University professors, parliament members had no purpose in life…most of them died.
I had a friend…I
used to do his quota, too.
used to do his quota, too.
If they were Christians, their faith was of little value to them, for as Father Galeriu learned, only those with strong faith survived. “At the Canal of Death having strong faith was absolutely decisive for survival...you could test the strength and mystery of the faith...and every person with a strong faith was able to survive.” When we asked Father Galeriu for an example of this ‘strong faith’ he answered, “We had a daily quota. We had to dig 9.5 cubic meters of earth. A young man could achieve that quota, but an old man couldn’t. If you couldn’t do your quota, you wouldn’t get your bread portion on that day. And then...you can imagine...we were weak, exhausted, and the quota was too big. I had a friend, a school teacher from Bacau who was sixty years old. I used to do his quota, too. Therefore we helped one another and we withstood and survived.”
It is not reasonable that Father Galeriu, weak and exhausted, facing his own nearly impossible daily quota, would expend his own limited supply of life sustaining energy to do the work of another man. But that’s what faith is...that which lies on the other side of reason. He was trusting that God would supernaturally replenish what he gave away. This makes no sense if God does not exist and His Word is not true. He was acting on his faith in God and in His promise that, ‘Give and it shall be given unto you.’ This is the strong faith that touches the heart of God...the means by which Father Galeriu received Divine help in order to survive.
In the chapter, Diabolical Attacks, we learned that Pastor Wurmbrand’s faith, after months of near starvation in a freezing cell, bombarded for seventeen hours a day with repeated taped messages, was all but dead. “(I was) drinking the soul destroying poison of the last and worst stages of brainwashing. In the darkest of hopeless days, when with repeated use of torture and a truth drug my mind was worn down, and felt utterly forsaken by God, and could not marshal a single argument to prove that Christ was the Messiah or the existence of God, the devil appeared to me and convinced me I’d followed the wrong man. I began believing Satan was the Messiah and other thoughts too horrible to mention.”1 How could he not believe what the repeated tapes declared...cut off for years from the outside world, fed constant lies, no contact with family, told his wife was dead...that Christianity was a corpse, dead, and communism had swept over the earth?
It is painful to do so, but, for a moment, try to picture him lying in rags in that dungeon...imagine his feelings and thoughts. But...but alongside thoughts too horrible to mention, the seed of another thought intrudes...he recalls Mary Magdalena and a spark, just a spark of love is ignited somewhere deep in his soul as Holy Spirit quickens to his memory her life’s story...delivered of seven demons, bursting with gratitude...washing with many tears the feet of the One who saved her from terrible torment. And one tiny drop of living water begins to do combat with the flood of lies, as hidden deep in his innermost parts, having been combined with his deepest emotions, is her saga...the faithfulness of Mary Magdalena, hearing her Deliverer cry that He is forsaken by God, yet remaining at the Cross...and still faithful outside His tomb, weeping with a burning love for her Lord when He was but a corpse inside. And in his underground dungeon the prisoner in his mind sees her...running, breathlessly to the disciples, panting, urgent, ‘They took the Master from the tomb! We don’t know where they put Him!’ Even two angels don’t console her, for her it’s only ‘Him!’, ‘Him!’, ‘Him!’...‘I don’t know where they put Him!’ ‘Tell me where you put Him...so I can care for Him!’
Love Giving Birth to Faith
And with poetic incantation and the spoken word and grabbing onto evidence of history and whatever proof his ruined mind, his ruined memory could provide, combating thoughts too horrible to mention...he brings from totally hopeless bitterness...darkness...with no weapons, with all joy and serenity gone...grabs onto that spark of truth...Magdalena’s burning love for Jesus while He is but a corpse...as a corpse Wurmbrand nearly believes Christianity has become...and finds one spark of love, of truth, in his soul and with a long love poem, written over two days, fans that spark into fire...yet still asks, cries, ‘Why, oh why is this love in my soul for a God who would allow such sorrow and suffering?’2
And knows that love is not for the wise, that if he were wise he would hate, but he’s a simple priest...as we all are...and one man in hopelessness, in his underground cell...one man, which is what, and all, each of us are...one man starts at the bottom and with Magdalena’s story, included by Holy Spirit in the Bible for just such a time, planted deep in Wurmbrand’s spirit through study and meditation, having combined it with his deepest emotions, living waters are released into a place where death and Satan threaten to reign...a spark of love is ignited and he fans it alive...and love gives birth to faith and he calls it mad, without motive, because all evidence points to Satan’s victory, but his poem...his meditation on Magdalena’s love...drives away Satan’s nearness, and faith is birthed...he defeats him with a love poem and silence to his mind returns and “I felt the kiss of Christ...and everyone is silent when kissed...and quiet and joy returned.”3
Bible Doctrines
What tremendous spiritual weapon won this battle with the forces of hell? A Bible doctrine...the precise thought of God about a particular subject. In this case, contained in Mary Magdalena’s story, the doctrine of love giving birth to faith...gratitude, fueling love, rekindling faith. The lessons from her transformation and faithfulness, hidden within the prisoner’s soul, did battle with all he had seen and heard for years. His feelings of despair and thoughts of unbelief were replaced with, ‘How does God feel about the situation, what does He think about it?’ A two-day love-poem-meditation delivered the truth...the truth...how the situation appears through God’s eyes. By the precision targeting of a Bible doctrine to that situation, near apostasy was dissipated and love grown cold was reignited, rekindling faith. Oswald Chambers writes: “Imagination is the greatest gift God has given us and should be entirely devoted to Him.”4 Wurmbrand’s was. An imagination, a mind, that had been ‘stayed on Christ’, returned him, under the fiercest diabolical attack, to ‘perfect peace’.
