Sobering. Try to read it all if you have time….
PREPARING FOR THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH
By Pastor Richard Wurmbrand
Christian pastors must learn what an underground church looks like and what it does. I spoke with a bishop in Britain for an hour or so about underground church work. Finally, he said, “Excuse me, but you speak of my hobby; I am very interested in church architecture. Would you please tell me if the underground churches use Gothic styles in the building of churches?”
The Underground Church is comparatively unknown. We have it right next door, but we are not ready to join it and we are not trained for it. Every Christian pastor must know this because we might pass through tragic circumstances. Even if we do not pass through these tragic circumstances we have a duty to help and to instruct those who do pass through them.
In Muslim nations, in Red China and so on, many believers have become victims. Many have gone into prisons and many have died in prison. We cannot be proud of this. The better thing would have been to be well instructed on how to do underground work and not to be captured. I admire those who know how to work so well that they are not caught. We have to know the underground work.
PREPARING FOR SUFFERING
Suffering cannot be avoided in the Underground Church, whatever measures are taken, but suffering should be reduced to the minimum.
What happens in a country when oppressive powers take over? In some countries the terror starts at once, as in Mozambique and Cambodia. In other places religious liberty follows as never before. And so it begins. Some regimes come to power without having real power. They do not have the people on their side. They have not necessarily organized their police and their staff of the army yet.
In Russia, the Communists gave immediately great liberty to the Protestants in order to destroy the Orthodox. When they had destroyed the Orthodox, the turn came for the Protestants. The initial situation does not last long. During that time they infiltrate the churches, putting their men in leadership. They find out the weaknesses of pastors. Some might be ambitious men; some might be entrapped with the love of money. Another might have a hidden sin somewhere, wherewith he may be blackmailed. They explain that they would make it known and thus put their men in leadership. Then, at a certain moment the great persecution begins. In Romania such a clamp-down happened in one day. All the Catholic bishops went to prison, along with innumerable priests, monks and nuns. Then many Protestant pastors of all denominations were arrested. Many died in prison.
“Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Thy saints at Jerusalem: But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake “-(Acts 9:13, 15 and 16).
Jesus, our Lord, told Ananias: “Meet Saul of Tarsus. He will be My underground pastor, My underground worker.” That is what St. Paul was – a pastor of an Underground Church. Jesus started a crash course for this underground pastor. He started it with the words, “I will show (him) how great things he must suffer…”
Preparation for underground work begins by studying sufferology, martyrology. Later, we will look at the technical side of underground work, but first of all there must be a certain spiritual preparation for it.
In a free country, to be a member of a church, it is enough to believe and to be baptized. In the Church underground it is not enough to be a member in it. You can be baptized and you can believe, but you will not be a member of the Underground Church unless you know how to suffer.
You might have the mightiest faith in the world, but if you are not prepared to suffer, then when you are taken by the police, you will get two slaps and you will declare anything. So the preparation for suffering is one of the essentials of the preparation of underground work.
A Christian does not panic if he is put in prison. For the rank and file believer, prison is a new place to witness for Christ. For a pastor, prison is a new parish. It is a parish with no great income but with great opportunities for work. I speak a little of this in my book, With God In Solitary Confinement.
In other books I mention Morse code, which is also part of the training for the Underground Church. You know what this is – a code by which messages are conveyed. Through this code you can preach the Gospel to those who are to your right and left.
Free parishioners look at their watch; “Already he has preached for thirty minutes. Will he never finish?” When arrested, watches are taken away from you; you have the parishioners with you the whole week and can preach to them from morning to night! They have no choice. There have never been, in the history of the Romanian or the Russian Church, so many conversions brought about as there have been in prison. So do not fear prison. Look upon it as just a new assignment given by God.
Men can accept this. But what about the terrible tortures which are inflicted on prisoners? What will we do about these tortures? Will we be able to bear them? If I do not bear them, I put in prison another fifty or sixty men whom I know because that is what the oppressors wish from me, to betray those around me. Hence comes the great need for preparation for suffering, which must start now. It is too difficult to prepare yourself for it when you are already in prison.
TRUTH ABOUT THE TRUTH
How much each one of us can suffer depends on how much he is bound up with a cause, how dear this cause is to him, and how much it means for him.
In this respect we have had in Communist countries very big surprises. There have been gifted preachers and writers of Christian books who have become traitors. The composer of the best hymnal of Romania became the composer of the best communist hymnal of Romania. Everything depends on whether we have remained in the sphere of words or if we are merged with the divine realities.
God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth. A good sermon is the truth about the truth about the truth, about the Truth It is not the Truth. The Truth is God alone. Around this Truth there is a scaffolding of words, of theologies, and of exposition. None of these is of any help in times of suffering. It is only the Truth Himself Who is of help, and we have to penetrate through sermons, through theological books, through everything which is ‘words’ and be bound up with the reality of God Himself.
I have told in the West how Christians were tied to crosses for four days and four nights. The crosses were put on the floor and other prisoners were tortured and made to fulfill their bodily necessities upon the faces and the bodies of the crucified ones. I have since been asked: “Which Bible verse helped and strengthened you in those circumstances?” My answer is: “NO Bible verse was of any help.” It is sheer cant and religious hypocrisy to say, “This Bible verse strengthens me, or that Bible verse helps me.” Bible verses alone are not meant to help.
