. But when they came to power in my country, they did what they would do in Britain if they would come to power. They put thousands of Christians of all denominations in jail.

And some of us, who were considered more dangerous, we will put everyone alone in a cell. During three years I was alone in a cell. Feet beneath the rug. Our stars. With the time I forgot that these things exist.

We never saw a color. We only saw the gray walls of the cell and our gray uniforms. With the time I forgot that blue and yellow and violet and pink exist. Our world was gray. We never had a Bible. Not any other book.

We were very, very hungry. I will not describe you our menu because you would lose your appetite for a fortnight. We were very, very hungry. There were beatings, there were tortures. I will not describe the tortures.

You would not sleep a fortnight if you would know what tortures your brothers and sisters in communist countries endured. We never had a Bible. Neither any other book. I've never, 14 years I've never had a pen in my hand.

Never paper, nothing. There was no intellectual activity of any kind. And in these years of solitary confinement, we never heard a voice. We never heard a whisper. Every one of us was alone. We were so alone, so alone under the earth.

Cows grazed over our jail. Those who passed near the jail did not know it was a jail. It was under the earth. Cows grazed over it. And we were alone, alone. And we remembered the words of Jesus. Ye are God's.

God has been alone. Before he created the world, the world of angels and the world of men, he has been alone, alone, alone. And we were like God, alone. We lived in timelessness. This is a time we did not know anymore.

Is it March? Is it October? Is it Tuesday? Is it Saturday? We did not know. If it is Christmas, if it is Easter, if it is 8 o 'clock in the morning, if it is 3 o 'clock during the night, we did not know this difference.

We guessed somehow, something, but we never knew the time. We lived in timelessness. In eternity, before time started. Eternity has been hacked by us in pieces. There was a mission conference in Germany.

And they brought a convert from New Guinea, a savage, they brought him to show, look here, how you have worked. And this man from New Guinea went back, they asked him, how is life there in Europe, where you have been?

He said, it would be alright, only they are stupid. And he said, why are they stupid? They have something here at their wrist, which makes continually tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, and it cuts time in pieces.

And they are always so unhappy, now I have lost an hour, now I have lost 3 hours, I have lost 10 minutes. If they would not cut it in pieces themselves, why do they? And we had, it was some 50 years ago, we had, I was a missionary, I had to wait for a bus.

He explained to them somehow what a bus is. And the bus had just passed, and the missionary told me, let us run after the bus. So we ran, we ran, and we caught it. And when we entered, he said, now we have won 10 minutes.

And they asked the missionary, what will we do with these 10 minutes? He did not know what to do. We have cut time in pieces. There we lived in timelessness. There was no time. As God has been in timelessness.

I am Jewish, my beautiful wife is Jewish too. I am sorry you could not see how beautiful she is, although standing did not help her. She was asked to stand. You will see her at the bookstore. And we both are Jewish.

Some of you might be Jewish too. You might know that in the Hebrew language, our tenses don't exist. I am, I was, I have been, I had been, I would have been, and all these things don't exist. They have only the transitive and intransitive.

Because all these things don't correspond to reality. The one reality which we cut in pieces. We were in timelessness. We were alone, as God has been. We were outside of time, as God has been. We had nothing, nothing.

If you can imagine, we had nothing. We had no family anymore, no children, no mother, no church, no books, nothing, nothing. Everything had been taken away from us. Our clothing, everything. Our name had been taken away from us.

When you were put in jail, you were told you are not allowed to pronounce your name. Not even the guards should know whom they guard. They fear that if they take a glass of wine with a friend, they might betray the secret who is in jail.

So we were given a number, prisoner number one, prisoner number 823, 6 ,500, I don't know how much. Our number, everything had been taken away from us. We had nothing. God had nothing. We were alone like God.

We were in timelessness like God. We had nothing like God. And God, out of nothing, because he is God, he is a creator, out of nothing he made a world. Out of nothing he made a world. In all initiations, in mystery religions, they had the habit, when the disciple asked the master who initiated him, what is the world?

The master would take a rod, on the rod there was a thread, and at the end of the thread a coal burning red hot, and he would turn the burning coal around and then it made a red circle. The red circle, you could see it, you could photograph it, but it did not exist.

There was only one little bit of coal. And if he turned it around quicker and quicker, he could make ten circles out of it, he could make a sphere out of it, he could make a world out of it. And you could see the world, but the world did not exist.

That is exactly what modern science tells us. This world, where there are some little electrons and some little protons and some little neutrons, the distance from an electron to a proton is in comparison with their size as big as the distance from the earth to the sun.

