The Faces of God — Richard Wurmbrand

Verses 13 and 14. I have many things to write. But I do not wish to write to you with pen and ink. But I hope to see you shortly. And we shall speak face to face. Peace to you. Our friends greet you. Greet the friends by name.

Faith as Faces in Hebrew Thought

I am Jewish. My beautiful wife is Jewish too. And therefore, I wish to tell you some secrets of the Hebrew language. Probably you seldom have the occasion to hear a Jew preach Christ. John, who was also a Jew, and thought like a Jew, in his mind the word faith did not exist.

Because in Hebrew, the word faith does not exist. You can't say in Hebrew, the faith of a man. Instead of faith, there is a plural, faces. Every Hebrew word which finishes with him is a plural. There is only the word faces.

And I will explain to you immediately why it is important to know this. When he wrote, I wish to speak with you face to face, he thought, I wish to speak with you face to face. And now an episode of my prison life.

Speaking Truth Under Persecution

One day, years of prison had passed already, I was taken out of my cell, and brought before an officer of the Scythian police who had to investigate me. I knew that usually when you are brought there, they will beat you, they will torture you.

To my great surprise, on that evening, he was very nice, very polite. He seated me on a comfortable armchair. He had a Bible open before him, and said, Mr. Boomerang, Mr. I have not heard Boomerang, Mr.

They called us bandits, rascals, all kinds of such words. And now I try and say here, Mr. Mr. Boomerang, don't be afraid of anything. I will not inquire from you about anything. I wish just to discuss with you something from the Bible.

I was very glad. He asked me, do you believe that this word, that this is the word of God, and that it is the truth? Now, I did not explain to him, but I wish to explain to you. Preaching in any language of the world, I can lift this book and say this is the word of God.

Now, this book is written by Jews. There is not one line here written by anybody else than by a Jew. But if you wish to say in Hebrew, that this is the word of God, you can't, because the Hebrews don't have the word.

Word. What is word? We throw words around the whole week, to the right and to our left, and so much of these words are babbling. The Jews, instead of words, say dabar. And dabar means, even in modern Hebrew, which is spoken in Israel, a real thing.

I give you this real thing. After hearing somebody from the people of God speaking to you, if he has spoken to you five minutes, after this you are richer than before. He has given you a real thing which you did not have before.

And as the word does not exist, so the word to speak does not exist. To speak, instead of to speak, they say le-dabar, to give a real thing. They don't have the word to say. Instead of to say, they use le-saper.

Le-saper means to give a jewel. As often as somebody from the people of God opens his mouth, he is meant to give a jewel. If you have no jewel to give, you don't have a jewel always with you. If you don't have a jewel to give, you have a very easy solution.

Keep your mouth shut. Open it only when you have a jewel to give. If this rule would be respected, there would be no coronation of the family, there would be no divorces, there would be no split between children and parents, there would be no nothing.

No divergences in church, no conflicts, no nothing. If everybody would speak only when he has a jewel to give. To say in Hebrew means to give a jewel. And they have a third word, which is leomer. And leomer means to lift somebody, to elevate somebody to the highest branch of a tree.

When I speak, when I say something, I must elevate you. You should be in a higher sphere than you have been before. And now I could not explain all this to the captain of the Romanian secret police. They were not interested in theology.

He asked me, Do you believe that this is the word of God? And that this is true. I said that, I answered, I believe that everything in this book is true. So he opened the Bible, the first page, and said, Here it is written that God created man in his image and in his likeness.

Do you believe this to be true? Captain, I told you already that I believe everything in the Bible to be true. So this also, I believe that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Then he opened his drawer and took out from the drawer a small mirror and gave it to me and said, Please look into the mirror.

I had never been so shocked as before. I had not seen myself in a mirror during years. And as I saw now, it was a horror. I was considered at that time a very handsome man. Now there exists only one person who still believes that I am handsome.

That's my wife. But at that time there were others who also believed that I am a handsome man. And what I saw was so monstrous. First of all, surely they were sure. I was only skin and bones. I had dark circles around my eyes.

I had no teeth in my mouth. The communists said, The most perfect dentistry. Pak! Pak! You remain without teeth for all your life and without toothache. You are finished with dentistry. And I was terribly, terribly ugly while sitting in prison, not seeing myself in a mirror.

