Easter Behind the Iron Curtain — Richard Wurmbrand

Happy Easter to all of you this morning. What a wonderful thing to know that Jesus Christ arose and on this Easter Resurrection Sunday we are delighted that you're here for not only this great celebration of our Lord's Resurrection, but for our World Missions Conference and I know that you're going to be greatly blessed through the conference as it continues on during these next three Sundays.

Exceeding Abundantly Above is the title and topic for our conference and we're expecting God to do just that. I'm going to ask Dr. Bill Thomas who is an evangelist, travels all over the world preaching the message of the resurrected Christ and I wonder Dr. Thomas as you come this morning, because he speaks so many languages and because this is a World Missions Conference, if you would lead us in our invocation perhaps in the French language this morning, asking God to meet us here on this Resurrection Sunday.

Dr. Thomas please. Would you take your hymn books please on this Easter Sunday and we'll sing one of our founder's great hymns. Dr. Oswald J. Smith in the words to He Rose Triumphantly. What a glorious song.

301 in your hymn books please. 301. Would you stand please as Dr. Williams comes to lead us.

In this great hymn of worship on Easter. Thank you. Shall we be seated please. And what a great.

Sound that is to start Easter Sunday morning. I wonder did anybody here go to a, I was going to say a watch night service. What is it they hold on Easter? Sunrise. Did anybody attend a sunrise service this morning?

Yeah, a few of you have been up a long, long time. Now if it gets boring here, those of you who raised your hands have official permission to put your head on the shoulder of the person beside you and sleep through the rest of the program.

If you were not here in the People's Church Friday night, Good Friday night, which was the kickoff service of our World Missions Conference for this year, you missed what just about everybody who was here has been saying was the most unusual, the most dramatic, the most exciting World Missions service that any of us have ever seen anywhere.

It was just as they say gangbusters from the beginning to the end. Now one of the reasons for that was the fact that we have as our special guest a man who is not with us this morning, but he will be very much with us tonight in the person of Dr. Stuart Miriam.

Now Dr. Miriam is an able, dramatic speaker in his own right. He doesn't need help from anybody, but he has come to Toronto and to the People's Church and he has been accompanied by two of the national people that come from all the way over on the other side of the world.

They're from Papua New.

Guinea and they were here last Friday. Good morning brothers and sisters in Christ. I am Mamero Bire. I.

Bring greetings from the Christian men and women in Papua New Guinea and Highland Christian Mission. Our director Dr. Stuart Miriam is recovering from malaria, but he will be with us this evening. Thank you.

To see Canada. Greetings from my school in Papua New Guinea. I want to sing you a song. I saw, I saw, no more darkness. Now I'm so happy, no sorrow inside.

From Papua New Guinea. Isn't that wonderful to see these people who've come to know the Lord as Savior. When you first see them, they strike terror in your heart. And the next moment when he says, brothers and sisters in Christ, the amazing power of the gospel.

It can change lives and we're thrilled. You just saw a sample of what we're going to see tonight. And Dr. Miriam will be here. These folks will be here. You will be thrilled to be here in our service this evening.

Perlita Lim is the Chinese ambassador in song. She has sung all over the world and in Lausanne, the conference sung for Dr. Billy Graham. And would you come please, Perlita, and minister with a song and drop it into our hearts this morning.

Good to have you back in Toronto. Thank you, Perlita. The song of Easter, but also the song of missions. Because he lives, we want to share this message with the world. Bishop Augustus Marway, a great friend.

He's been here at the People's Church and other missions conferences. Our pastor, Dr. Paul, has visited him in Liberia. He's a man with a great burden for his country. Gus Marway was well-educated, holds a master's degree, and he went back not only to minister in Liberia, but he went back into the jungle to minister to his own people.

He's a man we love very, very much. Gus Marway. And Gus is going to come and share what he has in store in Liberia as far as the ministry is concerned and how you and I can become a part of it. Gus Marway, come and share with us.

God’s Providence and the Call to Bless the Nations

I'm sure you didn't have anything to do with the decision as to where you were to be born. You didn't choose to be born in Canada. And I didn't choose to be born in Liberia. That decision was made by God.

And God alone, in His own providence, decided that you should be born in this land of glorious opportunity, a land of abundance, a land of blessing, a land that God, the Almighty, that caused His Son to shine in a way that defies description.

Here in this land of Canada. Before some of you who were born in this age, before you were born, even before you were born, your mother had us shower. Shower when diapers and clothes and blankets and all sort of things were all gathered together just before you were born.