We knew Psalm 23 – “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want… though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death….” When you pass through suffering you realize that it was never meant by God that Psalm 23 should strengthen you. It is the Lord who can strengthen you, not the Psalm which speaks of Him so doing. It is not enough to have the Psalm. You must have the One about whom the Psalm speaks. We also knew the verse: “My Grace is sufficient for thee.” But the verse is not sufficient. It is the Grace which is sufficient and not the verse.
Pastors and zealous witnesses who are handling the Word as a calling from God are in danger of giving holy words more value than they really have. Holy words are only the means to arrive at the reality expressed by them. If you are united with the Reality, the Lord Almighty, evil loses its power over you; it cannot break the Lord Almighty. If you only have the words of the Lord Almighty you can be very easily broken.
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
The preparation for underground work is deep spiritualization. As we peel an onion in preparation for its use, so God must “peel” from us what are mere words, sensations of our enjoyments in religion, in order to arrive at the reality of our faith. Jesus has told us “that whosoever will follow” Him will have to “take up their cross,” and He, Himself, showed how heavy this cross can be. We have to be prepared for this.
We have to make the preparation now before we are imprisoned. In prison you lose everything. You are undressed and given a prisoner’s suit. No more nice furniture, nice carpets or nice curtains. You do not have a wife or husband any more and you do not have your children. You do not have your library and you never see a flower. Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains. Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand.
I personally use an exercise. I live in the United States of America. Can you imagine what an American supermarket looks like? You find there many delicious things. I look at everything and say to myself, “I can go without this thing and that thing; this thing is very nice, but I can go without: this third thing I can go without, too.” I visited the whole supermarket and did not spend one dollar. I had the joy of seeing many beautiful things and the second joy to know that I can go without.
DOUBT MAKES TRAITORS
I am Jewish. In Hebrew, the language which Jesus Himself spoke and in which the first revelation has been given, the word “doubt” does not exist. To doubt is as wrong for a man as it would be for him to walk on four legs – he is not meant to walk on four legs. A man walks erect; he is not a beast. To doubt is subhuman.
To every one of us doubts come, but do not allow doubts about essential doctrines of the Bible such as the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or the existence of eternal life to make a nest in your mind. Every theological or philosophical doubt makes you a potential traitor. You can allow yourself doubts while you have a nice study and you prepare sermons, and you eat well – or you write a book. Then you can allow yourself all kinds of daring ideas and doubts. When you are tortured these doubts are changed into treason because you have to decide to live or die for this faith.
One of the most important things about the spiritual preparation of an underground worker is the solution of his doubts. In mathematics, if you do not find the solution you may have made a mistake somewhere, so you continue until you find out. Don’t live with doubts, but seek their solution.
TEST OF TORTURE
Now to come to the very moment of torture. Torture is sometimes very painful. Sometimes it is a simple beating. We have all been spanked as children and beating is just another spanking. A simple beating is very easy to take. Jesus has said we should come to Him like children, which is rather like candidates for spanking!
However, with us, Communists did not stop at beatings – they used very refined tortures. Now torture, you must know, can work both ways. It can harden you and strengthen your decision not to tell the police anything. There are thieves who resist any torture and would not betray those with whom they have co-operated in theft. The more you beat them the more obstinate they become. Or, torture can just break your will.
Now I will tell you of one very interesting case which was published by the Czech Communist Press. Novotny, who was the predecessor of Dubcek and who was a Communist dictator, had arrested one of his intimate comrades, a Communist leader, a convinced atheist, and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. (Not only Christians, Jews or patriots were in prison. One Communist arrested another and tortured him just as they would do anybody else.) They arrested this Communist leader and put him in a prison cell alone. Electromagnetic rays, which disturb the mind, passed through this cell. A loudspeaker repeated day and night: “Is your name Joseph or not Joseph?” (His name was not Joseph.)
They tried to drive him mad. Day and night. He felt that he would lose his mind. At a certain moment, he got an illumination. “I have now met unmitigated evil. If Communists torture a Christian, it is not absolutely evil because Communists believe that they will construct an earthly paradise. Christians hinder them, so it is right to torture Christians. But when a Communist tortures a Communist, it is torture for torture’s sake. There is absolutely no justification for it. But wait a little bit. Every coin has two sides, every electric cable has two poles. If there is an unmitigated evil, against whom does this unmitigated evil fight? There must be an unmitigated good. This is God, and against Him they fight.”
When he was called to the interrogator, he entered smiling into the room and told him that he could switch off the loudspeaker now because it had attained its result. “I have become a Christian.” The officer asked him, “How did it happen?” He told him the whole story. The officer said, “Wait a little bit.” He called a few of his comrades and said, “Please repeat the stop before my comrades.” He repeated the story, and the captain told the other police officer, “I told you that this method will not work. You have overdone it.”
The Devil is not all mighty and all wise like God. He makes mistakes. Evil torture is an excess which can be used very well spiritually.
MOMENT OF CRISIS
Torture has a moment of explosion, and the torturer waits for this critical moment. Learn how to conquer doubt and to think thoroughly. There is always one moment of crisis when you are ready to write or pronounce the name of your accomplice in the underground work, or to say where the secret printing shop is, or something of that kind. You have been tortured so much nothing counts any more; the fact that I should not have pain also does not count. Draw this last conclusion at the stage at which you have arrived and you will see that you will overcome this one moment of crisis; it gives you an intense inner joy. You feel that Christ has been with you in that decisive moment. Jailers today are now trained and refined, aware that there is a moment of crisis. If they cannot get anything from you in that moment, then they abandon torturing: they know its continuation to be useless.
