Richard Wurmbrand in prison
Some believers in the world today do not need to prepare to go underground. They are underground already and live in constant vigilance against the severe persecution that dogs them daily.
Other modern religious cultures like the West have no real clue about the struggles of underground believers other than an occasional brochure, video presentation, or maybe a visit now and then. It’s something akin to a media commercial break. In this age of worldwide COVID hysteria and fear, many of us know something enormous is afoot. Nothing in our history has ever transpired to this level.
So we all do need to prepare for those times Jesus spoke about: the end times closely linked to His actual return after The Great Tribulation. Perhaps we indeed do live in those times. Just perhaps.
Brother Richard Wurmbrand and his dear wife Sabrina lived the bulk of their life in Romania in central Europe. They saw the darkening cloud of communism descend and swallow their country whole. The persecution was overwhelming at times and always intense. After eighteen long years in prison, the Wurmbrand’s were able to escape and immigrate to America and founded the Voice of The Martyrs.
This document is in PDF format at the end. Also, we have links to a few of brother Richard’s books.
Let us all get and be prepared spiritually, emotionally, and physically before the time.
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1 Prepare for suffering
1.1 One day persecution – Great persecution can begin with a one day clamp down.
1.2 No one observes – Soviets employed quiet methods so no one could observe an arrest.
1.3 No panic – A true Christian does not panic if put in prison.
1.4 Prison witness – Prison is a new place to witness for Christ.
1.5 Morse code – Morse code used through adjoining cells to bring people to Christ.
1.6 No watches – All watches are taken away.
1.7 Preparation mentally, physically, and spiritually – Prepare beforehand for all eventualities, and all suffering.
2 Truth about reality
2.1 Any church person can be a traitor – Gifted preachers and writers become traitors. The best hymn writer in Romania became best Communist hymn writer.
2.2 Crucified Christians in prison – Christians were tied to crosses for four days, put on the floor, and other prisoners tortured to force them to fulfill bodily necessities upon faces and bodies of the crucified.
2.3 The Lord, not the Bible – No bible verse was of any help. It’s the Lord who strengthens you, not a Psalm. You must have the One about whom the Psalm speaks.
2.4 Evil has no power over God – If you’re united with the Reality, the Lord Almighty, evil loses its power over you. Evil cannot break the Lord Almighty.
3 Spiritual exercises
3.1 The Zoo, Lions, & Suffering – Take children to the zoo, and show them a cage of lions. “Your forefathers in faith were thrown before such wild beasts for their faith. Know you too will suffer. You’ll not be thrown to lions but have to suffer at the hands of men much worse than lions. Decide here and now if you wish to pledge allegiance to Christ.”
3.2 Nothing in prison – In prison you lose everything. You’re undressed and given a prisoners suit. No furniture, carpets, or curtains. You have no wife or children anymore. You do not have a library, and you never see a flower. Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains.
3.3 Renounce the pleasures of the world now – Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand…a giving up of the joys of the earth. The Christian who prepares himself for this now will not suffer the loss of them while in prison. You have to use the things of the world without allowing an emotional attachment.
3.4 The supermarket and doing without – Go to a supermarket. Look at everything and say, “I can go without this thing and that.” Do not spend a dollar. You have the joy of seeing many beautiful things and the second joy to know you can do without.
4 Doubts make traitors
4.1 Resist doubts of God – To every one of us doubts come, but do not allow doubts about essential doctrine of the Bible like the existence of God, the resurrection of Christ, or the existence of eternal life. Do not allow them to make a nest in your mind.
4.2 All doubts have solutions – The solution to doubts: don’t live with doubts, but seek their solution.
5 Test of Torture
5.1 Torture can strengthen you – Torture can be very painful, either red hot irons or even simple beatings. Many can be very refined tortures. This can work both ways. It can harden you and strengthen your decision to not tell the police anything.
5.2 Mind altering rays – Electromagnetic rays, which disturb the mind, can be passed through a cell. A loudspeaker can be repeated day and night, “Is your name Joseph or not Joseph?”
5.3 God is more mighty than evil torture – This is God that they fight, Christ within you. 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.
6 Moment of Crisis
6.1 One moment of crisis – Torture has a moment of explosion and the torturer waits for this critical moment. Learn to conquer doubt and to think thoroughly. There’s always one moment of crisis where you are ready to say or write the name of an accomplice or place in the underground. You’ve been tortured so much nothing counts anymore.
6.2 Christ is with you in the pain at that one moment – The fact that I should not have pain does also not count. Draw this last conclusion at the stage you’ve arrived and you’ll 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. If they cannot get anything from you in that moment, then they abandon the torture for to continue is useless.
6.3 Read books about martyrs to your children – Read Foxes Book of Martyrs, or Jesus Freaks to your children. Show them how martyrs overcame the moment of crisis.
6.4 We can bear pain at this present moment – You’re not asked to bear the pain all at once. Take no thought for tomorrow. Anyone can bear an hour of pain, perhaps passing through untold anguish. You’re not meant to bear pain more than this one present minute.