And before you were born, your mother had to go to the doctor every week for the doctor to check you, to check her, to make sure that everything is right with her and with you. And when time came to be born, your mother went in the hospital, beautiful, clean hospital, speak and spend the days on my shoulder, the clothes on the doctor, white and clean, the nurses, everyone clean to make sure that no germs around to infect you.

And you were taken care of. As a child you were brought into the church to hear the Word of God, even to be taken by the minister to hold you in his hand and to dedicate you to God. And there during those most formidable years of your life, you hear the glorious, wonderful song like that, amazing, miraculous, melodious song that our dear sister just sang in such a way as to just lift us to heaven.

And you hear those wonderful songs, you hear wonderful preaching, oh what a golden opportunity it is for you, what a blessing it is for you to be born in this country. And you didn't have to worry about whether you would be able to go to school or not.

There in your home, you had great abundance. Time came to go to school, everything all ready for you. And you went just to school in time. My dear Christian friends, you didn't choose to be born in this land, it was God's decision.

And I didn't choose to be born in Liberia, in a by-country of Liberia among a primitive tribe that is called the Tajuasun tribe. I didn't choose to be born there, that was God's decision. And then, when my mother was with me, when I was in the womb, there she worked hard, worked hard as hard as she could, every day, even up to the day that I was born.

Somebody saw that my mother, when she was in the field, trying to dig some certain roots, edible roots we call cassava, and while my mother was digging it, she came down with birth pain. And then, in the cassava patch on the ground, in the grass, no one knows, well, there's no telling what all have crawled on the leaves, what are worms, what are ants, what are all kinds of germs when you press it, it doesn't matter.

And then, in the field among the grass, my mother gave birth to me, and it was only through the grace of God that our life was spared, my mother took me home. Then, I didn't have the opportunity that you had to have clothes prepared for you before you were born.

There, many a day as a child, when hungry, and here in your country, you don't know where hunger met. There, I never had an opportunity to go to school until I was 15 years old, and yet in this country, you have an opportunity to go to school.

My dear Christian friend, I want to tell you this, as I close, I want to tell you this. But, the greatest thing that investment you can make in this land of opportunity, where God has blessed you with such abundance, God did not bless you with the wonderful blessing that He blessed you with for that to be the end of it.

God blesses that you may be a blessing, God bless Abraham, that Abraham may be a blessing to the nation of the world. God did not hate me to be born in Africa, but God loves me so that I may become blessed through you.

He loves me as much as He loves you, and God cares for me as much as He cares for your children. God cares for the thousands and millions of children in Africa that are dying of hunger. Missionary work is not just preaching the gospel, missionary work involves education, it involves feeding, it involves taking care of the sick, it involves preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My dear Christian friend, will you take part, will you be a participant in alleviating the hurt and agony and suffering of the world by supporting missions? Please invest for a mission, and God Almighty, who said that He will bless you to be a blessing, will bless you much more abundantly for having had pity on the suffering children in the world today.

May you give and give abundantly. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Williams and the choir and orchestra for that great Easter song.

Here we sit this morning in the People's Church in our World Missions Conference on Resurrection Sunday. I wonder what it would be like to be in a Romanian prison on Easter Sunday, not for one year, but for 13 years.

Easter Behind the Iron Curtain

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand has had that experience. He's been here at our missions conference before, maybe you've read some of his books, he's written many of them. He's been tortured for Christ. We're going to ask this dear servant of God to come now and share with us in these next moments what it's like to spend Easter in a communist prison.

Dr. Wurmbrand.

For the remaining portion of this message, please turn this tape over to side two.

Dear brethren and sisters, for those who hear me for the first time, I have to apologize for speaking to you being seated. During my 14 years in communist jails, we almost never walked. We had heavy chains at our feet, sometimes 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. I read my text, it's from the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 4, verse 25, Romans 4, verse 25.

Christ’s Resurrection and Our Justification

The Lord was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. Before I speak to you, I wish to introduce another jailbird, my wife, who has also been in jail at the same time as me.

I don't know where she is. She should stand up somewhere. Thank you. Her name is Sabine. You have heard the cry of these, our dear Papua Guinean brethren. I pray for Papua Guinea since many decades. It made a great impression upon me hearing them.

May I start speaking to you today with shouting a cry. Just a few weeks ago, a sister of ours with the name of Burda in the town of Semipalatinsk in the Soviet Union received a gift. A gift before the days of Easter.

It was a coffin. And in the coffin was the corpse of her son, Yuri. His tongue cut out and his eyes gouged out. If you will write to the office or bring up the office of this church, they will give you the exact address of this family.

