Preserve the Word — Richard Wurmbrand

To my brethren and sisters, you very, very beloved children. To brethren I say only dear. To children I say very, very beloved, because during my 14 years in communist jails, I've never seen a child. And for me it is a special joy to see these beautiful, beautiful children, some of them old and old friends of mine already.

First of all, I have to apologize for speaking to you being seated. During these years in jail, we almost never walked. We had sometimes heavy chains at our feet, up to 50 pounds. There were beatings with rubber truncheons on the soles of the feet.

And now it is difficult for me to stand a long time. You will have guessed already that I intend to speak a long time, but I can't stand a long time. Secondly, I have to speak, I have to apologize for something else.

You will have some difficulty in understanding me, because Americans have such a strange manner of speaking English. I speak the real English. But you will understand, I hope. Before speaking to you, I wish to introduce other two jailbirds, and not the only jailbird.

There is one who honors me greatly with his friendship, a man of God. He is priest Streza, who has been with me in the same prison cell in Romania. Please stand up, Vasilis Streza. Many years there. Please make his acquaintance at the end.

And then there is another jailbird here, a very beautiful one. That is my wife, Sabina. She has been in jail at the same time when I was in jail, but in another jail. I did not see her all these 14 years.

Did I say it right? My beautiful wife, Sabina. And before speaking to you, I wish to read Psalm 12, which contains a very strange verse. To the chief musician, on an eight-stringed harp, a psalm of David.

Preserving the Pure Word of God

Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak idly, everyone with his neighbor, with flattering lips and a double harp they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud things.

They have said, with our tongue we will prevail, our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord. I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.

Now be attentive. The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them. Who is this them? The words of the Lord. You shall keep them, O Lord.

You shall preserve them from the generation forever. We all think about spreading the word. And here we read that we have to preserve the word from the world, because the word may harm the word of God.

About this I wish to speak to you a few words. When I preach, nobody has to look to the watch, because I do it myself, to be very sure I don't preach too shortly. So you don't have to look. I am a Jewish Christian.

And therefore I will start with an old, old Jewish legend. It is said that King Saul, the first Jewish king, had at his court a boy with the name of David. He loved him very much. David had defeated the giant Goliath, and he was very, very beloved at court.

And one day the king sat on his throne, and around him all his counsellors, and the king had near his throne a beautiful harp. And David, who was a musician, begged the king, allow me to play on that harp.

The king said, no, it has no sense. I have been cheated. I paid big money for this harp, but nobody was able to play on it. I have brought the biggest harpists, the biggest musicians of the world. They could not play on it.

So ugly, you can't, you can't bear to listen. I have been cheated. David said, allow me just to try. And now King Saul loved David. He said, all right, do it. You will see, you can't play on this harp.

But when David put his little fingers on the strings, at once there was such a joy. The harp, you saw the harp jubilated, that it found the right musician. And according to his command, the harp rejoiced, and the harp wept, and the harp rejoiced again.

And then there was life in this whole music. When he finished, everybody in the room was in tears. And King Saul asked him, how is it that the greatest musicians did not succeed to play on this harp, and you succeeded to play such a masterpiece?

And then David said, all the other harpists have tried to play on this harp their own song, and the harp refused to play their song. I played to the harp the song of the harp. I reminded it how beautiful it was when she was a young tree in the forest, and birds were in its branches, and children played under the tree.

And there was such a joy in the beams of the sun, and you heard how the harp jubilated when I reminded her of her beautiful youth. And then I played to the harp about the dark day when evil men came and cut the tree.

It died. And you heard how the harp wept remembering this evil day. But then I played to the harp, but with this, things were not finished. You died as a tree, but you were born again as a harp. Now from your wood, a harp has been made which can play the glory of God, and you heard the harp jubilating again.

Singing Christ’s Own Song

When the Messiah, when the Savior will come, many will try to play on His harp their own song. And the songs will be very, very ugly. On the harp of the Savior, we must sing His song, not our song. We must sing to Him about His glory in heaven before He came to earth, with archangels and angels and the whole creation bowed to Him.

Then about His humiliation when He was a little babe in a stable, in a stable, despised by men, and His mother had to flee with Him to Egypt because the king wished to kill Him. And then a whole life of poverty and of oppression despised by men, and how many times they tried to kill Him and how they insulted Him.