I did not know that I would have to be like this. It was something new to me. He enjoyed to see that I am shocked. And he asked me, Mr. Burmerland, you are a man of truth. You are a pastor. You are a Christian.

You are meant to say the truth. Would you admit that you are very, very ugly? I said, In my life, I have never seen somebody as ugly as I see that I am now. Well, but you just said that you believe men to be created in the image and likeness of God.

You are a man. So you also must be created in the image of likeness and likeness of God. Do you believe this? Yes, surely I believe. Well, if you are so ugly and you are His likeness, then God must be monstrous or ugly.

And if He is so terribly ugly, then why do we love Him? We love a pretty child, a pretty flower. We love beautiful things. We don't chase after the ugly things. Why would you sacrifice yourself and why would you honor so and praise somebody who is so terribly ugly?

Look in the mirror and you will see how ugly your God is. He is as ugly as you. Now, you can be a doctor in theology, but you are not taught in theology what to reply to such a question. But we have a friend who gives us the idea what to say.

The Many Faces of God in Christ

And I replied to him, I am a Jew, but I told you before, he knew that I am Jewish. And in my language, the word faith does not exist. We have only one expression, faith says. There is a deep sense in the fact that Jews don't admit the singular faith, because there is no man who should have only one faith.

Everyone has several faiths. If I would have the money to build a church, I would make here, there is a baptistery, there is a big mirror. And you should see yourselves on Sunday morning. You are so beautiful on Sunday morning.

You are relaxed. You smile to your wife. You smile to your child or to whom you have. Everything is so nice. You are beautiful. On Monday when you don't like the soup of your wife, you don't have the same face.

What kind of soup is this? It's not the same face. On Tuesday, when something is wrong with your car. On Wednesday, when you are fired from job. When you fall sick. When you get bad news. You have other and other faces.

Every one of us has many faces. Many faces. It is good for those who marry to know that they marry a person with many faces. He will not be always the smiling bridegroom and the smiling bride. He will pass.

So different tempers and so different whims and so different episodes in his life and she also will change and change. You take a person with many faces and you must love him with all his faces. And to explain to him, we don't have the word face in Hebrew.

And the God who made me in his likeness is also a person with many faces. Where it is written in our Bible, may God shine his face upon you in Hebrew it is, may God shine his faces upon you. He has one face of utter serenity, quiet, love.

He knows he is the king of kings. He will be the ruler of this world, uncontested. His will be the victory. His face around him is quiet as the rest. That is one of the faces of God. He has also another face.

He became man in Jesus Christ. And they spat in his face. They kicked him in his face. Tears and blood mingled on his face. He was unwashed in prison in which he was kept the night before. He must have had straw in his hair from the straw mattress from which he slept that night.

And then they dropped nails into his hands and into his feet. His face must have been marked by the suffering through which he passed. Every physical suffering distorts you. And he did not have only the physical suffering.

He had the spiritual suffering. He saw his holy mother weeping at the foot of the cross. That must have broken his heart. You could see on his face all this pain. Jesus on the cross was not beautiful.

But this was also a face of God. And that was not the only face of Jesus. On the third day he rose and he was so beautiful, so beautiful and so shining that the Roman soldiers could not look at him. They fell down.

He had another face. So I might be very ugly today but this my ugly face is also the face of a God who loves me and is taking upon himself all the ugliness of human life and human sin in order to save us.

Yes captain, I'm ugly but I'm his and I have his face. He did not reply but there was a reply in this that on that night I was not beaten which was a very rare thing. So the word must have impressed him.

Persecution of Christians Under Communism and Islam

And now in connection with this episode I wish to tell you I really don't know how to start in this regard. In Romania not and in the other communist countries not only that Christians were beaten were tortured in many communist countries they still are one billion men are in communist China and in communist China it is still the terror system of one single party.

Christians are in prison in Vietnam, in Cuba and then there are those in Muslim countries. In Muslim countries the persecution is worse than in communist countries. In Iraq Saddam Hussein has killed 5000 Christians.

In Iran Christians were sleep naked and buried in the snow until they froze there. In Sudan another Muslim country in Africa they cut the arms off from Christians and use these arms for beating their drums.