It is not reasonable that Father Galeriu, weak and exhausted, facing his own nearly impossible daily quota, would expend his own limited supply of life sustaining energy to do the work of another man. But that’s what faith is...that which lies on the other side of reason. He was trusting that God would supernaturally replenish what he gave away. This makes no sense if God does not exist and His Word is not true. He was acting on his faith in God and in His promise that, ‘Give and it shall be given unto you.’ This is the strong faith that touches the heart of God...the means by which Father Galeriu received Divine help in order to survive.
In the chapter, Diabolical Attacks, we learned that Pastor Wurmbrand’s faith, after months of near starvation in a freezing cell, bombarded for seventeen hours a day with repeated taped messages, was all but dead. “(I was) drinking the soul destroying poison of the last and worst stages of brainwashing. In the darkest of hopeless days, when with repeated use of torture and a truth drug my mind was worn down, and felt utterly forsaken by God, and could not marshal a single argument to prove that Christ was the Messiah or the existence of God, the devil appeared to me and convinced me I’d followed the wrong man. I began believing Satan was the Messiah and other thoughts too horrible to mention.”1 How could he not believe what the repeated tapes declared...cut off for years from the outside world, fed constant lies, no contact with family, told his wife was dead...that Christianity was a corpse, dead, and communism had swept over the earth?
It is painful to do so, but, for a moment, try to picture him lying in rags in that dungeon...imagine his feelings and thoughts. But...but alongside thoughts too horrible to mention, the seed of another thought intrudes...he recalls Mary Magdalena and a spark, just a spark of love is ignited somewhere deep in his soul as Holy Spirit quickens to his memory her life’s story...delivered of seven demons, bursting with gratitude...washing with many tears the feet of the One who saved her from terrible torment. And one tiny drop of living water begins to do combat with the flood of lies, as hidden deep in his innermost parts, having been combined with his deepest emotions, is her saga...the faithfulness of Mary Magdalena, hearing her Deliverer cry that He is forsaken by God, yet remaining at the Cross...and still faithful outside His tomb, weeping with a burning love for her Lord when He was but a corpse inside. And in his underground dungeon the prisoner in his mind sees her...running, breathlessly to the disciples, panting, urgent, ‘They took the Master from the tomb! We don’t know where they put Him!’ Even two angels don’t console her, for her it’s only ‘Him!’, ‘Him!’, ‘Him!’...‘I don’t know where they put Him!’ ‘Tell me where you put Him...so I can care for Him!’
Love Giving Birth to Faith
And with poetic incantation and the spoken word and grabbing onto evidence of history and whatever proof his ruined mind, his ruined memory could provide, combating thoughts too horrible to mention...he brings from totally hopeless bitterness...darkness...with no weapons, with all joy and serenity gone...grabs onto that spark of truth...Magdalena’s burning love for Jesus while He is but a corpse...as a corpse Wurmbrand nearly believes Christianity has become...and finds one spark of love, of truth, in his soul and with a long love poem, written over two days, fans that spark into fire...yet still asks, cries, ‘Why, oh why is this love in my soul for a God who would allow such sorrow and suffering?’2
And knows that love is not for the wise, that if he were wise he would hate, but he’s a simple priest...as we all are...and one man in hopelessness, in his underground cell...one man, which is what, and all, each of us are...one man starts at the bottom and with Magdalena’s story, included by Holy Spirit in the Bible for just such a time, planted deep in Wurmbrand’s spirit through study and meditation, having combined it with his deepest emotions, living waters are released into a place where death and Satan threaten to reign...a spark of love is ignited and he fans it alive...and love gives birth to faith and he calls it mad, without motive, because all evidence points to Satan’s victory, but his poem...his meditation on Magdalena’s love...drives away Satan’s nearness, and faith is birthed...he defeats him with a love poem and silence to his mind returns and “I felt the kiss of Christ...and everyone is silent when kissed...and quiet and joy returned.”3
Bible Doctrines
What tremendous spiritual weapon won this battle with the forces of hell? A Bible doctrine...the precise thought of God about a particular subject. In this case, contained in Mary Magdalena’s story, the doctrine of love giving birth to faith...gratitude, fueling love, rekindling faith. The lessons from her transformation and faithfulness, hidden within the prisoner’s soul, did battle with all he had seen and heard for years. His feelings of despair and thoughts of unbelief were replaced with, ‘How does God feel about the situation, what does He think about it?’ A two-day love-poem-meditation delivered the truth...the truth...how the situation appears through God’s eyes. By the precision targeting of a Bible doctrine to that situation, near apostasy was dissipated and love grown cold was reignited, rekindling faith. Oswald Chambers writes: “Imagination is the greatest gift God has given us and should be entirely devoted to Him.”4 Wurmbrand’s was. An imagination, a mind, that had been ‘stayed on Christ’, returned him, under the fiercest diabolical attack, to ‘perfect peace’.
My peace and serenity were tied to my Father who is in control of, and creates, all circumstances.
Mrs. Visky’s faith was under the constant assault of watching her children suffer. It was also assaulted when she was interrogated and abused during her required weekly visits to the commandant’s office. On the way to her appointment, attacked by thoughts of dread and bitterness, she would cry. On her way back, too, she would cry. “But one day (walking to the office) I heard clearly the Word of the Lord to me saying, ‘Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls.’ It hit me like a hammer and, as I put my hand to my head, I said to the Lord, ‘Now I understand you Lord. Until now I have not been learning from you, but from people’. As hard as it was to accept, it was my Father who had given this cup to me. Immediately the answer came. I was not to go to my ‘school’ each week with tears but with joy, as one goes to a teacher.” Mrs. Visky re-named her weekly interrogations. From then on they were her ‘School of Humility’, which she had been enrolled in, she said, by her Father. “I now attended my weekly lessons with joy and could feel the wonder of His yoke of lowliness. His burden seemed so light now, and in that building I was meeting, in a new way, My Lord. My peace and serenity were not tied to my external circumstances, but to my Father who is in control of, and creates, all circumstances.”5
Instead of being ‘unequally yoked to unbelievers’, ‘learning from man’, allowing the commandant’s abuse to poison her thoughts and drive her emotions to anger and self pity, Mrs. Visky, through the inspiration of that scripture, became yoked to Jesus. The doctrine of Christ’s humility, Him ‘making Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant’ became her teacher. The commandant she could then consider ‘better than herself’ and the burden of the weekly abuse, like the immense burdens Jesus carried, became light. The anticipation or reflection of it no longer festered in her soul, her mind and emotions. By thinking with God about the situation through that doctrine, her responses were no longer carnal or emotional, but spiritual…and she discovered joy. She had been provided with the truth about the weekly abuse...how God saw it...His thoughts about it. She then had grounds for faith based on objective fact, the precise thought of God about the situation, not on her subjective feelings. Faith is based on fact.