There are a few more points in connection with torture. It is very important to understand what Jesus said: “Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for itself.” I have had fourteen years of prison. Brother Hrapov had twenty six, Wong MingDao had twenty-eight. It seems impossible to bear long years of prison. You are not asked to bear it all at once. Do not bear even one day at a time – bear an hour at a time. One hour of pain everybody can bear. We have had a terrible toothache, a car accident – passing, perhaps, through untold anguish. You are not meant to bear pain more than this one present minute.
What amplifies pain is the memory that I have been beaten and tortured so many times and that tomorrow they will take me again, and the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, I might not be alive – or they might not be alive. Tomorrow, there can be an overthrow, as in Romania. Yesterday beating has passed: tomorrow’s torture has not come yet.
LOVE SUPREME
The Bible teaches some words very hard to take: “Whosoever does not hate father, mother, child, brother, sister – cannot be My disciple.” These words mean almost nothing in a free country.
You probably know from The Voice of the Martyrs literature that thousands of children had been taken away from their parents in the former Soviet Union because they were taught about Christ. You must love Christ more than your family. There you are before a court and the judge tells you that if you deny Christ you may keep your children. If not, this will be the last time you will see them. Your heart may break, but your answer should be, “I love God.”
Nadia Sloboda left her house for four years of prison. Her children were taken from her, but she left her house singing. The children, for whom the police waited with a truck to take them as she left, told their singing mother, “Don’t worry about us. Wherever they put us, we will not give up our faith.” They did not.
When Jesus was on the cross He not only suffered physically; He had His mother in front of Him, suffering. His mother had the Son suffering. They loved each other, but the glory of God was at stake and here any human sentiment must be secondary. Only if we take this attitude once and for all can we prepare for underground work.
Only Christ, the Great Sufferer, the Man of Sorrows, must live in us. There have been cases in Communist countries when Communist torturers threw away their rubber truncheons with which they beat a Christian and asked, “What is this halo which you have around your head? How is it that your face shines? I cannot beat you anymore.” It is said of Stephen in the Bible, that “his face shone.” We have known cases of Communist torturers who told the prisoner, “Shout loudly, cry loudly as if I would beat you so that my comrades will know that I torture you. But I cannot beat you.” Thus, you would shout without anything happening to you.
There are other cases when prisoners really are tortured, sometimes to death. You have to choose between dying with Christ and for Christ or becoming a traitor. What is the worth of continuing to live when you will be ashamed to look into the mirror, knowing that the mirror will show you the face of a traitor?
LEARN TO BE SILENT
In the Underground Church, silence is one of the first rules. Every superfluous word you speak can put somebody in prison. A friend of mine, a great Christian composer, went to prison because Christians had the habit of saying, “How beautiful is this song composed by Brother _____.” They praised him, and for this he got fifteen years of prison. Sing the song, but do not mention the name of the one who has written it.
You cannot learn to be silent the very moment the country is taken over. You have to learn to be silent from the moment of your conversion.
The secretary to Solzhenitsyn was put under such pressure by the Communists (and she had been denounced by Solzhenitsyn’s wife) that she finished by hanging herself. If Solzhenitsyn had kept silent, this would not have happened.
Another question which is very important: I thank God for the years which I passed in Solitary confinement. I was, for three years, thirty feet beneath the earth. I never heard a word. I never spoke a word. There were no books. The outward voices ceased. The guards had felt soled shoes; you did not hear their approach. Then, with time, the inner voices ceased.
We were drugged, we were beaten. I forgot my whole theology. I forgot the whole Bible. One day I observed that I had forgotten the “Our Father.” I could not say it any more. I knew that it began with “Our Father…,” but I did not know the continuation. I just kept happy and said, “Our Father, I have forgotten the prayer, but you surely know it by heart. You hear it so many thousand times a day, so you assign an angel to say it for me, and I will just keep quiet.” For a time my prayers were, “Jesus, I love You.” And then after a little time again, “Jesus, I love You. Jesus, I love You.” Then it became too difficult even to say this because we were doped with drugs which would destroy our minds. We were very hungry. We had one slice of bread a week. There were the beatings, and the tortures, and the lack of light, and other things. It became impossible to concentrate my mind to even say so much as, “Jesus, I love You.” I abandoned it because I knew that it was necessary. The highest form of prayer which I know is the quiet beating of a heart which loves Him. Jesus should just hear “tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock”, and He would know that every heartbeat is for Him.
When I came out from solitary confinement and was with other prisoners and heard them speaking, I wondered why they spoke! So much of our speech is useless. Today men become acquainted with each other and one will say, “How do you do?” and the other answers, “How do you do?” What is the use of this? Then one will say, “Don’t you think that the weather is fine?” and the other thinks, and says, “Yes, I think it is fine.” Why do we have to speak on whether the weather is fine? We do not take earnestly the word of Jesus Who says that men will be judged not for every bad word, but for every useless one. So it is written in the Bible.
Useless talking in some countries means prison and death for your brother. A word of praise about your brother, if it is not necessary, may mean catastrophe. For example, somebody comes to visit you and you say, “Oh! I’m sorry you were not here before – brother W. has just left.” The visitor could be an informer of the secret police. Now she will know that bro-ther W. is in town! Keep your mouth shut. Learn to do it now.