6.5 Today’s moment of pain is for today only – Pain is amplified by the memory of past beatings and torture. But I may not be alive tomorrow nor they.
6.6 Breathe right for whole body resistance – Right breathing is one of the means of resisting torture. You cannot quarrel with someone and shout at them when breathing rightly. Breathe as a traitor cannot breathe. Breathe rhythmically, quietly – very deep to the heel. The oxygenation gives a resistance to the whole body, which balances your reactions and gives you a poised attitude.
6.7 Our body is in Christ as He is flogged, mocked, and spat upon – An underground worker for Christ knows he belongs to a body that has been flogged for over 2000 years. When we converted we become consciously a part of that body that is a flogged body, a mocked body, a body spat upon, and one crowed with thorns, with nails driven into hands and feet. The sufferings of Jesus in His mystical body must become a reality to me.
7 Love supreme
7.1 Loving Christ more than your family – The Bible teaches some words very hard to take: whoever doesn’t hate his father, etc. These words mean almost nothing in a free country. Thousands of children have been taken from their parents for teaching them Christ. You must love Christ more than your children. A court and its judge may say you will never see your children again unless you deny Christ. Your heart may break, but your answer should be, “I love God.”
7.2 Your children will see your true faith and keep theirs – Nadia Sloboda left her house singing for 4 years in prison. Her children told their singing mother, “Don’t worry about us. Wherever they put us, we will not give up the faith.” They did not.
7.3 Dying for Christ or being a traitor – You have to choose between dying for Christ or becoming a traitor. What is it worth of continuing to live when you will be ashamed to look in the mirror, knowing the mirror will show the face of a traitor?
8 Learn to be silent
8.1 Be careful what you say – Most leaders are speakers, but one cannot speak well who doesn’t listen well. People have so many burdens on their heart, and few have patience to listen. So be careful what you say, because every superfluous word can put someone in prison…or to death.
8.2 Learn silence before they control you – You must learn silence before your country is taken over. Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize winner, said his former wife was his greatest persecutor. He told her all the secrets of his heart. Even his secretary was persecuted by his former wife, and the secretary ended her own life as a result.
8.3 Simple prayer can be enough – If you’re drugged and beaten, you may forget some, or all, of your theology. You can pray to our Father to send the Spirit to remind you. For a time, your prayers may only be, “Jesus, I love You.” Even then, it may be difficult to say anything. The highest form of prayer I know is the beating of a heart which loves Him.
8.4 Most speech is really useless – When you’re able to speak again, you’ll see just how much speech is useless. So, be careful what you say. Practice being silent for the tough times. In tough times, keep your mouth shut. Learn to do this now…not later.
9 Permissible strategies
9.1 Say what they want to hear – You cannot do underground work without using strategies. For instance, when one is stopped suspected of attending underground meetings, they may ask, “Do you still gather at meetings?” Your answer might be, “Comrade Captain, prayer meetings are forbidden now.” He might say, “It is good you conform.” You never said that. You might still attend, but they are forbidden.
9.2 Be wise as a serpent – We are to be as wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove. They may try to say that as a Christian you must tell them the truth. No, even Jesus lied to his brothers, and the Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh to save the male babies like Moses.
9.3 Never inform for we can die any day – You do not inform on your brethren. Ever. The worst thing that might happen is that you die under torture. But to die is the most natural thing in the world. Your mortality is obvious. Take it as your view of life in general. If God wishes me to die today He does not need a torturer. I can die of a heart attack without a torturer. I die when I am called by God.
10 Treacherous quarrelling
10.1 Quarrels cause arrests – Not the slightest quarrel is permitted in the underground church. Every quarrel in the underground church means arrests, beatings, and perhaps death. Our adversaries watch and listen. They have informers in the underground church. Whenever there is a quarrel, there are reciprocal accusations. They bring up names and facts. Both sides may be arrested.
10.2 Keep your secrets – One young man gave up his first girlfriend for another but had told that first girl secrets. The girl informed the secret police. He got life-long prison, and went mad there.
10.3 Preach but do not quarrel – Remember that preparation for underground work is basic to preparation for a normal Christian worker. Quarrels happen everywhere with different leaders, but in an oppressive country it means imprisonment and perhaps death. Preach the truth but do not quarrel.
11 Resisting brainwashing
11.1 Brainwashing is torture – One of the greatest methods of torture is not only physical: it is brainwashing. Nobody advertises, “Drink water, drink water.” They advertise, “Drink Coca-Cola.”
11.2 Brainwashing can be worse that physical torture – In my Romanian prison, we had to sit for 17 hours on a bench that gave no possibility to lean, and not allowed to close your eyes. For 17 hours a day we had to hear, “Communism is good. Communism is good. Christianity is dead. Christianity is dead.” You were bored after one minute, but you had to hear it for weeks, months, years even without any interruption. I can assure you this is not easy, and is the worst torture, much worse that than physical torture.