Now, try to imagine how a mother felt when she saw the corpse of her son for the only crime that he has been a Christian. Not simply killed, but eyes gouged out and tongue cut. As far as I know mothers, it is out of question she should not have shouted.

This cry must also be heard in Canada and in the United States. We have heard here the beautiful music of the solo singers and of the choir and our common singing. But to the symphony of song to the honor of God, such cries are also a part of the melody.

And recently a brother Popov has been burned alive. And in China, brother Francis Zhen Shudei died after 30 years in jail. And brother Gomez in Cuba is still in jail since 24 years. And in Russia, we have brother Basil Shepilov who is in jail since 40 years.

I was 14. He is 40 years in jail. And the many, the many who have died. And I would ask you, you honor today Christ who died for you and resurrected. Let us honor also those who have loved Christ to the uttermost and also died for the glory of his name.

And let this congregation stand for a minute in honor of the memory of the martyrs. Our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the great love which thou has shed into the hearts of your children. That they are ready not only to live for you, but also to die for you under tortures.

We thank thee for mother hearts who can bear this. Who knows that that waits for their children. And they bring up their children in a faith which can cost life. Because they know there exists an Easter, there exists a resurrection.

Amen. Please sit down. In the limited time which I have, I wish to tell you two events. One, a Good Friday event. And another one, an Easter event. When the Nazis were in power, they had the death camp, Ravensbruck and Auschwitz and so on.

Millions of Jews have been killed. I am Jewish too. My wife is Jewish. Some of our family have been killed there. But not only Jews were killed. Gypsies, dissident Germans, French, Russian, all kinds of people were killed, were gassed and burned there.

Mary Skobceva’s Sacrificial Love on Good Friday

And it was on a Good Friday. As usually, the thousands of prisoners stood at attention. And the SS men, the guards, picked up at random young boys, young girls whom they liked, with whom they thought they can make a better sport.

And these would be burned afterwards. Among these prisoners in Ravensbruck, where Corrie ten Boom has been too, she has been in the same jail, among them was a Russian Christian, a lady with the name of Mary Skopceva.

The few survivors of Auschwitz said that she had a manner of thinking and a shining of her face, which was not of this world. They said that she spoke some foolish things. She said, perhaps they will burn me, they will burn you.

But don't think only about the ugliness of what will happen. One day some children will play and they will say to each other, look what beautiful clouds. You know what these beautiful clouds will be. They will be the clouds formed by the flames of our burning bodies and of the smoke of our burning bodies.

They will be beautiful clouds. I can rejoice that children will have such a joy out of my being burned. But there exists not only a material sky. There exists a spiritual sky. And if we will go to death with love, with resignation, with happiness to sacrifice ourselves innocently for the glory of God, then on the spiritual sky there will also be beautiful stars and showers of blessings will come from there.

Don't be afraid to be burned. And now it was a good Friday. Five thousand stood at attention, everyone hoping that somebody else will be picked up on that day for being burned. The friends were picked up.

Among them a very young lady, a Jewish communist who was in jail under the Nazis. And she was picked up to be burned. And she began to weep and to lament, I have a little child, please save my life. And Mary Skopceva asked herself, what would Christ do if he would be here?

Should I give my life for a young communist? I know what the communists are. I know what they have done to Russia. They have killed tens of millions of innocents, Christians and Jews and other kinds of people.

Innocents, they have killed millions. And if perhaps the Allies come and free the prisoners who will survive, and she will be a survivor, she might become a communist leader, a communist secret police officer and torture and kill Christians.

Should I give my life for such a beast? But she said to herself again, Christ on Good Friday made no such account. He gave himself for sinners. He gave himself for criminals. He prayed on the cross for those who hammered nails into his hands and into his feet and not having any other argument in their favor, he said, they don't know what they do.

As if not every man knows that it hurts when you beat a nail into the hands and into the feet, but he defended a defenseless cause. And she said to herself, Christ has put no conditions. I will sacrifice myself for somebody only if I am very, very sure that this man will not abuse of my sacrifice and will do bad things.

And she stepped forward and told to the captain who led the execution, I wish to burn in the place of this girl. Now, it could have happened that he would have burned both, but he was in a good mood and he accepted her sacrifice.

This Jewish girl, the communist girl, was saved. She went to the oven. She was burned. Then afterwards, the allies occupied Germany. They arrested all these Nazi officers. And some of those who have led her to the oven, they said what her last words were.

She told them, we read in our Bible that when God brought out the Jewish people from Egypt, he himself walked before them in a column of fire. And I would like that my burning body should be a column of fire which would show you the way to God and the way to light.