And then we will have to play on the harp of Jesus the sad day when He was arrested, when His hands, which have done only good, were bound, when He was brought before unjust judges, and they will spit on Him, they will mock Him, then they will drive nails in His hands and in His feet, He will see a holy mother weeping at the foot of the cross, and then He will die on the cross, shouting, a lie, a lie, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

But then we have to play on His harp the story of His resurrection and the story of His glorification, but also the story of His compassion for us and His participation in all our sufferings, in all our afflictions, He is afflicted too.

Even something more terrible is written in the Bible, that when a believer sins, I will not tell you where it is written, because you would look up in the Bible the chapter and the verse about which I tell you, I tell you what is written there, you read the whole Bible and you will find what I tell you, it is written, that when a believer sins, he is crucified afresh.

Do you remember that it is written in the Bible? So He suffers again and again, in all our falling away, in our coming back, in all the tragedies through which we pass, it is also His tragedy, and when the Savior will come, we will have to play on His harp His own song, not ours, and then the song will be beautiful.

I also wish tonight not to play my own song, but to play His song, who has done such wonderful things for every one of us. Nobody can describe how much He took upon Himself, not only that He died on Golgotha for us, that would have been too little.

What did He do after Golgotha? Who knows what He did after Golgotha? He went to hell! He went to hell! No, I have not been in hell, but this is my good friend, brother Streza, and I, and my beautiful wife too, we have been in the antechamber of hell.

We have been in communist prisons. It was so terrible there, that there had been nights, when during the night I looked to the cup of water which I had in the cell, to convince myself that it is not hell yet.

I knew from the Bible that in hell there is no water. And so I became quiet. I have water, it is not hell yet, but it looks like hell. In the Romanian prison of Pitești, Father Streza also knows, Christians, and also other prisoners, have been compelled during years, every day, by unspeakable tortures, to eat every day their own offal, and to drink urine, day after day.

Hell! And the communists were not satisfied with this. A Catholic priest, a friend of mine, who was half-mad already because of the tortures, he did not know what he does, and on a Sunday morning, they gave him on one hand, a plate with human excrement, and in another hand, a cup stolen from a church, this human urine, and they put him to say the Mass, over these elements.

Now you know that in the Catholic Mass, or in the Orthodox Liturgy, the same words are said, which are said in our Evangelical meetings, the same things are said. The Holy Verse of Jesus, before which angels shudder, take and eat, this is my body, broken for you, and take, drink, this is my blood, shed for you, for remission of sins.

This Holy Verse, was said about dirt, upon dirt, and upon urine, and I will not tell you all the things which happened, but terrible things happened. We went in hell. I can't describe to you the stench, and the dirt, and the suffering, and the tears, and the cries, and the howling, which were there.

Christ’s Suffering and Victory Over Hell

Now we were there, because we had been put there, I did not choose to go there. But Jesus chose to be there. He left the heaven, the heaven. If he would have only been whipped, somewhere in Jerusalem, it would have been a great thing, a son of God, who allows himself to be whipped for us.

No. But he was crucified, he died. Then he thought, perhaps that is too little, I will go further. I will go, perhaps there are some sinners, who have done such terrible crimes, and can't believe, that I can be saved.

What I have done is too terrible. I will show him, what terrible sufferings I have taken upon myself, in order to save him, that he should be free. I will take the worst of sufferings. And he went to hell.

And then he resurrected. But even in heaven, it's written in Hebrews chapter 6, he suffers as often as we sin, he suffers times like those of crucifixion. Now why does he take all these things upon himself?

Because he has a very big purpose, a purpose about which I would not dare to speak, if it would not be said verbatim, just like this in the Bible. It is very little known. But in Revelation chapter 3 it is written, that those who will conquer, conquer their own sinful nature, and conquer the devil, and conquer the influences of the world, I will give them, I will give them, he says.

What will he give us? I will give them to sit. Ah, very nice. I will have also a little chair, there will be Jesus, there will be God, and I will also sit on a little chair. It's very nice, very nice.