PERMISSIBLE STRATAGEMS
You cannot do underground work without using stratagems. I know of one case which happened in Russia. The Communists suspected that the Christians were gathering somewhere and they surveyed a street. They knew that the meeting must be there somewhere. They saw a young boy going toward the house where they supposed the meeting would be. They stopped the boy and the police asked him, “Where are you going?” With a sad face, he said, “My oldest brother died, and now we gather the whole family to read his testament.” The police officer was so impressed that he patted the boy and said, “Just go.” The boy had not told a lie.
We are not obliged to tell an atheist tyrant the truth. We are not obliged to tell him what we are doing. It is indecent for his side to put questions to me, an impertinence.
RESISTING BRAINWASHING
One of the greatest methods is not only physical torture; it is brainwashing. We have to know how to resist brainwashing. Brainwashing exists in the free world, too. The press, radio and television brainwash us. There exists no motive in the world to drink Coca-Cola. You drink it because you are brainwashed. Water is surely better than Coca-Cola. But nobody advertises, “Drink water, drink water.” if water were advertised, we would drink water. Some have driven this technique of brainwashing to its extreme. The methods vary, but brainwashing in my Romanian prison consisted essentially of this: we had to sit seventeen hours on a form which gave no possibility to lean, and you were not allowed to close your eyes. For seventeen hours a day we had to hear, “Communism is good, Communism is good, Communism is good, etc.; Christianity is dead, Christianity is dead, Christianity is dead, etc.; Give up, give up, etc.” You were bored after one minute of this but you had to hear it the whole seventeen hours for weeks, months, years even, without any interruption.
I can assure you, it is not easy. It is one of the worst tortures. Much worse than physical torture. But Christ has foreseen all things because with Him there is no time. Future, past, present are one and the same: He knows all things from the beginning. Communists invented brainwashing too late! Christ had already invented the opposite to brainwashing – heart washing. He has said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Stephen, the first martyr for Christ, had around him hundreds with big stones in their hands to throw at him. He said: “I see.” And the wife of Stephen probably thought he saw the danger he was in and would run away. But he said: “I see JESUS standing at the right hand of God.” Perhaps she said (it is not recorded), “Don’t you see all the mob around you ready to throw stones at you?” “Oh yes! I see some little ants there below not worth mentioning. I look to JESUS.” He did not look to those who wished to kill him. Blessed are the pure in heart.
I had passed through brainwashing for over two years. Now the Communists would have said that my brain was still dirty. In the same rhythm in which they said, “Christianity is dead,” I and others repeated to ourselves: “Christ also has been dead, Christ also has been dead.” But we knew He rose from the dead. We remembered that we lived in the communion of saints.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
One of the greatest problems for an underground fighter is to know how to fill up his solitude. We had absolutely no books. Not only no Bible, but no books, no scrap of paper, and no pencil. We never heard a noise, and there was absolutely nothing to distract our attention. You looked at the walls, that was all. Now normally a mind under such circumstances becomes mad.
I can tell you from my own experience how I avoided becoming mad, but this again has to be prepared by a life of spiritual exercise beforehand. How much can you be alone without the Bible? How much can you bear to be with yourself without switching on the radio, or a record player, etc.?
I, and many other prisoners, did it like this. We never slept during the night. We slept during the day. The whole night we were awake. You know that a Psalm says, “…bless you the Lord,… which by night stand in the house of the Lord.” One prayer at night is worth ten prayers during the day.
All great sins and crimes are committed during the night. The great robberies, drunkenness, reveling, adultery – this whole life of sin is a night life. During the day everyone has to work in a factory, college, or somewhere. The demonic forces are forces of the night, and therefore, it is so important to oppose them during the night.
In solitary confinement we awoke when the other prisoners went to bed. We filled our time with a program which was so heavy, we could not fulfill it. We started with a prayer, a prayer in which we traveled through the whole world. We prayed for each country, for where we knew the names of towns and men, and we prayed for great preachers. It took a good hour or two to come back. We prayed for pilots, and for those on the sea, and for those who were in prisons.
After having traveled through the whole world, I read the Bible from memory. To memorize the Bible is very important for an underground worker.
THE JOY OF THE LORD
Just to make us laugh also a little bit, I will tell you one thing which happened. Once while I lay on the few planks which were my bed, I read from memory the Sermon on the Mount, according to Luke. I arrived at the part where it is said, “When you are persecuted… for the Son of man’s sake, rejoice you, in that day and leap for joy….” You will remember that it is written like this. I said, “How could I commit such a sin of neglect? Christ has said that we have to do two different things. One to rejoice, I have done. The second, to ‘leap for joy,’ I have not done.” So I jumped. I came down from my bed and I began to jump around.
In prison, the door of a cell has a peep hole through which the warden looks into the cell. He happened to look in while I jumped around. So he believed that I had become mad. They had an order to behave very well with madmen so that their shouting and banging on the wall should not disturb the order of the prison. The guard immediately entered, quieted me down and said, “You will be released; you can see everything will be all right. Just remain quiet. I will bring you something.” He brought me a big loaf of bread. Our portion was one slice of bread a week, and now I had a whole loaf, plus cheese. It was white. Never just eat cheese; first of all admire its whiteness. It is beautiful to look upon. He brought me also sugar. He spoke a few nice words again and locked the door and left.
I said, “I will eat these things after having finished my chapter from St. Luke.” I lay down again and tried to remember where I had left off. “Yes, at ‘when you are persecuted for My Name’s sake, rejoice… and leap for joy because great is your reward.” I looked at the loaf of bread and the cheese. Really, the reward was great!
