Richard Wurmbrand famous quotes

I said to myself if Christianity is dead, I will sit at its tomb and will weep until it arises again, just as Mary Magdalene sat at the tomb of Jesus and wept until Jesus showed Himself. Then when I came out of prison I saw Christianity is not dead. The number of practicing Christians in Rumania according to the figures given by the Communists themselves in 20 years of Communist dictatorship has grown 300 percent.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Jesus #Years

I have found truly jubilant Christians only in the Bible, in the Underground Church and in prison.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Church #Prison

Consider as sin any minute of life spent on something other than saving souls for eternity from this world doomed to destruction.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Soul #World #Saving

I had prepared myself for prison and torture as a soldier in peacetime prepares for the hardships of war. I had studied the lives of Christians who had faced similar pains and temptations to surrender and thought how I might adapt their experiences. Many who had not so prepared themselves were crushed by suffering, or deluded into saying what they should not.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Pain #War

Whoever wishes to meet Jesus must meet him in places where brothers and sisters of Jesus are hungry, thirsty, naked, unwanted, sick or in prison. Whoever keeps himself distant from these places remains distant from Jesus.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Brother #Jesus #Sick

A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Believe #Men #Creeds

God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Theology

The human heart by nature seeks after God. There is a spiritual vacuum in every man until it is filled by Christ.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Spiritual #Heart #Men

There was once a fiddler who played so beauitully that everybody danced. A deaf man who could not hear the music considered them all insane. Those who are with Jesus in suffering hear this music to which other men are deaf. They dance and do not care if they are considered insane.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Jesus #Men #Suffering

A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Suffering

Even the best of Christians are troubled by the question, "Why does an almighty God send, or at least allow, suffering?" When you are nagged by thoughts like this, say to yourself, "I am still in elementary school. When I graduate from the university of Christian life, I will understand His ways better and doubts will cease.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #School #Doubt

I defy my honored opponents to give me the name of a single man imprisoned in the United States, Great Britain, or West Germany for being an atheist. But in former communist countries, millions of our Christian brothers and sisters in faith have passed through jails or been killed. Who has fought for freedom and obtained it - atheists or Christians?
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Country #Brother

It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their [the communists' ] terms. It was a deal; we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching. They were happy beating us, so everyone was happy.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Numbers #Pay #Privilege

As communist atheists allowed no place for Jesus in their hearts, I decided I'd leave not the smallest place for satan in mine.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Atheist #Jesus #Heart

The Bible is a wonderful book. It is the truth about the Truth. It is not the Truth. A sermon taken from the Bible can be a wonderful thing to hear. It is the truth about the truth about the truth. But it is not the truth. There have been many books written about the things contained in the Bible. I have written some myself. They can be quite wonderful to read. They are the truth about the truth about truth about the Truth. But they are NOT the Truth. Only Jesus Christ is the Truth. Sometimes the Truth can be drowned in a multitude of words.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Jesus #Book #Taken

My wife and I were present at this congress. Sabina told me, "Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting in His face." I said to her, "If I do so, you lose your husband." She replied, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Husband #Wife #Coward

Christians are meant to have the same vocation as their King, that of cross-bearers. It is this conscience of a high calling and of partnership with Jesus which brings gladness in tribulations, which makes Christians enter prisons for their faith with the joy of a bridegroom entering the bridal room.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Jesus #Kings

God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Judging #Gods Will

A Communist officer told a Christian he was beating, 'I am almighty, as you suppose your God can be. I can kill you.' The Christian answered, 'The power is all on my side. I can love you while you torture me to death.'
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Love You #Sides

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

#Christian #Heart #Iron

In the homes of many Western Christians, hours are sometimes spent listening to worldly music. In our homes loud music can also be heard, but it is only to cover the talk about the gospel and the underground work so that neighbors may not overhear it and inform the secret police. How underground Christians rejoice on those rare occasions when they meet a serious Christian from the West!
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Home #Police

If a Christian really believed that his neighbor will be tortured in all eternity in Hell, he should try day and night to persuade him to repent and believe. How sad that this doesn't happen.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Believe #Night

In prayer, something like an echo takes place. When you strike a note on the piano, corresponding strings in all the other pianos in the room start to vibrate. It is just the same when we express a pure wish in our ardent prayers: all around us we mobilize angels who are inspired by the same wish.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Prayer #Angel #Piano

What can we do to win these men to Christ?
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Winning #Men #Missionary

But every point of view is a point of blindness: it incapacitates us for every other point of view. From a certain point of view, the room in which I write has no door. I turn around. Now I see the door, but the room has no window. I look up. From this point of view, the room has no floor. I look down; it has no ceiling. By avoiding particular points of view we are able to have an intuition of the whole. The ideal for a Christian is to become holy, a word which derives from “whole.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Writing #Doors

God must be very great to have created a world that leaves a mystery as to whether he created it.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#World #Mystery

Let us be on the side of those who sit in jails and are sentenced to death for their faith. Let us pray for them and help them.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Jail #Sides #Helping

The living Jesus will give you joy amid tribulation.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Jesus #Giving #Joy

Martin Luther, when he walked in the woods, used to raise his hat to the birds and say, ‘Good morning, theologians—you wake and sing, but I, old fool, know less than you and worry over everything, instead of simply trusting in the heavenly Father’s care.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Morning #Father #Worry

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

#Police #Secret #Spirit

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

#Long #Leader #Church

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

#Christian #Two #Church

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

#Responsibility #Prison #Communist

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

#Communism #Communist

We are weak little Davids. But we are stronger than the Goliath of atheism, because God is on our side. The truth belongs to us.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Atheism #Stronger #Littles

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

#Jesus #Attitude #Eye

The Communist torturers often said, 'There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.' I have heard one torturer even say, 'I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.' He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflected on prisoners.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Believe #Heart #Punishment

A flower, if you bruise it under your feet, rewards you by giving you its perfume.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Flower #Feet #Giving

Not all of us are called to die a martyr’s death, but all of us are called to have the same spirit of self-sacrifice and love to the very end as these martyrs had.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Sacrifice #Self #And Love

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

#Jesus #Church #Tools

I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in different lands. I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their torturers. I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their persecuted brethren. In the depth of my heart, I would like to keep the beauty of my own vineyard and not be involved in such a huge fight. I would like so much to be somewhere in quietness and rest. But it is not possible... The quietness and rest for which I long would be an escape from reality and dangerous for my soul... The West sleeps and must be awakened to see the plight of the captive nations.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Heart #Sleep

If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus Christ, and if the heart loves Him, one can resist all tortures. What would a loving bride not do for a loving bridegroom? ...God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love. The Christians who suffered for their faith in prisons could love. I am a witness that they could love God and men.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Christian #Jesus #Heart

Our conscience illuminated by the Holy Spirit as we search the Scriptures will show us in every circumstance the right way.
-- Richard Wurmbrand

#Way #Scripture #Spirit