No! I will give them to sit, he says. Who knows how it goes further? I will give them to sit on my throne. That's how it's written. I will give them to sit, says Jesus, on my throne, as I have conquered, and I sat on the throne with my father, to rule forever.

There exists somewhere in this universe, a throne from which words are created, and from which words are ruled, and I and you are called to become persons who will sit on that throne. In John 10, Jesus says a word, which again I would not dare to pronounce, if Jesus would not have said them just like this, ye are, how many of you are gods?

Would you please lift your hands, all those who are gods? Well, if you are not a god, then Jesus is a sinner, a liar, because he has said, ye are gods! Every caterpillar is a future butterfly, every caterpillar.

A caterpillar is ugly, it's nothing, no? But it will be a multicolored butterfly, and every egg may contain a beautiful peacock, and I am here nothing at all, a little man, but in me there exists a possibility to become a being which will sit on the throne of God, from which words are created and are ruled.

So such a thing we are created. And he gave his life for us, to bring us to such a high state, which we can't even comprehend. There we should be, and we should know all the privileges of heaven, and fulfill all the tasks of heaven.

We are called to something very grand, and therefore we are on a very low level now. We are busy with so many little things which don't count. Five minutes after death, there will not be all my financial worries, and worries of the family, and worries about my health, and about my family, these will pass away.

The existence is a great fight. Will I live to be with God on his throne? Or will I be just a nothing at all? That is a great battle. And to show us the importance of this battle, and how he is on our side, he has taken upon himself our worst sins, our worst crimes, all our bad deeds, and all our neglects to do good, he has taken all these upon himself, and gives us a new life.

Cleansing Sin and Living for Eternal Glory

He makes us to be whiter than snow. Whiter than snow. Whiter than snow. I did not say, well, it does not say, the Bible does not say, that he makes us whiter than snow. No, it does say otherwise. If your sins, not you, if your sins would be red as scarlet, I will make them, who is the them?

The sins. I will make them to be whiter than snow. Amazing. I have committed sins, he will so clean them, he will make them the sins, to be whiter than snow. He prepares for us beauties, which can't be put in words.

And therefore, to play on the harp of Jesus, all our little ideas, and conceptions, and denominations, is worthless. On the harp of Jesus, we should play only his song. Now, being Jewish, I can tell you a secret, of the Hebrew, and also of the Greek Bible.

The Old Testament is written in Hebrew, the New Testament is in Greek. In the Bible, as it was written in the beginning, not the translations, which we have in the beginning, there exists no punctuation.

The Bible has no commas, has no stop, has no question marks, has no semicolon, has none of these things, you know, which we have. Just the words. Because all these commas, and all these stops, and all these marks, make you to stop in your speaking.

Here I have to stop a little bit, it is a comma, and here I have, again, to stop a little bit more, because there is a stop. No! Like a torrent, like a river of fire and of love, so must the words of a preacher stream.

If I don't stop at any commas, at any signs, at anything, I love Jesus, I have met Jesus, He has saved me, and I wish you, and the whole world, to serve Him wholeheartedly, without any commas, without any stops, without any question marks.

There is no question mark in the Old Bible. In our translations, there is a question mark. Therefore you find so many doubters. But in the Bible, as it was given by God, there was not one single question mark.

What should I question? God has spoken, and I should question. I would be stupid about it. And I would like to speak with you in such a way. When I became a young preacher, more than 50 years ago, my ambition was to become a Red Spurgeon and Moody and all these.

And I desired very much to be a fiery preacher who should speak so from all the heart and people around me should catch this flame and the fire should burn in them. And I have not become yet such a preacher, but I am not despaired because I am only 82, so I still have time.

I can become next year or tomorrow. But that is to play on behalf of Jesus the song of Jesus. And now it is written here in Psalm 12 that God may preserve His words from this generation, from these men.

The World’s Attempts to Destroy or Minimize Scripture

But what harm can men do to the Word of God? They can do very much harm. First of all, they can burn the Bibles. I come from Romania. Now I have been to Russia. I have just been to Russia. Millions of Bibles.

And in China and everywhere, millions of Bibles have been burned. Millions of Bibles have been burned. They have been torn in pieces. Many have been put in Bibles in prison for years for having spread the Word of God.