11.3 Heartwashing – But Christ invented the opposite of brainwashing: heartwashing. He has said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” When the Communists said, “Christianity is dead,” we said in the same rhythm, “Christ also has been dead.” But we knew He rose from the dead!
11.4 Black or white but never gray – We have to arrive at the certainty of faith. In Hebrew, there are no words for “to doubt.” In the New Testament, there is no word for “gray.” A thing is true or untrue, it is right or it is wrong. It is white or it is black.
11.5 If necessary, live in the past – Remember that Elizabeth told Mary that “Blessed is the one that believed.” It is the past tense. If you have believed in the past, you are blessed. Live on this blessedness. Sometimes living on past memories can be a blessing in you pass through a dark night of the soul.
11.6 Real truth helps resist to the extreme – The certainty of truth and a love like the disciples enable you to resist brainwashing. Resist to the extreme.
12 Overcoming solitude
12.1 Know how to fill solitude – One of the greatest problems for an underground fighter is to know how to fill up his solitude. We had absolutely no books, no Bible, no scrap of paper, and no pencil. We heard no noise, and nothing to distract your attention. Just looking at the walls. Read books now about prison life to prepare.
12.2 Never sleep at night – This is how I avoided becoming mad, but you still have to be prepared by a life of spiritual exercise beforehand. We never slept during the night, but the whole night we were awake. All great sins and crimes are committed during the night. The demonic forces are forces of the night and therefore it is important to oppose then at night. We had prayer vigils at night before prison.
12.3 Traveling the globe nightly – We filled our time with a heavy program. We started with a prayer of traveling through the whole world. We prayed for each country, the towns, the men of God, pilots, men on the sea, and those in prison. It would take an hour or two to come back. We rejoiced with those who rejoice that they gathered with their families and children.
12.4 Compose and deliver messages nightly – After having traveled through the whole world, I read the Bible from memory. It is very important for the underground worker to memorize the Bible. Next I would think of the Bible and meditate upon it. Every night I composed a message beginning with “Dear brethren” and finishing with “Amen!” After I composed it, I delivered it. I have memorized three hundred and fifty of them. There were messages I just uttered to God and His angels.
12.5 Family and chess – I thought about my wife and children. Out of bread I made chessmen, some white and some gray. I played with myself and never lost a game!
12.6 Alert with an exercised mind – Never allow your mind to become distressed because then the enemy has you entirely in their hands. Your mind must be continually exercised. It must be alert, and it must think. You must compose different things according to your abilities.
13 True identity
The underground church is nothing new. You will see the New Testament with new eyes. This is our true identity, not the world or its ways. The government can do good and bad things, but we are to obey Christ in everything.
14 Comments by Marc White
14.1 Prepare ahead of time – Brother Richard makes it clear that preparing for the underground church is done ahead of time: the time to fix the roof is before it rains. That time is now. Do not delay…
14.2 You must “be” the Bible, not just read it – Reading a Bible is not enough…you must walk with the God who Is. You must memorize large portions so that it becomes the biggest part of you. The Bible is not God, but reveals the heart of God and His commands. Read the same Bible and take mental snapshots of where a passage lies on the page and in what Book. For instance, I know that the passage to not layup treasures in Matthew 6 begins on the top right page and ends at the bottom of the page with verse 34. I can see the passage on the page so I can then remember and recite most of it even now with the Spirit’s help.
14.3 Cherished history of our brethren – We’re blessed enormously by having a deep and wide history of our brethren who have traveled this road before us. Thank the Lord God for the fact of this cherished history.
14.4 A better resurrection – Most folks living in the modern west have little to no idea about the eternal treasures of heaven…or God for that matter. The book of Hebrews talks plainly of those saints who are martyred for their faith. Part of their reward? A better resurrection (Heb. 11.35). The souls under the altar of God in Revelation 6 who were martyred during the Great Tribulation are crying out for revenge. What a location to spend our eternal days! We may be among that number. Let us please God in all things (Col. 1.10).
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The PDF of this document is here. Richard’s book Tortured for Christ is here. And his book With God in Solitary Confinement is here.
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Please comment on this post right below. Feel free to write and proclaim your leadings in the Spirit in an honorable fashion.
Your friend and brother in fighting the good fight,
Marc
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Saints, we’re one day closer to Home, and Him! Love Him wholeheartedly!
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Please comment on this post right below. Feel free to write and proclaim your leadings in the Spirit in an honorable fashion.
Marc White, Director, Walk Worthy Ministries, www.WalkWorthy.org
Keener (popular commentator, i.e. IVP Bible Background Commentary, over 500,000 copies) on Revelation 3.5, from the NIV Application Commentary on Revelation:
t Demas, Paul’s fellow church planting apostle, who was earlier mentioned before the last chilling update on his life in 2 Timothy? He ended up loving the world of Satan…the king and kingdom of the evil one.