And in the midst there is nothing. Now they found that the atom is also composed of smaller particles, bisons and leptons, and I don't know how they are called, to the earth to the sun. And these are smaller particles which are called quarks.

And really the world is a nothing, plus a God, who has made that out of this nothing there should be a world. He has created out of nothing. And then we asked ourselves, different Christians at different levels surely have experienced in different manners, but we said to ourselves, like God we are alone.

Like God we are outside of time. And we are Gods. Then let us act like God. Let us create a world. And in these dark, subterranean prison cells, I myself and others, we created for ourselves a beautiful world.

It was so beautiful. A world which we created because we are creators and we are children of God. It started with this, that I spoke to Jesus, I did not see him, I believed. And I spoke to him. We had no writing material, but we always wrote with a piece of wood, taken from the bed, a piece of wood.

We greased our shoes with soap and we wrote on the soles of our feet, whole books I have written. You will find when you come out, I have written not only Torture for Christ, don't read all my books because I have published already 15, but I have published one of the books, of this my correspondence with Jesus.

You will find it under the name Servant in Solitary Confinement. I corresponded with Jesus. I spoke with God. But when you speak that much with Jesus, when you speak much with God, and you speak really in faith, something happens.

You all know what erotic obsessions are, how terrible they are, especially in prison. I have not seen a girl 14 years. I have not seen a woman 14 years. And women did not see us. It can obsess you. You lie down a little bit and then you see before you girls and women and you never see your wife.

You see somebody else's wife. And I imagine that girls have the same temptation. But if our mind can evoke erotic things, our minds can evoke also spiritual things. You can evoke the presence of Jesus.

I can close my eyes now. I can see my son. I can see my daughter-in-law. I can see my grandchildren. Every one of us can, no? We can evoke the presence of somebody. And we evoked the presence of Jesus.

We evoked the presence of angels. We evoked the presence of saints. And with the time, we orientated ourselves in this entirely other world. We evoked beautiful forests and lakes and rivers and so many beautiful places and beautiful sky.

We never saw the sky with the stars. But we could evoke all these things and we lived in this world which we have created. We lived in a world with so many good men, with so many saintly men. It was a pleasure to be with them, to discuss with them.

Years passed. We did not observe the passing of time. There was no time for us. We have created for ourselves a beautiful world. And out of this, our experience. I plead with you. I know we had our sufferings.

You have yours. Many of you are very, very much alone. You are married and you are still alone because your spouse does not understand you. You have children but they break your heart. They don't understand you.

You have parents who are brutal. They don't understand you. In your church, you are misunderstood. Pastors get misunderstood. Parishioners get misunderstood. There is so much loneliness, so much loneliness.

Creating a Spiritual World in Suffering

Hallelujah! God was alone. I have nothing. I am unemployed. My business went bankrupt. I have nothing. I have no money. God had nothing. And out of nothing, he created a world. Why don't you create a beautiful world for yourself?

St. Paul was in a jail, in a subterranean jail in Rome. It was like, exactly like the cell in which I have been, under the earth. He sat on the concrete. He had no bed. He sat on the concrete. And there on the concrete, beaten, hungry, he wrote to the Ephesians, we, he meant himself and the other disciples, we are seated, he says, in heavenly places.

Go away, you liar. In what heavenly places are you seated? In a subterranean jail in Rome. He said, well, that is a material world in which I am detained somehow against my will. I am chained to this material world.

But I am a God. I am also a creator. I am a son of God. I can create a world of mine. And I can see myself and my dear brethren seated in heavenly places. And St. John deported on the island of Patmos to Egypt.

He saw so many beautiful things in heaven. He saw God. He saw the birth of angels, angelic beings. And I would recommend to every one of you, I have not come to tell you how much the Christians suffer in communist countries and how many beatings they get and how much you should help them.

I have come to tell you that they have had spiritual experiences apart which could be the common treasure of Christians also in the free world. You don't have their sadness but you have yours. You have your grievances.

You have your sorrows. You have your all kinds of things. Or your pain. You must not live in your pain. You can live outside of them. Not above them. You can be released by God from this pain or from this pain.

You can be saved from this. You can be saved from other. But you can be also above all these things. Seated in heavenly places in a world which thy spirit has created. Christ. Can't he create Christ? But who is this Christ?

Where is this Christ? Christ, where does he live? He lives on this pamphlet now because he lives on me. And if he is a creator then I can create. And we have received the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is the third person in Godhead.

He is also creator. I can create. Why should I live in this ugly world which is called reality and not live in the beautiful world which I can create for myself. I can't free myself entirely from this reality.