Such things are happening today in Muslim countries and in communist countries. In China a covert of my mission Christian mission to the communist world two weeks ago he was hung head down until he died.

He died. Our brother Waifu two weeks ago. And such things are happening and now it is not only that the communist torture. It is that they change the whole people to be a people of criminals. You have to denounce your neighbor.

If your neighbor has said one word of criticism of the government and you did not denounce him, you go to prison together with him. And to be very sure that they denounce him they put their men to tell you words of criticism and then they find out have you reported it or did you not report it.

So you did not dare not to report it. Children report on their parents. Otherwise they would not be able to study in the university. Parents report on their children. Bridegrooms on brides. In the church you have to report on the pastor and the pastor has to report on you.

On Sunday he preaches and on Monday he is called to the secret police and asked what is it with the members of your church? Did any of them confess to you some sin? What did he confess? And what did he say about his work?

And is any one of them active in propagating the gospel? And the pastor has to say it. If not, he does not remain a pastor. So we are all caught in this criminal system. I come now from Russia and Romania.

A few weeks before I was in Russia. And I spoke with a sister of ours. Zoek Rachmaninoff. She has been in prison and she told me the story. A sister of ours was arrested. She had worked in the underground church.

They had there secret printing shops. Secret printing shops. Our mission had helped in smuggling in printing machines. Now you can't smuggle a printing machine. But we smuggled a wheel and then another wheel and then a lever and then this and then that.

And then an engineer went and put all these things together. And there was a printing machine. And they printed. They could not print books. Bibles. But they printed a gospel. They printed a hymn. They printed such small things.

And in the end she was caught. And now she was beaten and tortured to tell who else works together. First of all, from where do you have the paper? From where do you have the ink? How do you transport what you have printed?

How do you distribute them? There are secrets. And they wish to know all these things in order to arrest the other ones. She refused to say. Then one day they called her again and said, we have had plenty with you.

If you don't say us today what we asked from you, we will throw boiling water in your face. She said, you can't do a thing like this. We will show you that we can do a thing like this. And they have thrown boiling water in her face.

Now here are so many ladies and sometimes when you work in the kitchen just one or two drops of boiling water falls on your hand and you know what pain it is. They threw boiling water in her face from a cup.

After a few days when she came back somehow they brought her again before the same officer of the secret police. This time she found in the room of the secret police her daughter of six arrested. My son has been arrested at the age of three.

This is such a trauma for a child. A child never overcomes anymore this memory of having been arrested and threatened at the age of three. My son is now 53. He still remembers this. Her daughter was arrested at the age of six and she was in the same room with him.

And the officer of the secret police told our sister now either you tell us everything or if not we throw this cup of burning water in the face of your child. Now here there are some mothers and you might have small children.

What would you have chosen? Would you have chosen that let my child suffer? Let his face be marred forever? The water may enter in the eyes. She might become blind. Whatever can happen. Or will I become a traitor and tell the police of these God-haters who are the other Christians whom they should arrest?

What would you have chosen? I am not a mother. I can't really feel how it is. But the choice must have been terrible for her. The child began to weep and said, Mother save me. And the mother replied my child I cannot save you.

Now you will not understand me but perhaps you will understand later. I don't wish to do you the shame to have his mother a Judas, a traitor. I must be faithful to Christ and to His Holy Church. I will not betray and they threw burning water in the face of this child.

Now there are such terrible problems terrible problems with us. At every moment you have to choose between betraying God or betraying your country or betraying humanity or betraying simply to be a human being.

I was in the same cell with a man. He was innocent. His daughter came as witness of prosecution against him. And he said she had to come as witness of prosecution because she had two small children. And if she would not have come, they would have arrested her too and the two children would have remained.

But he died from a broken heart because his daughter had been a witness of prosecution against him. And we are all there involved in this dirt and in this blood and in all this. And there the Church of Christ is called upon it has a very high challenge to bring there the message of love and of forgiveness and of goodness of Christ.

Evangelism in the Midst of War and Atheism

And again, instead of telling you theories I will tell you another episode of my life. At the end of World War II my country, Romania has been invaded by one million Soviet soldiers. I speak Russian as well as English.

