Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, died in 2001 and spent 14 years of his life in a communist prison in Romania. In his book, Christ in the Communist Prison, he writes:
"I was made to stand facing a wall with my hands raised above my head so that my fingertips just touched it. "Just keep him there," the chief of the prison told the guard.
"So at last my tortures began, tortures common to all Secret Police prisons: a dreary round of indignities and pain. First I stood for hours, long after my arms had lost all feeling and my swollen legs had begun to tremble. Then I was allowed to collapse on the floor, given a crust and a sip of water, and made to stand again. One guard relieved another. Sometimes two or three would share the sport of forcing me to adopt ridiculous or obscene postures and this went on, with short breaks, for days and nights. Always there was the wall to look at, only the wall.
To make time pass, I thought of the many walls referred to in the Bible, recalling a verse from Isaiah which saddened me: God says Israel's wrongdoings put a wall between Him and the people. In the same way, the failures of Christianity had allowed a communist triumph, and that was why I had a wall before me now. Then I remembered a phrase, "With my Lord, I jump over the wall." I, too, might vault this wall into the spiritual world of fellowship with God. I thought of the Jewish spies who returned from Canaan to report that the cities were great and walled- but even as the walls of Jericho came down, so the wall before me must also fall at the will of God. When pain was overwhelming me, I silently recited a phrase from the Song of Songs: "My beloved is like a roe or a young hart; behold he standeth behind our wall." I imagined that Jesus stood behind my wall, giving me strength. I remembered that as long as Moses held up his hands on the mountains, the chosen people went forward to victory; perhaps our sufferings were helping the people of God to win their battle, too."
So staring at the wall, I created this blog so that I too may know and understand scripture the way Richard Wurmbrand could. He found strength in the Word, though he could not even see a Bible for 14 years. He had hidden the Word in his heart, and was able to flip through his heart like a PC study Bible concordance searching the scriptures that contained the word "wall". May my life hide His word in my heart, so that no matter what comes my way in the future, I will find strength in the Word and only the Word. Because persecuted christians are not of the past, but of the present. May we labor fervently in prayer for these people because they are our brothers and sisters.
To learn more about Richard wurmbrand, go here.
2 comments:
I love how the Word of God can transform any situation and bring glory to God. Keep sharpening your sword Kristie.
I wonder if he would think of Ephesians 2:14-16
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
What a great proclaimer you are.
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