So the next task is to think of the Bible and to meditate upon it. Every night, I composed a sermon beginning with “Dear brethren, and sisters” and finishing with “Amen.” After I composed it, I delivered it. I put them afterwards in very short rhymes so that I could remember them. My books, With God In Solitary Confinement and If Prison Walls Could Speak, contain some of these sermons. I have memorized three hundred and fifty of them.
Out of bread I made chessmen, some of them whitened with a little bit of chalk and the others gray. I played chess with myself. Never believe that Bob Fisher is the greatest chess master of the world. He won the last match with Spassky. He won eight games and lost two. I, in three years, never lost a game; I always won either with white or gray!
Never allow your mind to become distressed because then the Communists have you entirely in their hands. Your mind must be continually exercised. It must be alert, it must think. It must, everyone according to his abilities, compose different things, etc.
I have told you all these things because they belong to the secrets of the underground worker when he suffers. May God bless you.
Richard Wurmbrand
The Age To Come 
I certainly admire Wurmbrand and gave away 5 or 6 copies of his Marx and Satan, for all the good it did! However, I think it is too soon to talk of an underground church and with all the modern technology that “they” have I find it hard to imagine. Far better to keep sending literature into the prisons and to maintain our own libraries. We should also know something about the Talmud so as to help us understand what Jesus was getting at when he went on about the traditions of men. While no expert on the Talmud the doctrine of everyone being forgiven, for example, is Talmudic, while the doctrine of only some being forgiven is Christian . At the very least we have to sharpen up our wits to protect us from all the twits in Christendom – hey! I’ve got rhythm.
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This very tough stuff. After reading this, I feel like a wimp. I’ve been preaching through the Gospel of Mark. Jesus, clearly, was preparing His followers for such times. Whether or not it will get this bad in the west remains to be seen. What I do see coming are gradual and incremental limitations on public Christian expression. In some ways this is worse than outright persecution. We become so comfortable inour cultures that we are not even aware that we betray Christ. With physical persecutiion the reality is stark.
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Greetings. I’m only a third of the way through this, but three things struck me thus far. First, the initial liberties given when a tyrranical government comes to power for the purpose of uncovering weeaknesses in the church. For a long time, I’ve been certain that the internet is being monitored for this very purpose. We place our thoughts and everything else out here in cyberspace while the NSA and whoever else is compiling a database. I truly wonder if the time is ripe for departing this arena. (For me it is near; although I’m not sure as to “how near”)
Second, the phrase “Everything depends on whether we have remained in the sphere of words or if we are merged with the divine realities.” This should cause us all to examine where we are at the moment and ask the Lord to reveal any trouble spots.
Third, the phrase “Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand.” Amen. Loving this world will cause people to make really bad decisions. Loving not this world is not only liberating, it is a matter of life or death concerning the fabric of the everlasting.
I’ll have to finish reading this when time permits. I’ll probably make copies for those in my vicinity who profess to be born again but are oblivious to the lateness of the hour. Thanks for posting this.
Havbe a blessed day in Jesus.
timbob
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Timebob, Of course NSA monitors the internet just as they monitor the mail and your telephone calls. There is the famous picture of Cromwell’s ironsides questioning a young boy in regards to his father’s whereabouts and during WW 2 the posters “Walls have ears” and “Loose lips sink ships” suggest that nothing has changed. I call myself white rabbit because I am usually white with fright and always ready to run!
How do you think that God puts your name in his Book of life unless he is constantly monitoring you and of course Lucifer has his agents – the spirit ones, not the NSA ones – watching you too.
Just remember James 4:7 “Resist the devil and he will flee from thee.”
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Hello white rabbit- whilst I don’t think we are yet at the point of an underground church, I think it’s good to consider what it may entail, even if it is something way beyond our experience.
Dan – me too, this is something entirely beyond my expereince and I find myself wondering how I would do. Not well, I suspect, however He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world. I agree with you, that I see a gradual encroaching and a chilling of Christian expression – we are already seeing that North of the border. Of course, an economic collapse may well pave the way to an acceleration of repression into outright persecution.
Timbob – you’re welcome. I know it is a long read, but I thought it good to post in entirity.
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I can think of nothing to say. Can fathom nothing. Is it truly possible I will one day face such challenge? How weak I am, I who am thought to be a mother in Zion. I am startled.
Shirley
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One day during Lent several years ago i stopped to make a visit in my Church while it was empty and no services going on. While kneeling and looking at Christ on the Crucifix I wondered, fearfully, “Could I follow Christ ANYWHERE–even to the cross?” And while I was feeling that, oh NO, I could never do that, a voice said to me: “Whatever is My will for you to do, I will give you the graces you need to do it.” I am not a person who usually receives messages that way, and those words were certainly not my words–but I believe that even when I forget them for a time, God has infinite ways to remind me during times when I most need them.
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The way things are going, it seems to me that we may need to take heed of this in our lifetimes. God will give us the grace, as you say, because we could never do this in our own strength.
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There is nothing to say, I understand completely. I am completely unequal to that challenge. All I can plead is Christ.
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Truly horrific, although it’s considerably brightened and balanced by Wurmbrandt’s humour (e.g., the tale about the Czech Communist who converted to Christianity precisely thanks to his being tortured the way he was!). Still, I fully realise how HOPELESSLY INADEQUATE I am as a human being to begin with; let alone at the prospect of facing anything like the kind of ordeal described here!! Dear Lord, if possible, please grant me the mercy of dying before having to undergo something like that for the weakness of this would-be servant of yours is all too obvious (though Thy Will be nevertheless done…).