You will say as bad as English, but in any case I speak it. And I speak it fluently. And then the Soviets invaded my homeland and left any other work. And I and other members of our Church we ran after these Soviet citizens to tell them about Christ because we knew that they in their country are forbidden to hear these things.

They know only one thing. Religion is an invention of the American imperialists. There is no God. God is also invented by some American president. They hate God. It's not atheism that they don't believe in God.

But they propagate hatred towards God. Hatred towards Christ. Hatred towards the Bible. And 70 years. At that time it was only 40. And we ran after them to give them we printed secretly at that time Russian Gospels.

We had censorship in our country. We could not print Russian Gospels. But happily the censor did not know Russian. And when I went with the manuscript to him he asked me, what is this? I said, a love story in Russian.

Ah, it's a love story. And I had not lied. It was a love story. And we spread the Russian Gospels and so on. We gathered the Russians in secret meetings and spoke to them. One Sunday I preached thrice and was really very, very tired.

I was in bed already and I felt an inner voice saying to me stand up dress yourself again and go to the pub which is opposite your house. We had a very big pub opposite the home where we lived. Go into the pub.

I immediately dressed myself. My wife asked me, what are you doing? I said, I have an inner call to go to the pub now. I have something to do there. You can't go in the pub. You have preached today thrice that people should not go in the pub.

And now you will go. Everybody will laugh about you. Come with me and they will laugh about both of us. And so she dressed herself too. She is a very obedient wife. And she also dressed herself. And we entered in the pub.

Everybody knew who I am there in the pub. I was known there in the court. We entered in the pub. It was late in the night. In the midst of the pub stood a Russian captain with a revolver in his hand shouting that everybody is threatening to shoot everybody.

He was drunk. They did not wish to give him more to drink. And now he was threatening. He could not speak to them in Romanian. They did not know English. They could not arrive to any understanding. And people had hidden themselves behind the bar and under the table because in our country at that time a Soviet captain could shoot just everybody.

He would have no punishment. He would not be judged. They were the victors. They could do just what they liked. I understood the situation. I went to him and spoke with him in Russian. This quietened him down.

I asked him what it is about. You don't wish to give me to drink. I will see about it. And I went to the pub owner and said just give him a bottle of wine. And I and my wife, we will sit with him. And we will talk with him and we will quieten him down.

Then I will take him out of the pub and everything will be all right. And the pub owner said, Pastor Wurmbrandt, you have saved my life. From henceforth in my pub you can drink for free as much as you like.

So you see it is advantageous to preach the gospel. The gospel has its rewards. And we sat down. And the waiter brought a bottle of wine with three glasses. The Russian officer was very polite. He filled the three glasses.

My wife does not drink wine. I don't drink wine. But he was very polite. He drank all the three glasses. And while he drank, the Russians are used to much drinking. They don't lose their mind when they drink.

It's amazing how much they can drink. And while he drank, I told him the old, old story that there is no more beautiful story in the world. About a God. A God who was in the most beautiful place in heaven.

And he left everything to be born in a stable. To lead a whole life in poverty and in oppression. Just because he loved. And he loved every man. He never asked anybody, what sins have you made? He did not ask.

He told everybody, you can be saved, whatever you have done. And he healed the sick and fed the hungry and cherished children and wiped away tears. And he was good, good, good, good. And his reward was that they persecuted him.

He was betrayed. But he loved the one who had betrayed him and called him friend. And then they crucified him. And when he was on the cross, in terrible pain, his first thought was, it would be nice if those who have crucified me would be saved.

And he said, Father, so what if they crucified me? You have forgiven them so many sins. This sin can go to, Father forgive them because they don't know what they do. He said a nice word to his mother, which we sometimes forget to say.

Why don't we speak nicely to our mothers, to our grandmothers? He spoke nicely from the cross to his mother, to Joan. Then he said, Father, in thy hands I surrender my spirit. And he died on the cross.

But on the third day he resurrected and he went to heaven. He drank and drank and drank again and commanded an order, another bottle of wine, and listened to me without interrupting. When I had finished, he said, You don't need to tell me who you are.

I know. Now I will tell you who I am. I am an Orthodox priest. You know that Orthodoxism is the main religion of Russia and of my homeland Romania too. It is something similar to Catholicism. I am an Orthodox priest.