The situation changed not one bit...her reactions to it certainly did...from natural to spiritual. Then, thinking with God about it, she was able to transcend the abuse. She believed God to make His truth real in her future weekly appointments and it was so. The manifestation of her strengthened faith was her continued peace, even joy, in the commandments office. And her bitterness and anger weren’t being suppressed...that, according to Watchman Nee, is not a Christian’s victory. “True victory in the Christian’s walk is an expressed life, not a suppressed one…a showing forth of what has already been obtained…the more expressed the better. Since Christ lives in me I want to express Him before the world.”6 A Bible doctrine strengthened Christ’s life in Mrs. Visky so she could express Him, express His humility. His Word, which is ‘Spirit and Life’, ‘a Being, quick and powerful’, did the work...it ‘hit her like a hammer’ and the commandant saw a mother of seven ‘living the mystery’.
Rather than the commandant remaining a threat to her, Mrs. Visky’s attitude must have become a threat to his cruelty and unbelief. I love to play in my mind the movie of her transformation through his eyes...watch him, after slapping her face, see her continued joy, imagine his feelings as she, in response to curses yelled louder and louder, registers serenity, even kindness....am reminded of Joseph Ton’s testimony, ‘Who visited you, Mr. Ton, you’re not the same (defeated) man who left here on Friday.’ ‘No one visited me, sir...Jesus Christ did!’…and would love to believe that the salt and light Mrs. Visky brought to that cruel office opened the commandant’s eyes to the mystery of Christ and that today he’s in heaven.
Overcoming Fear
…then Lord Jesus spoke to my heart, ‘I’ll send another Counselor who will be with you forever.’ ‘Yes! Thank You, Lord, that’s enough!’
Instead of being ‘unequally yoked to unbelievers’, ‘learning from man’, allowing the commandant’s abuse to poison her thoughts and drive her emotions to anger and self pity, Mrs. Visky, through the inspiration of that scripture, became yoked to Jesus. The doctrine of Christ’s humility, Him ‘making Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant’ became her teacher. The commandant she could then consider ‘better than herself’ and the burden of the weekly abuse, like the immense burdens Jesus carried, became light. The anticipation or reflection of it no longer festered in her soul, her mind and emotions. By thinking with God about the situation through that doctrine, her responses were no longer carnal or emotional, but spiritual…and she discovered joy. She had been provided with the truth about the weekly abuse...how God saw it...His thoughts about it. She then had grounds for faith based on objective fact, the precise thought of God about the situation, not on her subjective feelings. Faith is based on fact.
The situation changed not one bit...her reactions to it certainly did...from natural to spiritual. Then, thinking with God about it, she was able to transcend the abuse. She believed God to make His truth real in her future weekly appointments and it was so. The manifestation of her strengthened faith was her continued peace, even joy, in the commandments office. And her bitterness and anger weren’t being suppressed...that, according to Watchman Nee, is not a Christian’s victory. “True victory in the Christian’s walk is an expressed life, not a suppressed one…a showing forth of what has already been obtained…the more expressed the better. Since Christ lives in me I want to express Him before the world.”6 A Bible doctrine strengthened Christ’s life in Mrs. Visky so she could express Him, express His humility. His Word, which is ‘Spirit and Life’, ‘a Being, quick and powerful’, did the work...it ‘hit her like a hammer’ and the commandant saw a mother of seven ‘living the mystery’.
Rather than the commandant remaining a threat to her, Mrs. Visky’s attitude must have become a threat to his cruelty and unbelief. I love to play in my mind the movie of her transformation through his eyes...watch him, after slapping her face, see her continued joy, imagine his feelings as she, in response to curses yelled louder and louder, registers serenity, even kindness....am reminded of Joseph Ton’s testimony, ‘Who visited you, Mr. Ton, you’re not the same (defeated) man who left here on Friday.’ ‘No one visited me, sir...Jesus Christ did!’…and would love to believe that the salt and light Mrs. Visky brought to that cruel office opened the commandant’s eyes to the mystery of Christ and that today he’s in heaven.
Overcoming Fear
…then Lord Jesus spoke to my heart, ‘I’ll send another Counselor who will be with you forever.’ ‘Yes! Thank You, Lord, that’s enough!’ One of the greatest strongholds in a communist prison, one of the greatest enemies of faith, was fear. Father Calciu’s statement comes to mind, ‘Especially the terror!’ ‘The steps in the hall, are they coming for me? The howls and screams in the night...the sudden crashing of the door’. Fear could paralyze...lead to insanity and death. Physically, Szilagy Sandor was a very little man, but spiritually he was a giant. He would risk the punishment cell to bless fellow prisoners with Scriptures the Lord had shared with him in his morning prayers. He earned a name in prison, ‘The Walking Bible’...he’d memorized large portions of it. His favorite book was Ephesians...for his cellmates he’d recite it word for word. He continually strengthened the faith of many...helped them to overcome fear. First, he had to overcome his own. “When they condemned me as a member of a revolutionary group against socialism and brought me to prison I said, ‘God in heaven! What will happen to my wife and to the child I must raise?’ When they took me there in their security car I prayed. ‘Lord, tell me something to help me while I’m leaving’...then Lord Jesus spoke to my heart, ‘I’ll send another Counselor who will be with you forever.’ ‘Yes! Thank You, Lord, that’s enough!’” Sandor was full to overflowing with the doctrines of the Bible, offering the Holy Spirit abundant raw material to work with...in this case, quickening to Sandor’s mind the promise that Christ would send the Holy Spirit. That doctrine, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, became for him at that moment, ‘rhema’...a promise from God for him for that situation...and fear in an instant lifted, replaced with confidence that Holy Spirit’s comfort, guidance and counsel would be provided for his family.