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Now is the time to do this work. Many are unfortunately still grappling for advantage, still fighting the war of words with Satan’s workers. Of course we want to bring even the most evil infilled persons to Christ, but if we heed the times we should be realizing that a difficult time for Christians is coming upon the West, and we must begin preparing for that.
Some of the comments speak to martyrdom, but the article speaks to preparing and hence lessening the suffering. I am reminded of the Mennonite record of the Reformation, The Martyrs’ Mirror, which was written and illustrated in the 1500s. The Mennonites didn’t stand around making themselves targets. They ran away from their pursuers! They met in secret and did all things religious in secret. They did no harm, but they weren’t sitting ducks, either.
So, let us prepare. Let us, for example, begin to think about how people of faith and conscience will be able to work should we refuse to be part of a nationalized health insurance system. If we refuse to cooperate with the “individual mandate” to take part in financing abortion, ‘sex changes’, stem cell work, mental health directives, etc., at least one US national candidate (and many state democratic legislatures) has already threatened to garnish wages, penalize tax refunds, and sign people up involuntarily using the tax roles. If we need to live outside of the tax system, how we will be able to buy and to sell? These are suddenly pressing questions.
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Preperation is the key, much of which will be spiritual in nature IMHO
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thank you, brother
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You’re welcome….
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There were many years in Europe and parts of the USA where one had to belong to a church (sometimes a particular church) or suffer greatly. That is a bigger fear of mine and a far more likely scenario considering the dominance of Christianity in the USA and the rise of the radical right. No one likes any repression by any power, but I my biggest fear at least in the USA, is a reemergence of a theocracy.
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Thank you so much for posting this. I found it through a link from Timbob’s site, and I am just so grateful to read it. Thank you.
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Glad I could help!
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WOW! This is really great stuff. I didn’t realize there were other people out there thinking about these things. I’ve been planning for years a world wide underground church. A place where any Believe is welcome. I’ve had these thoughts running through my mind of a community of believers who will help prepare the world for the coming of Christ.
Most of the time in my encounters with other Christians (and I’m not talking about the Sunday drivers) I’ve found them to have a certain desire to help the people of our time. But I have a different Idea. I want to help those who will be left behind. Some of the people replying to this article are saying they believe we aren’t ready for an underground church, but I must respectfully disagree. We are all in the final days, and each of us will experience our own judgment. What most don’t realize is that death is our judgement, and all of us must die. So whether it’s the return of Christ in the rapture or our own death, it is still the return of Christ.
If we slack off from our duties as Christians because of an idea that we aren’t ready for an underground church, then we have all failed. We must do our part as Christians, and by constructing the underground church, we lay a foundation for those who remain after the rapture, and leave behind a church where they can safely study without fear of persecution from the Anti-Christ.
I am working on this as much as I can, but I need help. I can’t do it on my own. If you are interested, then please register on my website and I will contact you via the email you add in registration. You can find the website online at “http://www.undergroundchurch.info”.
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Looks good Solidvision, I see the site is still under construction. I do not think we will be ready from an ‘underground church’ until we have to be ready for it – until we have no other choice. IMHO, I’m not convinced there will be a rapture as distinct from the return of Christ, so it could well be us that will be worshipping underground!
Blessings,
Peter
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REVIVAL IN IRAN! Although their church is underground, God is adding to it with a rapid pace. Iranians have been opening up to the Gospel and a quiet revival is spreading in the nation. All across Iran a revival is taking over a nation yoked with a deep spiritual emptiness and hunger.
Iranian church leaders believe that millions can be added to the church in the next few years — such is the spiritual hunger in Iran.
Go check out a website called REVIVAL IN IRAN to find out more what is happening.
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OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
One of the greatest problems for an underground fighter is to know how to fill up his solitude. We had absolutely no books. Not only no Bible, but no books, no scrap of paper, and no pencil. We never heard a noise, and there was absolutely nothing to distract our attention. You looked at the walls, that was all. Now normally a mind under such circumstances becomes mad.
I can tell you from my own experience how I avoided becoming mad, but this again has to be prepared by a life of spiritual exercise beforehand. How much can you be alone without the Bible? How much can you bear to be with yourself without switching on the radio, or a record player, etc.?
I, and many other prisoners, did it like this. We never slept during the night. We slept during the day. The whole night we were awake. You know that a Psalm says, “…bless you the Lord,… which by night stand in the house of the Lord.” One prayer at night is worth ten prayers during the day.
All great sins and crimes are committed during the night. The great robberies, drunkenness, reveling, adultery – this whole life of sin is a night life. During the day everyone has to work in a factory, college, or somewhere. The demonic forces are forces of the night, and therefore, it is so important to oppose them during the night.
In solitary confinement we awoke when the other prisoners went to bed. We filled our time with a program which was so heavy, we could not fulfill it. We started with a prayer, a prayer in which we traveled through the whole world. We prayed for each country, for where we knew the names of towns and men, and we prayed for great preachers. It took a good hour or two to come back. We prayed for pilots, and for those on the sea, and for those who were in prisons.
After having traveled through the whole world, I read the Bible from memory. To memorize the Bible is very important for an underground worker.
