The men at the door claimed Richard was dead.
They told Sabina they had been with him in prison and saw his dead body. She refused to believe them. It was common for the secret police to disguise themselves as released prisoners to deceive women whose husbands were imprisoned for their faith. They would report the deaths of their husbands to lead wives to turn and denounce their faith.
Even in the face of the unknown and the possibility that Richard could be dead, Sabina remained faithful to her husband and continued serving the Lord.
While in prison, Richard was repeatedly beaten on the bottom of his feet until the skin was raw, then beaten some more until the bone was exposed. He was left in solitary confinement for three years where prisoners were kept in soundproof cells and the guards wore felt on their shoes so the prisoners would not know when they were approaching.
"In solitary confinement, we could not pray as before. We were unimaginably hungry; we had been drugged until we acted like idiots. We were as weak as skeletons. The Lord's Prayer was much too long for us - we could not concentrate enough to say it. My only prayer repeated again and again was, 'Jesus, I love You.'
And then, one glorious day I got an answer from Jesus: 'You love Me? Now I will show you how much I love you.' At once, I felt a flame in my heart, which burned like the coronal streamers of the sun. The disciples on the way to Emmaus said that their hearts burned when Jesus spoke with them. So it was with me. I knew the love of the One who gave His life on the cross for us all. Such love cannot exclude the Communists, however grave their sins." (Wurmbrand, 56)
Richard was sent to the “dying room” where ill patients were left to die alone. He lived in the “dying room” for two years when a Christian doctor, pretending to be a Communist party member, found him. After eight and a half years in prison, Richard was given general amnesty and released in 1956.
Even after suffering extreme mental and physical torture for more than a decade, Richard returned to ministry without hesitation.
He was arrested a second time in 1959, when a man working with Richard betrayed him to the Communists.
Returning to prison a second time was much worse, as he had tasted freedom for three years and now knew what to expect in prison. Often the mental torture and brainwashing was worse than the physical beatings. They would be forced to sit for seventeen hours a day hearing over and over, “Communism is good, Communism is good, Christianity is bad . . . ”
Western countries began escalating their force and influence over the authorities to have Richard released. In 1964, Richard was given amnesty and finally released after a total of fourteen years in Communist prisons.
Fearful of a third arrest, the Norwegian Mission to the Jews and Hebrew Christian Alliance ransomed the Wurmbrands for $10,000 and urged them to leave Romania. While the couple did not desire to leave, they did so to be “a voice” in the West for other persecuted Christians.
In 1967, they began the ministry, Jesus to the Communist World, to aid the persecuted church in different countries. Eventually this ministry was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs, and included support to Muslim countries as well.
When the Soviet Union fell in Romania, the Wurmbrands returned in 1990 and opened a printing facility and bookstore in Bucharest for The Voice of the Martyrs. The couple continued to support the ministry until the Lord called Sabina home in 2000 and Richard in 2001.
A Voice for the Persecuted
After Richard had been released from prison a second time, Christian brothers from the West came to meet with this man who they heard had been in prison for fourteen years.
They said, “We expected to see someone melancholic. You cannot be this person because you are full of joy.” I assured them that I was the imprisoned one and my joy was in knowing that they had come and that we were no longer forgotten. (Wurmbrand, 50)
It was the other part of the Body coming to the aid of their persecuted brothers and sisters that gave them hope and joy. They were not forgotten. This is the mission of The Voice of the Martyrs. In his book, Tortured for Christ, Richard Wurmbrand calls us to action:
“When I was beaten on the bottom of my feet, my tongue cried. Why did my tongue cry? It was not beaten. It cried because the tongue and feet are both part of the same body. And you free Christians are part of the same Body of Christ that is now beaten in prisons in restricted nations, that even now gives martyrs for Christ. Can you not feel our pain?” (Wurmbrand, 150)
As the body of Christ, are we crying out from the pain being experienced in our Body, or are we numb to it? I pray that the lives of this faithful couple stirs you as it stirs me.
May we not choose “comfortable Christianity” but count the cost and follow Jesus wherever He leads us. Richard and Sabina were ordinary people just like us, but they knew what it truly meant to be “crucified with Christ” and lived as surrendered vessels to the Lord.
“Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Luke 9:62
While many of us may not go through the same extreme torture and persecutions the Wurmbrands faced and other believers today still face, we are given the same calling to pick up our crosses daily and lay down our lives in service to Christ.
Even though this looks different for each person; as the Body, everyone is called to be a voice for the persecuted and pray for those in chains and those who risk their lives to spread the gospel.
“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”
Hebrews 13:3
Knight, Merv. “Tortured for Christ: Christian History Magazine.” Christian History Institute, 2014, https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/tortured-for-christ.
“Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand.” Plough, https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/witness/richard-and-sabina-wurmbrand.
“Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”
Wurmbrand, Richard. Tortured for Christ. Living Sacrifice Book Co, 1998.
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