So the world has an enmity towards the Word of God. But there exists also something else. In America, nobody burns a Bible. Nobody burns your Bible. Nobody puts you in prison for having the Bible and reading it and spreading it.

But you can minimize the Bible. You can have it. And you can read it. And you can spread it. And not give to it the due honor which you have to give to it. If you don't give to it, you treat it bad. There are so many books.

That's also a book like other books. And I don't give it much attention. The most of that in America... I so wondered when I came to America. I found out how many kinds of Bibles you have. We in Romania, we had one Bible.

And we did not have it. It was secret. We had to spread it secretly. And when it was found out, you went to prison and so on. But here when I came, I found King James Version. Another King's Version. A Republic's Version.

A Living Bible. A Dead Bible. All kinds of translations. And we passed from one translation to the other. I know only one Bible. The Bible which I have decided to study and to follow. That is the Bible.

In vain I have 20 translations which I study again and again and I don't follow them. And we minimize. We make out of the Bible a subject of discussion and sometimes of quarrel. That is interpretation.

The other one is interpretation. Jesus did not say to interpret but to follow, but to do what is written there. And the way of using the Bible in such a low manner. Now I will tell you how the Bible can be received.

Receiving the Word as Living Good News

I speak Russian as well as English. You will say as bad as English. That's my opinion but you are English too so we are on the same level. But I speak good Russian. And at the end of World War II we had one million Soviet soldiers enter our country.

They invaded it. We did not invite them. They just came and took over our country. And a new Russian. And we immediately started a missionary work among these Soviet soldiers. They had been brought up like it was under communism.

We had it also afterwards in our country. There is no God. There is no Christ. There is no nothing. Bible is not true. And religion is an invention of the American imperialists. And so they invented this whole thing.

And everything is not... So they knew nothing, nothing about Christ. And one day I had before me a young Russian lieutenant. He had gone... He felt that he had sinned. And he did not know what to do about his sins.

And he saw we still had the Orthodox churches. So he entered in that church and wished to tell a priest. He wished to confess to the priest. But the priest did not know Russian. And he did not know Romanian.

So he told the priest what he had on his... The priest did not understand. He did not understand the absolution of the priest. But the priest, knowing that I speak Russian, he sent him to me. He gave him my address.

And that is how I arrived in my home. And I had a young man before me who had never heard anything about God, about Christ. Only bad things. He had heard about Him. And... I feared to speak to him because I feared I would say something wrong.

So I said, instead of speaking, I would just read to him from the New Testament. And I read to him the Sermon on the Mount. I read to him a few of the parables of Jesus, a few of the miracles of Jesus, a few of His major sayings.

And to my great amazement, he began to dance around in the room. He was not a Pentecostal. He did not know that Pentecostals existed in this world. But he danced around in the room. You can be... Without being a Pentecostal, you can dance.

Why did Miriam dance? Was she a Pentecostal? She was not even a Baptist and she danced. And why did David dance? He was not even a Lutheran. Why did he dance? He danced because he had the joy of the Lord.

And he began to dance around in the room and shouted, What a fairy beauty! What a fairy beauty! How could I live without knowing this? And I admired him and I learned from him. That is how this Bible is splendid news.

That I can become a being who will sit on the throne of God. Amazing! I will have a role in creating the world and making them happy. And spreading around me love and truth and bringing joy to nations and call to something very great.

And he has given his life for me. Even when he heard these things, he danced for joy. Without ever having been at any Christian meeting, he knew nothing about Christianity. Only the news made him. That is how the Bible should be handled.

If you don't handle it like this, it's written in Psalm 12, May the Bible, the Word of God, be preserved from this generation which does not know how to receive it. And then I said to him, you sit down, I still have to read to you something.

And I read about the arrest of Jesus. He was not very affected. It happens that by mistake the police arrest somebody innocent and immediately they will free him. But he found out they did not free him.

They sentenced him to death. And the sentence to death has been confirmed. And then they whipped him to the blood. How can it be? He has done no harm. He has done only good. I told him, I had read to him how he carried the children and how he wiped away tears from the eyes of men and how he fed the hungry and how he comforted the sad and how he forgave sinners.