Somehow it chains me. It draws me back. I have to eat. I have to seek a job. I have to do something. I have to solve some family relations or I don't know what. But at the same time I have the spirit cleansed by Jesus appertaining to him which can create entirely new realities.

And I've come to plead with you. Learn from the underground church. I must say, I'm sorry I'm not a painter. I would like to have been to be a painter. And to paint the beautiful shining faces of Christians in communist jails.

Their faces shone. And it was quite an achievement even for the glory of God to shine on the face of a Christian in communist jails because we did not wash. I have not washed three years. Some of your children would enjoy it.

We did not wash. But the glory of God can shine from behind a crust of dirt. And they had a triumphant smile on their face. And I know about Christians who have come out from communist prisons I know that one who was stopped several times on the street by a hawk of fire.

And they asked him, Sir, what is it with you? You look such a happy man. What is the source of your happiness? And he told them that I come from many years in communist jails because they have not lived in their spirit in the difficulties of material life but through the spirit they have created for themselves a beautiful world as you can create every one of you.

You can live very beautiful lives. We say beautiful lives. If only you would know what life I have. Some have such a bad marital life. A bad marital life can be much worse than prison. It's terrible to have a wife or a husband who beat us or children who break your heart.

There exist so many things. And there exist grave sicknesses and terminal sicknesses and bereavements and there exist so many material difficulties. Your head breaks. You don't know how to pay and how to do it.

There exist so many difficulties. Tempest in your soul. I know these difficulties exist. But your difficulties are in any case less than those of our brother Mihai Horev. Mihai Horev is a Russian Christian.

He's in jail I believe since 15 years. His father died in the same jail in which he is now. And he tells in a letter which he recently smuggled out from prison that he was put in a cell with common criminals.

They put the Christians. Who can imagine when we speak about tortures of communists they are just nothing in comparison with being with common criminals and tortured by them. The communist you know he has 8 hours of work.

After 8 hours he goes home. But the criminal is with you 24 hours in the same cell and what they do to Christians unimaginable. Now he was in a cell with common criminals they have beaten him so that he fell unconscious.

When he came somehow to himself he heard them they were speaking among themselves we should grease some rope and we should hang him tonight. And another said no that's too complicated we will better cut his throat and then we will put the bleeding knife we will put in his hand so it will look that he has committed suicide.

And that was the talk among them and you could believe because they did these things. And then he created a word for himself and he said how beautiful will it be after they have cut my throat. He evoked heavenly Jerusalem he saw the angels receiving him taking him in their arms to bring him to the bosom to the bosom of Abraham.

And so many beautiful things he saw. He saw himself encountering the martyrs of old he had never thought that he will be with a polycarp or igneous or these holy martyrs and now a little fellow may I worry have arrived to be in their ranks.

And he enjoyed these things and enjoying them he slept the whole night very quiet. The next day again beating again in the evening they talked about killing him and he said but my father has died in this place.

Perhaps also killed by a criminal he did not know how he had died. And what an honor for me and what a joy for my father that I was not afraid and that I walked in his footsteps and I will see Jesus and thinking about this world which he created for himself.

He fell asleep again and again quietly 18 years 18 days it went like this. On the 18th day he was moved from that jail and now I have to read to you it is so beautiful that I have to read to you exactly I will have to read quietly because I will have to translate from another language.

When he had to leave the cell the criminal who had intended to cut my throat came to me shook my hand and said truly there is something supernatural in you. What in the world does a criminal know about supernatural was a page of the bible.

He knew from Horace not from the bible that Horace belongs to another species. He was the divine nature. He says something supernatural is in you. There must be a god. Every time when we spoke about you do you think we did not know that you heard us though you kept your eyes closed.

Why did you not jump at us. Why did you not panic. Why were you not sad. Why could you sleep quietly and peacefully. This only one can do who really believes in eternal life when you walk. When you were taken out for a walk in the prison yard you could have reported to a guard these men wish to kill me.

Please put me in another prison cell. That is what is usually done. But you never did it. Why. Why did you come back. Why did you not seek help with any men except with your god. And why did you pray on your knees every morning and every evening you knew that we could kill you.

We have killed so many. Why did you give yourself quietly every day in our hands. This is incomprehensible for us. Really you have something supernatural in you. Once again he shook my hand. And that is how we parted.

Horeb has not lived in this world. We all expect that Jesus will come once and will rapture us to heaven. Nobody will be raptured. I can assure you if he is not raptured already now. And nobody will be in heaven if he is not in heaven already now.

If he does not live here in an entire other world than the material world which surrounds us. So whatever your circumstances they might be terrible with some of you. I am in so many houses and I hear so many stories.

I know what is happening in different houses in the lives of men. Don't live this life. Live the new life the eternal life the timeless life to which we are called by Jesus. I read recently a happening a man was such a Christian.