After a year Sandor was moved to another prison...one with a reputation for harsh treatment. “When they brought me from Oradea to Sorensen prison I was terrified...but at once the Holy Spirit changed my thoughts and reminded me of Jacob’s words, ‘Here is my Father’s house and the gates of heaven.’ ‘But how? God is my Father and I’m in His house. What child feels threatened in His Father’s house?’ So I said, ‘It’s great! Heaven must be here and it will be a great blessing!’” Again, this time in Jacob’s revelation, after he dreamed of angels ascending and descending from heaven, and awoke saying, ‘the Lord was in this place and I knew it not’, Sandor receives another promise, the doctrines of Divine omnipresence and omniscience... they became for him, ‘rhema’. Holy Spirit took them from the Word and spoke them to him for that situation. When the written Word, ‘logos’, becomes for us, ‘rhema’, it has the power to transform. In a moment, from being terrified to ‘It’s great!’ and a little giant entered that place of misery full of wonder and marvel to have seen God once again dispel fear with a Bible doctrine...and Satan must have trembled to see him come.
After a year Sandor was moved to another prison...one with a reputation for harsh treatment. “When they brought me from Oradea to Sorensen prison I was terrified...but at once the Holy Spirit changed my thoughts and reminded me of Jacob’s words, ‘Here is my Father’s house and the gates of heaven.’ ‘But how? God is my Father and I’m in His house. What child feels threatened in His Father’s house?’ So I said, ‘It’s great! Heaven must be here and it will be a great blessing!’” Again, this time in Jacob’s revelation, after he dreamed of angels ascending and descending from heaven, and awoke saying, ‘the Lord was in this place and I knew it not’, Sandor receives another promise, the doctrines of Divine omnipresence and omniscience... they became for him, ‘rhema’. Holy Spirit took them from the Word and spoke them to him for that situation. When the written Word, ‘logos’, becomes for us, ‘rhema’, it has the power to transform. In a moment, from being terrified to ‘It’s great!’ and a little giant entered that place of misery full of wonder and marvel to have seen God once again dispel fear with a Bible doctrine...and Satan must have trembled to see him come.
With his faith greatly strengthened by having been reminded that God was in charge of and owned, not only him but the prison and the prison guards, their threats were robbed of their power. “So I told the officer who was interrogating me, who asked me, ‘Aren’t we the ones who arrested you? Can’t we do with you anything we please?’ ‘No. You are just a tool in the hands of the Most High, who wants to see me here. You are a tool in His hands.’” Even threats of indefinite imprisonment no longer intimidated him. “I told the Lord, ‘Lord, help me to see all things through Your eyes. What You want, I want also. I want to remain in prison as long as You want me to.’ I came into prison happy and I left happy.” Being filled with Bible doctrines, he had the capacity to hear Holy Spirit reminding him of the doctrine of Divine ownership...that he was owned by God who loved him and who had taken the initiative to arrange for him to be in prison to involve him in His work. His faith remained strong. In a place where Satan must have thought he had a free hand, he radiated peace and joy.
Pulled By God
Pulled By God
It was an impossibility to run for four months…He yoked Himself to pull my body behind Him.
Father Langa is certain that he survived an impossible ordeal because of his faith in the promise of God’s literal presence with us. “I ran for four months, stopping only for two hours when the sun rays entered the cell, because he who did not would die. If I exist today it’s because I ran...running saved my life. Near me prisoners died who had not even the will to walk. They fell inside themselves before they fell on the floor. But I knew the Lord had said, ‘Behold, I am with you even to the ends of the centuries’, and ‘What to men is impossible, to God is possible!’ It was a physical and biological impossibility to run for four months, to resist in that terrible frost with only summer clothes...humanly it was impossible. What gave me strength to strive to stay alive was the consciousness of God’s presence in me, that he is here and to accept defeat would mean betraying God...as if He came to me but I don’t want to remain with Him because I don’t trust His Word, ‘I will be with you till the end of the centuries!’