And when the great persecution started in our country, 50 ,000 priests were killed by them. But Baptists, Pastors too, and Catholics, and Adventists, and whatever you like, they made no difference. They killed and killed and destroyed churches.

When there was this great persecution, I feared for my life. The Communists came to me and to a few others and said, You can save your life. If you are a priest, go with us from town to town and from village to village, and tell people there is no God, and there is no Christ, and there is no Bible, and there is no nothing.

Only Karl Marx and Lenin and Communism and everything else. And I feared for my life. I did not wish to die. I did not wish to die. And I agreed with them. And I went and propagated Atheism. I destroyed the faith of many Christians.

I destroyed the faith of some whom I had baptized. They had been my parishioners. I told them not to believe anymore what I had told them. And my punishment from God has been that now during the war I was ordered to shoot Christians who refused to fight on the side of Communism.

And with this my hand, with this I baptized in times of war. With this my hand, with this I gave the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. With this my hand I shot Christians. And now I drink, and I drink, and I drink to forget what I have done, but I can't forget.

Bring another bottle of wine, if not I shoot you. You can imagine how moved my wife and I were, and how thankful to God that He has brought us to this moment. So I asked him, do you still remember the creed?

Now, in the Baptist church the creed is not recited, but you know, in Lutheran churches and Catholic and Orthodox churches there is a creed. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and then one Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and the one Holy Church, and so on, you know.

Even if we don't, if in free churches, in Baptist churches, these things are not recited, but basically we also have the same belief. So, I recited to him this creed in Russian, and I asked him, do you still believe in God?

I surely do. I never cease to believe. I see it for my life, that was all. I continue to believe, and I destroy the faith. That was, I was two persons, one which believed, and one which committed the crime of taking away the faith from others.

I continue to recite the creed, do you still believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? I told you already, I believe everything. Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? Yes, yes, don't bother me so much, I told you, I believe everything.

Do you believe in the one Holy Church? Yes, I believe. Then I came to the end of the creed. I believe in the remission of sins. And I asked him, do you believe this too? Why do you ask me again and again?

I told you, I believe everything. Do you believe that your sins are remitted? Mine? No. Why? Because there have been so many. Yes, but the creed says, I believe in the remission of sins. It doesn't say how many sins.

The Forgiveness of Even the Worst Sins

When Joseph the Baptist saw Jesus, he said, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. If you alone would have committed all the murders, all the adulteries, all the perjuries, all the lies, all the thefts, all the robberies, everything, everything, which has been committed by all men during the whole history of mankind.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. You can't out-sin God. His grace is always greater than any sin which has been committed by the whole of mankind. Do you believe that your sins are remitted?

He died for your sins. Whatever you have done. He never asked anybody, how many sins did you do? What kind of sins did you do? A robber was crucified near him and said, I would also like to enter in Paradise.

If it would have been me, I would have told him, wait a little bit before entering in Paradise. Tell me how much you have robbed. And how often you have robbed. He asked him just nothing. He wished to enter in Paradise.

That is why he came from Heaven to Earth. To take even the worst of sinners. Do you believe in the forgiveness of your sins? And tears streamed down his eyes. And he said, I believe in the remission of my sins.

Jesus had outdone himself. He said that he is a good shepherd who comes to save lost sheep. This time, he saved a lost shepherd, not a lost sheep. So we had this joy of spreading the news in all these years.

We spread the news to the worst of men. And to the better men. To everybody. And God did not count. The suffer did not count. Because the joy of seeing men who have fallen in such terrible crimes. That they get saved.

It was a big deal for the communists. That they gave a little bit of beating. And brought souls to eternal salvation. The deal was not advantageous for them. And this work was done. And continues to be done.

Loving Persecutors and Seeking Their Salvation

In communist countries, in China, in Vietnam, in Cuba, and so on. And perhaps I should tell you just one thing. About a very, very lovely girl. She was arrested in Russia. She was arrested in Russia again for this underground work.

Tortured, beaten. I will not describe to you the torture. If I would describe the torture, you would not eat the nice lunch which your wife has prepared. You would not sleep the night. Such terrible things.

Which can't be said. I have published several books. Torture for Christ and other books. You will find them. I don't know where the books are here. I have written several in my book. But don't believe the things I wrote in the book.