The officers could not forget these words spoken. She burned. The Jewish communist was converted. But she was converted as you are converted in a prison barrack where there were no Bibles and there were no teachings and there were no sermons.

She did not know much. And the Christians overheard her praying once, God, make me to be like Mary Skopceva. And the Christian criticized her and said, that's not the right prayer. You should pray, God, make me Christ-like, not like Mary Skopceva.

And she turned her head and she asked, but what is the difference? If Christ would have been here, would he not have done exactly the same thing which Mary Skopceva has done? That is Christianity, to do exactly the same thing which Christ would have done.

Christ has said something more, that we will do bigger things than his. I can't understand what it means bigger things. But his life has been self-sacrifice. And Mary Skopceva had learned that to be like Mary Skopceva, and the Jewish girl has learned that to be like Mary Skopceva means to be like Christ.

Let us learn from this event, a historic event, in the prison of Ravensbrück. Let us learn from this that we should not be only Christians who believe in Christ. Hallelujah! He has died for my sins. That is very profitable for me.

He has borne all the burdens. I will eat the pie in the sky. I will be in heaven. But let us learn from his sacrifice that our lives might also be lives of sacrifice. Thousands of Christians are in jail today in Cuba, in Nicaragua, in African communist countries, in Angola, in Mozambique, in Ethiopia, in Asian communist countries.

Nobody knows how many in China, in Russia, and the others. They have learned a new spelling of the word love. Love is not spelled L-O-V-E. Love is spelled S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E. God so loved the world that he gave, that he sacrificed what he had the highest.

You have been asked to give money. I hope you will give. But there is something entirely else to be given. The whole heart, our whole being should be given as Jesus did, and as Mary Skopceva did, and as Yuri Burda did, and as many other thousands who have died or died for Christ in communist or in Islamic prisons.

Sabine’s Faith in the Face of Death

And now I will tell you an Easter event. My wife, you have seen her. 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. And we did not know about each other.

At a certain moment, she was in a prison cell with a girl aged perhaps 19 or 20. Her name was Arsenescu. She was sentenced to death at that age. Now that is an age when life is so beautiful and is so appealing and so charming.

And she had to die on Easter night. And she was, my wife describes her, a very beautiful girl. And now the evening had come. The guards had brought in some thick gruel in earthen vessels. All the ladies were hungry, but nobody cared about eating.

They all pitied this young and beautiful girl who will have to die that night. And she, at a certain moment, lifted that earthen vessel. Her face began to shine. Here in Canada and in the States, we have hundreds of preachers who do not believe the whole Bible, only half of it or a quarter of it or I do not know how many.

And the authorized version is not good and the revised version is not good and the living Bible is not good. They must have a dead Bible. We believe the Bible as it is written because we have seen transfigurations.

It is not difficult for us to believe in the transfiguration on Mount Tabor because we have seen on a lesser scale transfigurations ourselves. Her face began to shine. She lifted this earthen vessel and said, I have a boyfriend.

I love him heartily. And he loves me. And like every boy, he hoped and dreamt about once having me in his arms. But it will not be so. Tonight I will be shot. And after a few years, this is my body, which he admired, will become clay just like the clay out of which this pot has been made.

And after a few more years, another potter will make a dish out of what has been my body. Who knows what is in this dish? Perhaps what has been once the loving eyes of a lover. This, my body, will become clay.

But I, I will not die because I am not my body. I am an eternal spirit closed for a time in the body. The body is an outward garment. I have not only this outward man. I have the hidden man of the heart whom nobody can reach.

I believe in the words of Jesus more than I believe in the rifles which will be stretched out towards me tonight. I believe in the words of Jesus. He has said, whosoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Jesus is a gentleman. He has promised this. He will keep the word. I believe in these words of his more than in the rifles. I believe in these words of his more than in the bullets which will pierce my chest tonight.

I believe in the words of Jesus more than in the open grave which already waits for me tonight. I will not die tonight by the grace of God. It is only grace. I don't deserve it. But by his grace, I will enter through gates of pearl to the city with streets of gold.

I will see and I will hear their angels playing on their harps. I will be with the saints and the best men of all centuries. Above all, I will be in the embraces of the heavenly bridegroom, Jesus. He will hug me.

He will comfort me. He will wipe away every tear. I will be kissed with his holy kiss. And he will present me to the heavenly father. And there in this heavenly abode, I will wait for my earthly boyfriend to come too.