So I did not intend to tell you a physical event in my life but a spiritual one...an event of faith. This adventure of the spirit...to adventure forth with the courage given to me by God’s presence in me, this was the adventure of those four months running in that frost. The performance was not mine, it was God’s. I saw Him as a marathoner running near me because without Him I could not have run. This was the deep significance of my existence. Even if I was a marathoner, without believing in God, probably I would have given up after one kilometer...but God, pardon the expression, was jogging with me...He yoked Himself to pull my body behind Him. My merit is that I just held onto God. I allowed myself to be pulled by Him in this adventure of the physical pulled by the spirit.” This is staggering. We can almost feel the divine energy pulling Father Langa hour after hour, day after day in that terrible frost. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God...but, oh how Father Langa deepens for us the meaning of ‘to hear’. He had pondered, dwelled on and came to trust so profoundly in Jesus’ words, that for him not to trust that God was present with him in that cell he considered a betrayal of God. Then, through this strong faith, what existed in the mind of God, that ‘I will be with you even till the ends of the centuries,’ became real in his life and God’s presence was manifested. That promise became his by experience...his strong faith appropriated it. This, he said, was the deep significance of his being...of his survival. “I ran for four months knowing that God doesn’t give me a trial I can not overcome. If God put me in that fight for life, it means He also gave me the grace for it. If a man falls in the battle it is not because he has no grace to win the battle, but because he does not use the grace God has given him to overcome.” With such strong faith Father Langa endured an almost unbelievable ordeal. This must challenge us that God has so much more grace to give us than most of us receive...and inspire us to enlarge our capacity to receive it by truly ‘hearing’ His Word...by burying Bible doctrines deep in our souls. What Father Langa experienced was a once in a lifetime physical demonstration of the unlimited potential of the power of grace. In our, by comparison much smaller trials, even in our suffering, the same principle applies. God has yoked Himself to us. When we are weak, if we, too, just ‘hold onto Him’ He will ‘pull us along behind Him’. The apostle Paul knew this to be true. He wrote, “It is when I am weak that I am strong because Christ’s power rests on me.” (2 Cor.12:10)
God’s Economy
So I did not intend to tell you a physical event in my life but a spiritual one...an event of faith. This adventure of the spirit...to adventure forth with the courage given to me by God’s presence in me, this was the adventure of those four months running in that frost. The performance was not mine, it was God’s. I saw Him as a marathoner running near me because without Him I could not have run. This was the deep significance of my existence. Even if I was a marathoner, without believing in God, probably I would have given up after one kilometer...but God, pardon the expression, was jogging with me...He yoked Himself to pull my body behind Him. My merit is that I just held onto God. I allowed myself to be pulled by Him in this adventure of the physical pulled by the spirit.” This is staggering. We can almost feel the divine energy pulling Father Langa hour after hour, day after day in that terrible frost. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God...but, oh how Father Langa deepens for us the meaning of ‘to hear’. He had pondered, dwelled on and came to trust so profoundly in Jesus’ words, that for him not to trust that God was present with him in that cell he considered a betrayal of God. Then, through this strong faith, what existed in the mind of God, that ‘I will be with you even till the ends of the centuries,’ became real in his life and God’s presence was manifested. That promise became his by experience...his strong faith appropriated it. This, he said, was the deep significance of his being...of his survival. “I ran for four months knowing that God doesn’t give me a trial I can not overcome. If God put me in that fight for life, it means He also gave me the grace for it. If a man falls in the battle it is not because he has no grace to win the battle, but because he does not use the grace God has given him to overcome.” With such strong faith Father Langa endured an almost unbelievable ordeal. This must challenge us that God has so much more grace to give us than most of us receive...and inspire us to enlarge our capacity to receive it by truly ‘hearing’ His Word...by burying Bible doctrines deep in our souls. What Father Langa experienced was a once in a lifetime physical demonstration of the unlimited potential of the power of grace. In our, by comparison much smaller trials, even in our suffering, the same principle applies. God has yoked Himself to us. When we are weak, if we, too, just ‘hold onto Him’ He will ‘pull us along behind Him’. The apostle Paul knew this to be true. He wrote, “It is when I am weak that I am strong because Christ’s power rests on me.” (2 Cor.12:10)
God’s Economy
Sabina asked me, ‘Do you still have money? Give it away!’
When Mrs. Visky, the seven children and Maria, were released from the prison village, Sabina Wurmbrand invited them to share her two room apartment. Maria told us, “She’s a blessed woman because she received us in her home. I love her very much because she helped us very much. Once she came to our place and she gave me some money for food. And I always save a little money. Sabina asked me, ‘Do you still have money?’ And I showed her what I had. She said, ‘Give it away, because God won’t give to those who have.’” Is this foolish, even dangerous advice, particularly in those times of great shortages? No. Sabina knew, and had experienced often, that God’s economy transcends seen world logic and mathematics...that such acts of faith allow us to receive what grace wants to give us...that what already existed in the mind of God, ‘Give it shall be given to you’, would be appropriated by Maria through giving away what little she had. Rather than foolishness, this was an infinitely practical lesson from one who had seen often the supernatural results of such acts of faith, who knew that to survive in times of great lack, they were a necessity.
Transforming Hell
In the chapter, Diabolical Attacks, Sabina Wurmbrand told us that being forced to hear the constant curses of the unbelievers was worse than all the hunger and torture...that ‘it was like in hell’. Beyond the assault of the infernal noise, the sins of blasphemy and hate...‘cursing God, each other, their own mothers’...had certainly attracted legions of demons...not only demonizing each cursor, separating them from each other, but subjecting the Christian women to satanic oppression. “At night, exhausted, we’d try to come together to pray, but could not because we could not stand the curses that surrounded us.” Even the desperately needed weapon of prayer they couldn’t use...but Holy Spirit provided an inspiration. “So in that cell we decided to start the day with the blessing from the 107th Psalm. We would all greet each other with the first line from that psalm. ‘Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His mercy endures forever’”.7 The doctrine, quickened to their minds by that greeting, is the most powerful doctrine of all, the doctrine of God’s mercy, the Finished Work of the Cross. Repeating over and over, ‘His mercy endures forever’, all were reminded that none was getting what they deserved...that the God of all mercy, on the Cross of Calvary, took the payment they deserved upon Himself. It shifted the focus of their attention off their misery and onto the infinite suffering of God...and the Cross began to tower over even a place that was like being in hell.
Transforming Hell
In the chapter, Diabolical Attacks, Sabina Wurmbrand told us that being forced to hear the constant curses of the unbelievers was worse than all the hunger and torture...that ‘it was like in hell’. Beyond the assault of the infernal noise, the sins of blasphemy and hate...‘cursing God, each other, their own mothers’...had certainly attracted legions of demons...not only demonizing each cursor, separating them from each other, but subjecting the Christian women to satanic oppression. “At night, exhausted, we’d try to come together to pray, but could not because we could not stand the curses that surrounded us.” Even the desperately needed weapon of prayer they couldn’t use...but Holy Spirit provided an inspiration. “So in that cell we decided to start the day with the blessing from the 107th Psalm. We would all greet each other with the first line from that psalm. ‘Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His mercy endures forever’”.7 The doctrine, quickened to their minds by that greeting, is the most powerful doctrine of all, the doctrine of God’s mercy, the Finished Work of the Cross. Repeating over and over, ‘His mercy endures forever’, all were reminded that none was getting what they deserved...that the God of all mercy, on the Cross of Calvary, took the payment they deserved upon Himself. It shifted the focus of their attention off their misery and onto the infinite suffering of God...and the Cross began to tower over even a place that was like being in hell.
