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Richard Wurmbrand Quotes

Richard Wurmbrand, also known as Nicolai Ionescu was a Romanian Evangelical Lutheran priest, and professor of Jewish descent. In 1948, having become a Christian ten years before, he publicly said Communism and Christianity were incompatible. Wurmbrand preached at bomb shelters and rescued Jews during World War II. As a result, he experienced imprisonment and torture by the then-Communist regime of Romania, which maintained a policy of state atheism.

After serving a total of fourteen years, he was ransomed for $10,000. His colleagues in Romania urged him to leave the country and work for religious freedom from a location less personally dangerous. After spending time in Norway and England, he and his wife Sabina, who had also been imprisoned, emigrated to America and dedicated the rest of their lives to publicizing and helping Christians who are persecuted for their beliefs.

He wrote more than 18 books, the most widely known being Tortured for Christ and Answer to Moscow's Bible. Variations of his works have been translated into more than 65 languages.



Wikipedia  

✵ 24. March 1909 – 17. February 2001
Richard Wurmbrand photo
Richard Wurmbrand: 18 quotes28 likes

Famous Richard Wurmbrand Quotes

“When you speak in His presence about your past sins, He does not even understand your language. Only the present and the future have any interest for Him... I have committed crimes and have blood on my conscience. I told Jesus about it again and again. But because He had long ago washed all this away, there was no possibility of communication between us. He did not understand what I was talking about.”

Richard Wurmbrand

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

“It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the Communists. It was there that we developed a sense of responsibility toward them. It was in being tortured by them that we learned to love them.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 58.

Richard Wurmbrand quote: “God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love”

“God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured for Christ N/E

“A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith.”

Richard Wurmbrand

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

“We cannot always judge man for only one part of his attitude. If we did so, we would be like the Pharisees in whose eyes Jesus was seen as bad, because He did not respect their rules about the Sabbath. They closed their eyes entirely to what would have lovable in Jesus, even in their sight.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 82.

“Montefiore's impression of Jesus was wrong. Jesus loved the Pharisees, although He denounced them publicly. And I love the Communists, as well as their tools in the Church, although I denounce them.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 83.

Richard Wurmbrand Quotes about love

“I have decided to denounce communism, though I love the Communists. I don't find it to be right to preach the gospel without denouncing communism.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 75.

“I have seen Christians in Communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold--and praying with fervor for the Communists. This is humanly inexplicable! It is the love of Christ, which was poured out in our hearts.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 55.

“Past sins, if you repent of them, whiten you. They made a great psalmist out of David, a faithful believer out of the prostitute Rahab, a zealous apostle out of the persecutor Saul. I have been a loved preacher and writer with a particular vocation. My sermons and books would not have had the same quality without my past of anarchy, vice, and violent atheism.”

Richard Wurmbrand

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

Richard Wurmbrand Quotes

“A great part of my family was murdered. It was in my own house that their murderer was converted. It was also the most suitable place. So in Communist prisons the idea of a Christian mission to the Communists was born.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 58.

“I don't know what this so-called pure gospel is. Was the preaching of John the Baptist pure? He did not say only, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 3:2). He also "rebuked [Herod]… for all the evils which Herod had done" (Luke 3:19). He was beheaded because he didn't confine himself to abstract teaching. Jesus did not preach only the "pure" Sermon on the Mount, but also what some actual church leaders would have called a negative sermon: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!… Serpents, brood of vipers!" (Matthew 23:27,33). It is for such "impure" preaching that He was crucified. The Pharisees would not have bothered about the Sermon on the Mount.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 75.

“Some Western Church leaders don't care about [persecuted believers]. The names of the martyrs are not on their prayer lists. While they were being tortured and sentenced, the Russian Baptist and Orthodox official leaders who had denounced and betrayed them were received with great honor at New Delhi, at Geneva, and at other conferences. There they assured everyone that in Russia there is full religious liberty. A leader of the World Council of Churches kissed the Bolshevik archbishop Nikodim when he gave this assurance. Then they banqueted together in the imposing name of the World Council of Churches, while the saints in prison ate cabbage with unwashed intestines, just as I had eaten in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Tortured For Christ: 30th Anniversary Edition, p. 74-75 (1998).

“The leaves of the tree of life will serve for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2), which means that there will be in the life beyond people who need a cure for their souls.”

Richard Wurmbrand

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

“Some leaders of denominations are not of the Bride of Christ. They are leaders in a Church in which many have long since betrayed the Master. When they meet someone of the Underground Church, a martyr, they look at him strangely.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 82.

“Some tell me "Preach the pure gospel!" This reminds me that the Communist secret police also told me to preach Christ, but not to mention communism. Is it really so, that those who are for what is called "a pure gospel" are inspired by the same spirit as those of the Communist secret police?”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 75.

“Sin must be called by its name. Communism is one of the most dangerous sins in the world today. Every gospel that does not denounce it is not the pure gospel. The Underground Church denounces it, risking liberty and life. The less have we to be silent in the West.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 75.

“Writers around the world protested when two Communist writers, Siniavski and Daniel, were sentenced to prison by their own comrades. But not even churches protest when Christians are put in prison for their faith.”

Richard Wurmbrand

Source: Tortured For Christ (1967), p. 74.

“'And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations' (Revelation 2:26). I see myself on a throne. Why should a throne be made of gold and velvet? Can it not as well be the few planks of a prisoner's bed? Men have given a certain kind of chair the name of "throne." I can give this name to any other object I please. From this my throne I decide about nations.”

Richard Wurmbrand

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

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