[quote] I agree with the standing in prayer at night thing I am normally not a sound sleeper it’s because of not enough hormones in my body that trigger the mind to reset to sleep, and I think that God is using this to prepare me for prayer at night since a prayer at night is worth a thousand prayers during the day.
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Thanks Eric, a thought provoking comment!
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i just scanned thro. am short of words..
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i know what the plans are and its meant in good faith there will be one who eill decieve and control much confusion will come but stay strong and the path is to not only have world peace but to make the peace that began so long ago i cant say to much but all has shown to me and i was confused and mixed and im still asking ehy me but i have the burdenen to bare im tired and the believe i know im not going to give may i serve in the nsme of lord i am a sinner as i am not perfect
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I really want to know why so many Christians and Jews think they are exempt from evil times.
I dont get it.
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Yes; I hear THAT, Sister:)
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The Gospel of Prosperity, I guess. Bad things only happen to other people, elsewhere.
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I am dumbfounded by the people above who seem oblivious to the fact that there has ALWAYS been an underground church SOMEWHERE in the world. No, it may not have come to that in the United States yet… but we need to remember and pray for the believers in countries where they are not free to worship God. In 2008 when some of these were written, many people did not believe the things that are currently happening would come to pass… but they are. Freedom is being restricted like a drawstring which is ever so slowly being tightened. Because the restriction is subtle, most people do not recognize it for what it is. Furthermore, there is a huge problem within the body of believers that “watered down” or “lukewarm” faith is being propagated at an alarming rate. People with watered down or lukewarm faith will NOT be able to withstand the pressures of torture or brainwashing. They WILL renounce their beliefs in order to avoid further suffering… and the advice given in this article is worth more than 1000 other things we could read. I am glad I read this, and hope that I never have to see the day when we must all put into practice the information it has imparted. But we can be certain that day is coming, and if not us – then our children will be the ones suffering for their faith. God help us all. One last thing: to the person above who suggested Christianity teaches only some are forgiven: John 3:16 states that God is not willing that ANY of us should perish. He wants us ALL to have eternal life with Him. The only requirement He has is that we BELIEVE.
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We are very soft I think – even those of us who recognise the reality. Pray for God’s mercy to not test us beyond what we are able to handle – with His grace though, that may be rather a lot more than we think we can handle!
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YES! AMEN; Peter! Amen
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Dear Lydia, in regards to your quote from the book of John. I would like to address the useage of the term “willing” he uses there. There are four types of “will” that are attributed to God. First is His Providential/Decreed = His Sovereign Will. Second is the Revealed/Moral will = The Scriptures. Then there is His Preceptive Will = Revealed based upon His Law. Last is His Dispositional Will = will of desire or emotion. The Dispositional Will is what the Lord our God Jesus Christ is expressing by that statement, and is different from His Sovereign Decretory Will. I hope you see the truth in this understanding! God bless[:
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the image of Christ i am, if my body were to perrish i would see the holes in His hands, and the hole in His side, where His blood shed fell on me, He gave me (His) love, this alone conquers all, even death.. (His love) alone gives you the will to die for Him, and the courage to suffer for Him. Words cannot express His love so there is nothing else i can say, just believe. Is He in you?
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I in Him and He in me. Without that, there is no salvation. I am not my own, but bought with a price. Therefore, let His thoughts be my thoughts, His ways my ways, His love my love.
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the weakness of God is stronger than men, foolishness of God is wiser than men… one time i prayed “thank you Lord for your weakness that i might be strong”, .. then i realized WE WERE HIS WEAKNESS! HIS WEAKNESS WAS HIS LOVE FOR US!!!! HE COULD NOT, NOT LOVE!!!! GOD (IS) LOVE, He sent Himself to die for us!!
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Please pray for me. I was born-again 40 years ago and ministered in the body of Christ as well as to the unbeliever at any and all opportunity that opened to me. However, 6 years ago, I started into a trial that would last 5 years and I felt I would surely not be able to escape the pit I found myself in. I found myself questioning the love and purpose of a God who would allow such suffering in the world –
especially to the innocent children and those helpless to end their suffering. Although, I kept giving myself the answers I had been taught (Man;s gift of freewill.) My daughter fell prey to the feminist movement and constantly challenged me as to how I could love a God who allowed women to be abused all through time. I had experienced a divorce years earlier and was raising four children on my own…which clarifies a lot I am sure. I N E V E R would have believed that this could have happened to me, that my faith and foundation would be shaken so severely…Jesus was my life, joy, and strength up until that time, my children were raised in church and were in church services and activies through their school years up to early college. I had never had any doubts before this time and I could still feel the experience of my glorious salvation from when I was 21 years of age…I am 61. I felt so abandoned, it was an unbelievable dark time. This is only a portion of my experience …my children went into dark depression and two of them were hospitalized – attempted suicide, and the other two were in intense counseling. I have never written this down before, but the information on this site has touched me so deeply. I am now on my way to spiritual recovery and three of my children as well – one of my son’s has been born again and is a great inspiration and comfort to me, and prays for our family.relentlessly. I know the Lord is laying me a new foundation, something must have gone wrong for me to have crumbled after so many years of dedication to the Lord. So… I will be praying to be able to withstand the lies of the enemy and that my family will continue to grow in the
truth of God’s word so that we will never be crushed again. Also, so that we can be a help to those in need as the pressures of the end times unfold here in the west. I will pray for you Please, pray that my daughter will be saved from new age lies, and come to know the love of Jesus. In Christ
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Hi Lanie,
Thanks for your comment, and for sharing what you went through. Sometimes, something doesn’t go wrong for you to experience hard times. I know, I’ve been there. Look at Job, he didn’t exactly get an easy ride. But look up, because you did not curse God and die. For whatever reason, sometimes the Lord leads us through these dark valleys, possibly to learn something we would never learn any other way. I’ll pray for you and your daughter.