I thanked Him for being! He gave me this great gift of existing!
The hell of that cell was totally changed by that greeting.
And the greeting in Sabina’s cell was spiritual warfare. Twenty women quoting that scripture to each other to begin the day means the Word of God echoed in that cell something less that four hundred times. “Demons”, Father Mihoc reminds us, “are afraid of the Word... that means in the Word of God is a power that makes demons flee.” And their repeated exclamations of gratitude for God’s mercy took the women into praise, bringing them even closer to God. We “enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.”9 Demons hate the high sounding praises of God. Not only do they flee at His Word, they flee when we praise Him. “And Oh, what a difference this greeting made in our cell. Thieves and prostitutes would sneak to our beds at night to learn it...and soon more were greeting each other this way. And the hell of that cell was totally changed by this greeting.”10
Picture yourself as one of the thieves or prostitutes. Filled only with anger, the curses you are giving are returning to you, landing on you like a boomerang, multiplying your bitterness, daily increasing your isolation...but from across the cell come words of gratitude and tenderness and praise. Words which, unaware to you, are driving away oppressive demons, freeing you to see the light of the believers. And with each passing day you see that light burning brighter...they’re smiling and embracing and you hurt so badly...and the presence of God is entering that cell for ‘God inhabits the praises of His people’. And you think it might have something to do with that greeting they’re all giving in the morning...and you sneak to a believer’s bed and memorize, ‘Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His mercy endures forever.’ And you’re confessing the name of the Lord and receiving ministry from a Christian woman...and you return, as others do, to your side of the cell and are cursed...and answer with a blessing...‘and the cell was totally changed by this greeting’. The Word of God…the doctrines of the Cross, of gratitude, of the praises of God...totally changed a situation worse than physical torture.
For three years Peggy and I lived in a culture where the religion was witchcraft. For nine days and nights during their witchcraft ceremonies the drums don’t stop as they invite demon possession. I have seen young girls writhing on the ground and foaming at the mouth as the demons invade them. But I have also seen the fury of the witch because Christians were confessing the Word of God, praying and praising God near her ‘temple’...and the demons didn’t arrive...her witchcraft failed. Peggy witnessed the witch being thrown back against the wall of a house when she confronted her with the scripture, “Greater is He that is in (me) than he who is in the world.”11
Our family’s ability to remain for a year in one very demonic village depended absolutely on us using fervently the weapons the women used in that cell. We were the only Christians and, obviously, the focus of concentrated demon activity. At times there would be such an intense spirit of fear that Peggy and our daughter felt they couldn’t leave our house. During one period Peggy was under such an attack she virtually lost the ability to speak. Our survival depended first on gratitude, then praise. We’d begin our days by finding one thing to be grateful for...that bird, the gift of life, our daughter’s salvation...then, for those gifts, we’d fervently thank God. Then we would praise, entering ‘His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.’
Perhaps the hardest situation to transcend was the witch convincing a precious friend, a paralyzed man we were certain was about to become the village’s first Christian, that he must not receive our ministry. We watched him shrink slowly back into his depression and die. But to give in to grief, even discouragement, would have been spiritual suicide in that spiritual environment. Peggy would leave the village in one direction and I in another and we’d speak and sing praises to God as long and as fervently as necessary till whatever negative emotions we were feeling were literally exchanged for joy. Then we’d return to the village in faith, in victory. Gratitude and praising God were the keys...they tuned up our spirits into the presence of God, till we could transcend anger and grief. We were young missionaries... we didn’t know very much, weren’t much of a threat to the powers and principalities...but we survived.
The Cross
Picture yourself as one of the thieves or prostitutes. Filled only with anger, the curses you are giving are returning to you, landing on you like a boomerang, multiplying your bitterness, daily increasing your isolation...but from across the cell come words of gratitude and tenderness and praise. Words which, unaware to you, are driving away oppressive demons, freeing you to see the light of the believers. And with each passing day you see that light burning brighter...they’re smiling and embracing and you hurt so badly...and the presence of God is entering that cell for ‘God inhabits the praises of His people’. And you think it might have something to do with that greeting they’re all giving in the morning...and you sneak to a believer’s bed and memorize, ‘Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His mercy endures forever.’ And you’re confessing the name of the Lord and receiving ministry from a Christian woman...and you return, as others do, to your side of the cell and are cursed...and answer with a blessing...‘and the cell was totally changed by this greeting’. The Word of God…the doctrines of the Cross, of gratitude, of the praises of God...totally changed a situation worse than physical torture.
For three years Peggy and I lived in a culture where the religion was witchcraft. For nine days and nights during their witchcraft ceremonies the drums don’t stop as they invite demon possession. I have seen young girls writhing on the ground and foaming at the mouth as the demons invade them. But I have also seen the fury of the witch because Christians were confessing the Word of God, praying and praising God near her ‘temple’...and the demons didn’t arrive...her witchcraft failed. Peggy witnessed the witch being thrown back against the wall of a house when she confronted her with the scripture, “Greater is He that is in (me) than he who is in the world.”11
Our family’s ability to remain for a year in one very demonic village depended absolutely on us using fervently the weapons the women used in that cell. We were the only Christians and, obviously, the focus of concentrated demon activity. At times there would be such an intense spirit of fear that Peggy and our daughter felt they couldn’t leave our house. During one period Peggy was under such an attack she virtually lost the ability to speak. Our survival depended first on gratitude, then praise. We’d begin our days by finding one thing to be grateful for...that bird, the gift of life, our daughter’s salvation...then, for those gifts, we’d fervently thank God. Then we would praise, entering ‘His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.’