The worst things I did not say in the books. No publisher would have published them. It was unbearable things they did. And they did to this girl too. And while she was so terribly tortured, do you know what her main thought was?

Not how to escape the torture. How to escape the torture was very easy. I tell the communists all the secrets of the church and I'm free. It was a very easy solution. But her problem was not how to escape torture.

Her problem was how to bring the torturer to Christ. But this torturer Christ died for him on the cross. He is Christ's love. Christ has longed for him. God longs for him. So this man I must bring to Christ.

Why am I arrested? God knew that torturers don't come to a Christian gathering. So somehow the Christians must arrive into their hands. Otherwise they will never hear the gospel. A torturer will never hear the gospel unless the torturer does not tell him the gospel.

Then hallelujah! Then I have a possibility to bring a torturer to heaven. She thought only about this. And when Christians were tortured, they had the opportunity to speak with the torturers because the torturers would take a coffee break.

To torture is a heavy work. One of the torturers said to us, why do you shout and cry when we torture you? That's a question because we feel pain. What do you know about pain? You don't know pain. We know what pain is.

I beat you half an hour. I can't beat you more because I have to beat so many. Then you rest in your cell. But I have to beat eight hours a day, six days a week. Since ten years.

I beat and I beat and I beat. The only music which I hear is PAK! HA! PAK! HA! That's the only music which I hear. The laugh and the cry.

I'm mad in the evening when I'm finished. And then I go to a pub, get drunk, and then beat my wife too. That is my life since ten years. We know pain more than you. And in a certain sense, he was right.

So they took coffee breaks. At ten o 'clock, somebody would bring them a cup of coffee. They would smoke a cigarette. If you were a smoker, they would give you also a cigarette. And they were jolly fellows for half an hour.

You could talk with them. And these coffee breaks were always used by believers to witness for Christ. And this girl also used. And said to the officer who tortured her, Sir, you will never beat out of me my love for God.

This you understand. Many Christians might have told you this. But I will tell you something more. You will never beat out from me my love for God and my love for you because I love you heartily. Hey, give her a slap, you stupid girl.

We are not here as a love matter here. Then you should tell us the secrets of your church and so on. She said, I have to tell you something. I will tell you something which usually no girl would say to a man.

But here we are in exceptional circumstances. When you beat me, I look to your hands. Do you know that you have such beautiful hands? I imagine how your wife must have vibrated of joy when you caressed her first.

And how she enjoys it to be caressed. May I put you a question, Captain? Is caressing caressing? Is it not better than beating? When you caress, the caressed has a joy and you enjoy it. When you beat, the beaten has no joy and you yourself say that you are tired of beating.

Then why don't you change? Instead of beating, you should begin to caress. Caressing is much better than beating. And I will tell you another thing which no girl would tell to a man. Girls always expect that the other one's side should make them compliment.

They will never make a compliment. I will tell you something. You have very attractive lips. I imagine how your wife enjoys it when you give her a kiss. And I put you with a question. Is kissing kissing?

Is it not better than swearing and yelling? Then why don't you kiss instead of yelling and swearing and saying all kinds of bad words? By the way, husbands can also learn this, that kissing is better than swearing or yelling.

And if you feel very mad at your wife, give her a kiss. The same lips, instead of using for yelling. She told him, is kissing not better than yelling? I have a boyfriend, she told him. Now my boyfriend, now every girl praises her boyfriend, but my boyfriend is something special.

Not that he loves me. He is love. He is love. And he shed his love in my heart. And since I have his love, I can't make a difference. If somebody caresses me, I love him. And if somebody beats me, I love him.

I just love everybody. He kicked her here in the temple. She fell on the concrete of the cell, also how she fell. The fact is, she passed, she fell in smoke, she passed out. And she came to herself after a few minutes.

She saw him sitting quietly in a chair and asked her, you stupid girl, what is the name of this boyfriend of yours? And sit here and meditate about what your boyfriend taught you. Caressing, caressing, is better than beating.

She understood. How in the world did I not think about it until now? Instead of caressing, caressing is better than beating. And kissing is better than yelling and swearing. Who is this boyfriend of yours who taught you such wise things?