And why in the world do they whip him like this? And then they drove nails into his hands and into his feet. When I read to him, they crucified him. I saw how the Bible has to be received. It was as if nails entered into his hands and into his feet.

He suffered together with Jesus. What has happened? And then crowned with the crown of thorns and spit upon him, everything. And his holy mother weeping. Now he was a child who loved his mother and honored her.

It must have been for him another pain to see her weeping like this, a good mother. And what has happened? One of the robbers even despising him and mocking him while he was in suffering. And then he heard that people who stood around the cross said, if you are the son of God, very simple, prove it.

Descend from the cross. And he said to himself, well, that is logical. If he is the son of God, that is very logical. He can descend and he can prove that he is the son of God. He did not know that if Jesus would have descended from the cross, we would not be saved and all mankind would be in great trouble.

We have salvation only because he remained on the cross to the very end. He did not know. But he hoped that something would happen. And then when I arrived to the word that Jesus died on the cross, he was like crushed.

He began to weep. I have the image that I saw Mary Magdalene weeping near the tomb of Jesus. That is how the Bible should be treated. It is a story of the most lovable person in the world. Of the one who wishes you the most good.

Who has done the greatest things for you. Of your greatest benefactor. Of the son of the creator. And here is a cup of coffee near me. Here I tell my wife give me another piece of pie. And I read a little bit.

And I make a joke in the midst of it. That is the question. The question is solved then if you will sit on the throne of God. Together with God. If you will be a blessing for mankind and for angels you will be a blessing.

It is written in the Bible that when the word of God is preached angels are listening. They also have to learn from us. We are the angels university. The university of angels. What great things. And we take them so easily.

We don't treat the Bible with due honor. And now he wept hearing that Jesus had died. He had believed in his savior. Can you understand my English? Can you understand me? And he now wept because he had believed in his savior.

He had believed for a quarter of an hour. And I found out that the savior is dead. So even a savior is of no help to you if he is dead. And he was just crushed. He did not know that the story of the resurrection follows.

He did not know that the story of the resurrection follows. And then when I read to him that Jesus resurrected again he danced around his room saying I have him. I have him. I have him. He is alive. He was so happy.

And I wondered I was a pastor. I was a pastor. And I did not dance. I read every day such stories of resurrection a part of the Bible the author and prophet. But I did not dance. Why? Because I was not a Pentecostal.

But a Lutheran can also dance. A Catholic can dance. Everybody can dance. An atheist can dance if he makes the acquaintance of Jesus. Everybody can dance. A criminal who is converted he can begin to dance.

Angels dance. And by the way the Jerusalem translation of the Bible in Stephania 3 .17 speaks about God dancing. Where it is written in our Bible in King James he rejoices over us singing. The Jerusalem translation says he dances.

God. As a joy. But even if it would be only like in our Bibles. He rejoices singing. Imagine God. He looks there. And at a certain moment the angels are around him and God begins to clap his hands and his face shines.

And as he claps his hands the angels ask him what has happened with you? Have you become a Pentecostal? And he says no. God is not a Pentecostal. I just rejoice about my children. And we should rejoice about him.

So I saw this man rejoicing about the news that Jesus resurrected. And then I said to him let us pray. Now he did not know what prayer is. He has never been at a prayer meeting in his home there was no prayer.

He saw me kneeling so he knelt too. I said a few words of prayer. Then I said you also pray. And he said the most amazing prayer. Oh God what a nice chap you are. If I would be you and you would be I I would not have forgiven you your sins.

But you really are a very nice guy. And I love you from all my heart. That was one of the most reverential prayers which I have ever heard in my life. That is how we have to receive the word of God. God speaks.

The creator of the universe of galaxies of billions of stars of planets. All the beauties come from him. And other beauties have to come. And the sufferings also come. But sufferings are also for our good.

We get so much suffering as we need to be prepared for this great challenge which we have. And to this we are called. And the Bible should be taken with respect and with importance which it has. And then we went to prison many of us hundreds if not say perhaps thousands of Christians were put in jail.

Persecution, Unity, and the Christian Response

Of all denominations as you call them here in America I would call them damnations because there should not be denominations we should be just Christians. But we were in jail Orthodox and Catholic and Lutherans and Baptists and Pentecostals and Seventh-day Adventists and whatever you like.