Perhaps the hardest situation to transcend was the witch convincing a precious friend, a paralyzed man we were certain was about to become the village’s first Christian, that he must not receive our ministry. We watched him shrink slowly back into his depression and die. But to give in to grief, even discouragement, would have been spiritual suicide in that spiritual environment. Peggy would leave the village in one direction and I in another and we’d speak and sing praises to God as long and as fervently as necessary till whatever negative emotions we were feeling were literally exchanged for joy. Then we’d return to the village in faith, in victory. Gratitude and praising God were the keys...they tuned up our spirits into the presence of God, till we could transcend anger and grief. We were young missionaries... we didn’t know very much, weren’t much of a threat to the powers and principalities...but we survived.
The Cross
He spoke to me through His Word every day.
The year before Joseph Ton wrote the letter to Ceausescu demanding freedom for the churches, he was out of Romania completing his studies and his wife, Elizabeth, faced the growing persecution alone. “During that year when Joseph was in England, I remained alone and depended only on God. I really learned who God is, how close to me He could be and how much I could rely on Him. He could be a friend or a father for me and I could find absolutely everything in Him. He was my only shelter...and certainly that knowledge of God came through His Word which became guidance, encouragement and comfort every day. All that period I felt I was so close to God and I simply asked Him to reveal Himself to me and talk to me. And He spoke to me through His Word every day.”
When Joseph returned to Romania and sent the letter and arranged to have it read over Radio Free Europe, the persecution intensified. “They rushed into my house and in eight hours turned it upside down. They confiscated my whole library, manuscripts and tapes.” Though Elizabeth had been confident that her relationship to God through His Word could provide every strength she needed, the invasion of her house and threats of death proved to be a situation she could not transcend and her faith faltered. “After three sleepless nights in 1974, after the interrogations had started and after they ransacked our house...after two nights of terrible nightmares because of fright...during the third night I woke up my husband and asked him, ‘Please explain to me why God asks us to die...why must we die.’ We went to the kitchen at 4:00 in the morning and God gave wisdom to Joseph and God inspired him.”
When Joseph returned to Romania and sent the letter and arranged to have it read over Radio Free Europe, the persecution intensified. “They rushed into my house and in eight hours turned it upside down. They confiscated my whole library, manuscripts and tapes.” Though Elizabeth had been confident that her relationship to God through His Word could provide every strength she needed, the invasion of her house and threats of death proved to be a situation she could not transcend and her faith faltered. “After three sleepless nights in 1974, after the interrogations had started and after they ransacked our house...after two nights of terrible nightmares because of fright...during the third night I woke up my husband and asked him, ‘Please explain to me why God asks us to die...why must we die.’ We went to the kitchen at 4:00 in the morning and God gave wisdom to Joseph and God inspired him.”
Elizabeth had heard Joseph preach many times. She doesn’t use the word ‘inspired’ lightly. She knows when it is not Joseph she is hearing, but God speaking through him. There was a great battle here. The Tons had been called to a vital assignment by God Himself. “All of a sudden, one day, while meditating and praying, I felt as if God urged me to write a document which specified that Jesus (not the communists) must be the head of the church...It was June of 1973... unexpectedly, I had that inspiration to write that document, and I heard that voice telling me, ‘This work will set the churches free!’” And Satan counter-attacked by putting a spirit of terror on the weaker vessel. If you were God, what weapon would you have used through Joseph to strengthen the faith of a nearly hysterical Elizabeth? He used the most powerful weapon of all...the doctrine of the Cross. “…and God gave wisdom to Joseph and God inspired him and he explained to me what it meant for us and for mankind the sacrifice of Lord Jesus and that God sends us too as He sent Jesus. And how much that meant for us...and I understood as never before the sacrifice of Lord Jesus and why He came to earth and what God did for us through His sacrifice.”
The persecution increased. Every day when Joseph left to be interrogated, Elizabeth did not know if she’d ever see him again...but her faith, because of what she had learned in those three hours in the kitchen, was powerfully restored. “From then on I can say that I’ve never had a single sleepless night, because each night when I’d lay my head on my pillow I used to say, ‘God if you want to take my life tonight, I’ll wake up in eternity!’ When I’d lay my head on my pillow I’d always feel as if I was in Jesus’ arms and I’d feel a joy and a thorough peace.”
The persecution increased. Every day when Joseph left to be interrogated, Elizabeth did not know if she’d ever see him again...but her faith, because of what she had learned in those three hours in the kitchen, was powerfully restored. “From then on I can say that I’ve never had a single sleepless night, because each night when I’d lay my head on my pillow I used to say, ‘God if you want to take my life tonight, I’ll wake up in eternity!’ When I’d lay my head on my pillow I’d always feel as if I was in Jesus’ arms and I’d feel a joy and a thorough peace.”
I understood as never before the sacrifice of Lord Jesus. From then on I’ve never had a single sleepless night.
Only a revelation of the Finished Work of the Cross, seeing it from God’s perspective, could have achieved such a miraculous transformation. God, speaking through Joseph, revealed to Elizabeth the extent of the Trinity’s sacrifice...showed her how infinitely more that payment was than physical pain, that Christ had to bear what no human heart could even dream of bearing, that all of humanity’s sin and sin nature, the despair and shame, greed and self hatred, the condemnation and sentence of death...the Father put it all on the Son.
Elizabeth ‘understood as never before’...she finally saw it...understood that Christ’s pain and panic were unspeakable as He Who never had an impure thought ‘was made to become sin’...experienced all the depths of evil which dwell in man...the feelings of a condemned murderer, a child molester...yet still, Elizabeth learned, this was just the beginning...that ‘It pleased the Father to’…to what? What pleased the Father while Jesus hung from nails having been made to become sin? To comfort Him? To rescue Him? No. “It pleased God to crush Him...to crush Him...and cause Him to suffer.”12 and Elizabeth understood that onto His Son Who had been made to become sin, was poured out all of the wrath of God.