Blessings,
Peter
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Thank you for caring. It means so much to read your encouraging words today.May God bless you.
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And also with you, and yours. 🙂
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I am completely stunned @ this presentation of truth and thankful to our great God that the Author was brought through!! I cannot begin to imagine this terror and horror! I am offended if my grown Son doesn’t approve of something I may express from the Bible; I would be completely UNPREPARED for ANY suffering such as spoken here. I am so grateful to the Lord for salvation but must take time to memorize God’s word and just be grateful to be alive as the good ole USA is coming to be less and less free. God bless the Author.
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By the way Peter; God bless you for posting this as well.
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You’re very welcome.
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I seen many problems with this article. I totally disagree with him telling Christians they don’t need the Word of God during persecution. There is no way that John the Baptist, disciples, Stephen or Paul could of went through the torture, prisons and even death without the Word of God. This is what they laid down their lives for because they believed in the promises of God. This is why I stay away from men made teachings. You know what would get us through the tribulation? Is the willingness to lay down our lives for Christ because we believe in the promises of God when Jesus comes he will raise us from the dead. This is the time to preach the gospel, share and open our mouths boldly as we ought to speak. Persecution, suffering, and death is not something we need to fear because the grave is the place God has chosen to hid us until his wrath be past then he will raise us from the dead.
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The way I look at it – we should walk a mile in Richard’s shoes before being able to comment on his experience. I took it that he was stripped to the very basics, starved, beaten, drugged, etc. And only then did he understand that God was all sufficient – when He was all that Richard had. Everything else taken away.
But, I do not read that he was saying you do not need the word of God. In fact, he says the opposite, and that you should memorise the whole book (who would do that, nowadays?!) What he says, though, is that the word of God is not God. A Bible verse does not save you. The God who authored the verse, does.
I believe we should use the freedoms we have now, to proclaim the Gospel. For the times will come when we cannot proclaim openly any more, but must go underground.
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I do believe the Lord is calling us to prepare, it is time to study, to meditate, to pray and to hold fast our faith in the Lord Jesus. I read “Tortured for Christ” some thirty years ago and it never left me. Reading this now, I know it is time to prepare.
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Hello Jim. I agree, we do need to prepare, so much of the Church is asleep. If we do not stand in Him, we do not stand at all.
Blessings,
Peter
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Peter, would you care to give me your opinion on another subject, this is the first time I have ever blogged, I think that is what it is called, anyway: I am interested in a smaller home church and I was wondering why so many are thinking bigger, bigger, bigger?
very concerned,
jim
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Daniel Here from http://www.nohatenowarjustlove.org and 9 others “.” and 2 to come wwww.5goldenrings.us & .biz Making 12, Contact me to make this become Great! “Lets take Hate and mold it into Good”
Lets make it Happen
The knowledge is within Us.. We Just have to “Tap” into into it to Change our World and Make Our Human Race a Great Force Once Again!
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As for me I will preach Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No-one is good but God alone.
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Hi Jim,
Sorry, I could not reply to your post directly for some reason.
I don’t have a very strong opinion on the size of church, though I do prefer smaller churches. Once any chuch gets above 250 members, it seems to me that it would be a good opportunity to begin a church plant.
A churh that gets into the thousands seems to me to lose the cohesiveness and family nature that a smaller church can obtain. Not to say that it’s always wrong, but there seems a danger it can be like going to the theatre, rather than to church. All IMHO! 🙂
Peter
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Very important article. We have released a free ebook on the same subject which we believe is very needful for the times we are living in North America specifically: http://gospelfellowships.net/principles-book/
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Hello Peter,
I have been very moved this morning by reading this testimony. I have incorporated a few parts into a blog article I have just written (called Exploding Eggs and Fresh Manna) and included a link back here so those who wish can come to read the full article you have posted. Hope that is OK.
I have read 2 of R Wurmbrand’s books previously and they are deeply moving.
God bless,
Helen
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I learned only a few minutes ago at another site that Richard Wurmbrand had written an article titled “Preparing for the Underground Church.”
Your site seems to provide a better format so I decided to jump in here.
What are your current thoughts in view of what has transpired the last few months?
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I think we should take the admonition seriously. In so many ways we are soft, not ready. I’ve written before – it’s the twilight of the current age, and we bask in its fading gleams. Much that can be shaken, soon will be. We’re too enmeshed in the relative ease of the current world, and its distractions. Too easily conformed. I believe the Lord desires us to be sober, alert and ready. Now, that’s always the case…always….but it has a special urgency now. We need to be ready for the two sides of the same coin – persecution and revival. And it so often seems to me we are ready for neither. It’s time to seriously consider, count the cost of following Christ, before it becomes time to pay that cost in full. Blessings,
Peter
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You say it very well; I cannot agree more.
I personally knew Richard, his wife, Sabina, and some other members of the family.
God bless!
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Thanks i7sharp, blessing on you and yours too!
Richard was a giant in the faith – it is hard to contemplate what he went through, and imagine having to go through something that may be in many ways worse. At times like that I can only plead my Strong Tower, His strength in the midst of my weakness. Christ alone….
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