We were all in jail. And some of us who were considered to be more dangerous for them they kept us everyone alone in a cell during years alone in a cell thirty feet beneath the earth never seeing sun, moon flowers, snow butterflies, birds this is the time we forgot that nature exists.

Fourteen years I and other years this brother I have not been in jail much fourteen years only fourteen years which is very little because in communist Albania our brother Meshkala died recently at the age of eighty-four after forty-three years in jail.

Can you imagine at eighty-four in jail? Now there are here a few elderly people and you know that after seventy always something aches the back or the legs or something and you need somebody to be helpful and so on to be in jail to be slave laborer at the age of eighty-four and forty-three years in jail and in Red China Chunku Chang was forty-one years in jail and recently now in Albania you know also a change has happened like under Gorbachev into Chicago came an Albanian lady who has been arrested thirty-nine years ago with a bait of six months for her conviction for the faith which she had thirty-nine years and she was in jail thirty-nine years and her baby was thirty-nine years in jail when she was to be a Christian is a crime so for this they kept but where did they keep the baby?

They kept the baby too thirty-nine years the baby only now he has seen something outside the walls of the prison and there's been all this terrible suffering and during the years of solitude and then my health broke down and I had tuberculosis of both of the surface of both lungs and backbone tuberculosis and intestinal tuberculosis and heart failure and jaundice and everything altogether.

And something very interesting happened. Neither this dear brother Streisand nor my wife nor I we have never seen a Bible in prison. Any book never a printed page. No kind but a Bible. Who can imagine a Bible in a communist prison without a question.

In the beginning this was not a problem because we knew quite a part of the Bible by heart we did not know the whole Bible but the main passages and so we knew but we were very very hungry. There were times when we got one slice of bread a week otherwise soup of potato peels.

The communists are comrades. They ate the potatoes and we ate the peels and cabbage with unwashed intestines and other such things. We were very very hungry and because of the hunger. And there was one thing more we were doped with drugs which would destroy our minds.

In every soup if you can call it soup it was something. And in every cup of coffee it wasn't coffee. It was black. But in everything which they gave us there were drugs. We smelled them but we had no choice.

That was the only food which we had we had to eat it. And because. And there were beatings and there were tortures and there was a solitude and everything else. And because of this we forgot more and more.

We forgot more and more with the time I forgot all the books which I've ever read in my life. Believe me I've read many books but I forgot them. I had written and printed books before going to prison.

I had forgotten the books which I had written. Then I forgot more and more the Bible. I forgot more and more. One evening I vaguely remembered that I'm a Lutheran pastor. But I could not remember who Luther has been.

I could not remember who was Luther. I saw jubilated on that evening. I've made a big discovery. You can be a Christian without knowing about Luther. Many have been Christians 15 centuries without knowing about Luther.

And the others forgot about Calvin. And the others forgot about the Pope. And the others forgot about the Patriarch. There was one name we never forgot the other name we forgot. And we forgot more and more.

Remembering God When Memory Fails

I was very near to death in prison. And it was difficult to pray. Because for prayer you need to concentrate your mind. You speak. If President Bush would call me to speak with me who am I? Who is President Bush?

So I would think it over what will I speak half an hour which he gives me. But if I speak with God I can't just at random. But it was impossible to concentrate in your mind. Then one evening I said I will not recite prayers.

I will just say our Father. That will be all. I can't concentrate my mind. And I began all right our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy thy thy. What comes after that? I could not remember the Lord's Prayer.

I was so sad so sad. I said what kind of a Christian am I? And what kind of a pastor? How will I ever be in a church where children know the Lord's Prayer. And now I am the pastor and I don't know even the Lord's Prayer.

So everything is gone with me. And I did not remember the prayer. But the sadness did not last long. I had the comfort. I knew I had forgotten the prayer. But I knew what prayer I had forgotten. I had forgotten a prayer which starts with an assertion that the one who rules in heaven is my daddy.

He is my father. So what if I don't know the formula? If my child or my grandchild comes to me does he send attention and say my most honored grandfather very respectfully. I dare to ask from you to have the kindness and the goodness to give perhaps a piece of chocolate.