And there I will be united with him forever. I have nothing to fear. And a few moments before midnight, the executions took place always exactly at midnight. Therefore, the Christians called the fire squad the midnight bride.

Exactly a few minutes before midnight, they came to pick her up for execution. And as she passed through the vaulted corridors of this subterranean jail in which her voice was bounced from one wall to the other, the ladies who have remained behind heard her witnessing to the very end to the guards, to the officers who surrounded her.

She talked to them about the heavenly father who has made heaven and earth. We also say we believe that he has made heaven and earth. There was a little difference. She really meant it. The proof that she meant it was that at the age of 18, she forsook earth for heaven.

She spoke to them as we speak about the Lord Jesus Christ. We also call him Lord. But she meant it as the order of the Lord. She died at the age of 18 for the cause of the kingdom of God. And then her last words were heard, in which she said, I believe that death is not something definitive.

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

My savior Jesus has been dead. He has been so terribly dead. He has been the deadest dead who has ever been dead. Because after being dead, they pierced his heart so he was twice dead. And then they put him in a tomb.

And on the tomb there was a stone. And on the stone there was a seal. And on that seal there was an inscription, I Pilate. There is nobody bigger in the whole of Israel except me. I am the governor. And I have decided, all the other dead in the cemetery, if they wish to resurrect, they have my permission.

Let them just resurrect. But this Jesus of Nazareth will not resurrect. And here are soldiers with bows and with spears. And if he only dares to try to resurrect, they will show him. So he was the deadest dead who has ever been dead.

And he resurrected on the third day. He was the liveliest who has ever been alive. He had a good appetite. He ate fish with honeycomb. Now fish with honeycomb don't very well go together. But when you are hungry, you eat fish with honeycomb.

And he showed himself to his disciples. He walked with them. He talked with them. He ascended to heaven. I believe that death is not the last thing. After death comes the resurrection. And when she had said the words of resurrection, what we feast today, a few shots were heard.

Poor communists believed they have killed her. They did not know that they have sent her into the embraces of the most beautiful of bridegrooms and who is not a generous bridegroom. He will allow you to have the other bridegroom too with you in heaven and with all your friends.

That is what we feast on Easter Sunday. Not only something which has happened 2 ,000 years ago. If he would have died and resurrected 2 ,000 years ago, and nobody else would burn with the flame of love, of ardent love for him.

If nobody else would be ready to sacrifice time and energy and money and spiritual energy and wisdom and whatever he has and his whole being and his passion. If others would not have sacrificed this, then the news about something which has happened 2 ,000 years ago in Israel would not have arrived to Canada and would not have arrived to dear Papua Guinea and there would be not all these millions of believers.

And I am very glad and feel very honored to tell you that you are not alone in feasting this Easter day. It is feasted by the thousands who are in jails, in communist jails today, in Vietnam, in China, in Russia, in my homeland Romania, in Angola, in Mozambique, in Ethiopia, in Nicaragua, in Cuba, wherever.

There are thousands of others in Islamic prisons. They feast it in chains. They also sing. They don't have such beautiful musical instruments, but they sing being accompanied by the clicketing of chains.

Chains are also beautiful musical instruments. He is alive, clink clank, clink clank. He is alive, clink clank, clink clank. And the heart beats there for joy too, between two beatings, because it is a fact.

Advocacy for Persecuted Christians

Christ is alive. Christ has risen. He has risen indeed. Amen. And now just one practical word. You will find at the office of this church, you will find the address, name and address of those recently killed in Russia, Yuri Burda, Tonkatov, Popov, burned alive.

Please write every one of them to their families. You will get the addresses right in English. Write short letters, but write also to your members of parliament, to your government, to your queen, and tell them these facts and ask them they should do their best to take their defense.

And you remember in prayers those who suffer for the holy cause of Christ, because they there die loving not only Christ, but also the church universal, loving you too. Amen.

Lifting Our Eyes to the Harvest

Let's sing it's harvest time, please, everybody. It's harvest time. I think they are in an insert in your bulletin. I would appreciate it very much if you would take those words and memorize them. They're very, very simple, just seven lines, because I think this is the note that we would like to strike all the way through this conference as we listen to the throb of the hearts of these people from all over the world.

One thing we need to look at is the fact that today it can be harvest time. As we sing the song, back of every word we say, if Jesus were here, he would be saying, Bill, Mary, Jack, Ruth, lift up your eyes.

Get your eyes off your own feet and your own ground and your own things and your own property and look on the field. That's what the conference is about. And I pray that we'll look. I pray that we will look as we have never looked before.

Let's sing it one more time. It's harvest time.