He was known as a big Christian. He told others about Christ and then he fell very very sick. And then he had to inquire with everyone. But how is it with eternal life. And how is it with resurrection.

He should have known this years ago we were in prison cells with men sentenced to death as often as the door was unlocked. He did not know if he will be taken to a bath if he will be taken to an interrogation or if he is taken to be shot.

And there was such a quiet. There was no difference for him because he knew he has the eternal life. I am God. What can be done to a God. And I speak to you from experience live in this new spiritual world which is granted to you by God the fellowship with angels the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Living Above Pain Through the Fellowship of the Saints

And it is written in Hebrews 12 1 this great crowd of witnesses all these saints which are enumerated in Hebrews 11 all these big saints of olden times. Where are they? Ah they are somewhere higher up higher up.

Not true. They are here. They are around us. And you can have the fellowship with them and live amidst troubles in very great joy. And I plead to you believe me I don't speak easily to you. It's not so that I was 14 years in jail and that was it.

Almost my whole life has been a life of very very deep suffering. I have been a very poor orphan child. I have been hungry as a child that now I suffer much more than I ever suffered in a community jail.

I am a man who has no suffering and no suffering even now. And it is not easy to simply say you live in another world and pass over all these sufferings. I tell you because I have tasted it I have seen it can be done.

And if God has helped me to do it he can help every one of you. And your lives can be beautiful. Your lives can be beautiful. They can be lives of joy. They can be lives of fullness because you realize that you belong to the family of God.

You have the divine nature. You are something entirely else than the world around you. You are not submitted in your spirit to all these ups and downs which are unavoidable in life. You will be healed from a sickness and something else will happen.

You will avoid those accidents and something else. And not always something happens. And you can be helped in these. But then something else will happen. And there exists this other world peace the world of peace of God which passes all understanding and all misunderstanding.

That everything is quiet that everything is beautiful everything is serene. I call you to come to this world. I have not come to thunder here against communism. People expect very often from me he will deliver an anti-communist speech.

I have not come to recruit you. You should become from now on donors to the mission to the communist world from outside. It is all right if you give to any other missionary organization or to the church.

God has one jacket with many pockets. It makes no difference to whom you give as long as you give. I don't plead for a mission. I plead for your own souls for the happiness and for the beauty of your souls.

We all have to suffer what you see in England don't go there. They go too fast. When I came to England I was told never preach more than 20 minutes. And I stick exactly to this. I never preach more than 20 minutes but only my minutes are a little bit longer.

You know don't mind. Since 18 years I have not spoken in this church. So don't mind if I tell you just one or two things more. If you have the divine nature if you are a child of God learn to suffer in a noble manner.

You are not like the others murmuring complaining shouting. You belong to the divine nature. What is the divine nature. What is the divine nature. God is a being which suffers. God is a being which suffers.

God’s Suffering and the Christian Call to Forgiveness

In Ezekiel 6 9 it is written you have you have crushed me by your sins. In Ezekiel 16 43 God says you have crushed me by your sins. In 16 43 it is written you have threatened me by your sins. Or in another translation you have agitated me by your sins.

In the book of Malachi it is written you have wearied me out by your sins. They have to do with a God who knows suffering himself. He is agitated by our sins. He is wearied out. He is crushed. And when he sent his son to represent him here on earth he told him the only way in which you can represent me is if you become a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

When God came on earth he came as a little babe. And the first thing which I had to encounter was a hero who wished to kill him and all his life he has had to suffer poverty and oppression. And then in the end this shameful death.

And we represent this God. But God knows to suffer in a noble manner. And let us also learn. We have everyone our sufferings. We can bear them in a noble manner. First of all forgive forgive. May I tell you that Englishmen spell wrongly the word forgive.

Forgive is not f-o-r-g-i-v-e. That's wrong spelling. May I teach you. I know you see my English how good it is. I can tell you how to spell it. Forgive is spelled f-o-r-e dash give give forgiveness forgive before something happens to you.

Every man whom you know before you know anything he wishes to kill. He wishes to steal me. He wishes to wrong me. He wishes to steal from me. He wishes to embrace me. He wishes to make me happy. He wishes to crush my heart.

Four did had to stand at attention. And Nazi officers passed through the rows and picked out this one this one this one who should be gassed on that day. And they picked out a young lady a Jewish communist and she began to weep and to implore I have a little child.

What did a Nazi officer care about. That is a child of a Jewish communist. No you must go. It was a good friend. And Mary Skopceva asked herself what would Jesus have done if he would have been here would he have volunteered to die in her place in her place.