And questions were raised she had never considered. What happened then in God’s heart? What a question! A lifetime couldn’t supply the answer...what agony or pain or scream of panic as the Father, still with unspeakable love for the Son, makes Him to become sin then crushes Him with His wrath? What happened then in God’s heart? She knew what happened in the seen world. All of nature was involved. “From the sixth to the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land...and the earth quaked and the rocks split.”13 But what tremors of agony, she was led to imagine, shook God’s heart when His earth quaked and His light went out of the world...what darkness in the Son as He cried, “My God, My God Why hast Thou forsaken me?”14 But the only answer is silence as Christ is cut off, for the first time in all eternity, from the Trinity.
Elizabeth ‘understood as never before’...she finally saw it...understood that Christ’s pain and panic were unspeakable as He Who never had an impure thought ‘was made to become sin’...experienced all the depths of evil which dwell in man...the feelings of a condemned murderer, a child molester...yet still, Elizabeth learned, this was just the beginning...that ‘It pleased the Father to’…to what? What pleased the Father while Jesus hung from nails having been made to become sin? To comfort Him? To rescue Him? No. “It pleased God to crush Him...to crush Him...and cause Him to suffer.”12 and Elizabeth understood that onto His Son Who had been made to become sin, was poured out all of the wrath of God.
And questions were raised she had never considered. What happened then in God’s heart? What a question! A lifetime couldn’t supply the answer...what agony or pain or scream of panic as the Father, still with unspeakable love for the Son, makes Him to become sin then crushes Him with His wrath? What happened then in God’s heart? She knew what happened in the seen world. All of nature was involved. “From the sixth to the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land...and the earth quaked and the rocks split.”13 But what tremors of agony, she was led to imagine, shook God’s heart when His earth quaked and His light went out of the world...what darkness in the Son as He cried, “My God, My God Why hast Thou forsaken me?”14 But the only answer is silence as Christ is cut off, for the first time in all eternity, from the Trinity.
That was the summit of pain when the Lord tasted death for us.
Yet more, she learned, there is more...Christ dies then, according to Hebrews 2:9, ‘tastes death for everyone’. “Whatever the Son suffered”, according to Nicolae Moldovanu, who spent five years in prison for preaching such deep truths, “the Father experienced in the same degree...but to be forsaken means the Father didn’t enter into death like the Son...So, God suffered in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His Son, but He didn’t enter into death. That was the summit of pain when the Lord tasted death for us.” Finally Elizabeth sees it...the suffering of the Father and the Son was equal until that moment when Jesus, forsaken by the Father, went on alone ‘to taste death for everyone’. And it’s not dying that He tasted, but death...He experienced, for us, absolute darkness, total separation from the Father…eternal death. His payment was infinite. And from then on, for Elizabeth, above the constant threats...that at any moment the door could be smashed in, at any moment, death...the Cross towered...her faith was immeasurably strengthened. From trusting God a lot, she had grown to become a person who trusted God completely. “From that moment on I felt it was an honor, a grace and a privilege to die as a martyr and I was ready for that. Those were the happiest days of our life when we were ready at any moment to die.”
What we meditate on is the key to our authority. Elizabeth had been led into a meditation on the Cross and her terror was replaced with great courage. Sandor had meditated on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and overcame great fear. Pastor Wurmbrand meditated on the doctrines contained in Mary Magdalena’s story and returned to serenity from near apostasy. Father Langa had meditated on ‘Lo, I will be with you always…’ Because the Word of God was in them, they had great confidence in Who God is. They were living proof of the promise contained in Joshua 1:8, ‘that your way will be prosperous if this Book of the Law does not depart from your mouth, but you meditate in it day and night.’ Those doctrines had gone from being for them simply ‘logos’, knowledge of those Biblical principles, to ‘rhema’, words of God with the power to transform.
With strong faith, Father Galeriu survived by doing another’s quota of work. Mrs. Visky turned situations of abuse into occasions for joy. Others defeated demons with gratitude, praise and the Word of God. Sabina advised a poor woman to give away what little she had in order to get more. Father Langa, in a terrible frost, felt God pulling him as he ran. Perhaps you feel, as I do, that these ‘adventures of faith’ and degrees of authority are way beyond your level of spiritual maturity...but the means by which they achieved them...hearing, deeply hearing the Word of God, having Bible doctrines hidden in their souls, giving the Holy Spirit the raw material to make real in their experience that which exists in the mind of God...these are not beyond any of us.
What we meditate on is the key to our authority. Elizabeth had been led into a meditation on the Cross and her terror was replaced with great courage. Sandor had meditated on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and overcame great fear. Pastor Wurmbrand meditated on the doctrines contained in Mary Magdalena’s story and returned to serenity from near apostasy. Father Langa had meditated on ‘Lo, I will be with you always…’ Because the Word of God was in them, they had great confidence in Who God is. They were living proof of the promise contained in Joshua 1:8, ‘that your way will be prosperous if this Book of the Law does not depart from your mouth, but you meditate in it day and night.’ Those doctrines had gone from being for them simply ‘logos’, knowledge of those Biblical principles, to ‘rhema’, words of God with the power to transform.
With strong faith, Father Galeriu survived by doing another’s quota of work. Mrs. Visky turned situations of abuse into occasions for joy. Others defeated demons with gratitude, praise and the Word of God. Sabina advised a poor woman to give away what little she had in order to get more. Father Langa, in a terrible frost, felt God pulling him as he ran. Perhaps you feel, as I do, that these ‘adventures of faith’ and degrees of authority are way beyond your level of spiritual maturity...but the means by which they achieved them...hearing, deeply hearing the Word of God, having Bible doctrines hidden in their souls, giving the Holy Spirit the raw material to make real in their experience that which exists in the mind of God...these are not beyond any of us.
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