About the Book
"Longing" by Karen Kingsbury follows the story of Ashley Baxter, a young woman struggling with her faith and relationships. As she navigates the challenges of love, loss, and forgiveness, Ashley learns valuable lessons about the power of hope, perseverance, and the importance of family. Ultimately, she discovers that with God's grace, anything is possible.
Richard Wurmbrand
Richard Wurmbrand (1909 â 2001) was born in 1909 in Bucharist in the country of Romania. He was the youngest of four boys born in a Jewish family. He lived with his family in Istanbul for a short time. When he was 9, his father died and the Wurmbrands returned to Romania when he was 15.
He was sent to study Marxism in Moscow. When he returned, he was already a Comintern Agent. A Comintern Agent was a member of the Communist International Organisation which intended to fight:
Like other Romanian Communists, he was arrested and released several times.
He married Sabina Oster on 26th October 1936. Wurmbrand and his wife went to live in an isolated village high in the mountains of Romania. But, as a athiest there was no peace to be found in his heart. So one day, when his heart was in a state of turmoil he cried out:
âGod, if perchance you exist, it is Your duty to reveal yourself to me.â
Shorthly after he prayed that prayer, he met a German carpenter in his village who gave him a bible. The carpenter and his wife had been praying earnestly that God would bring a Jew to his village, because the carpenter wanted to bring a Jew to Christ, because Jesus was a Jew. So the carpenter gave him a Bible to read. Wurmbrand said, when he opened that Bible he could not stop weeping. He had read the Bible before but it had meant nothing to him. This time when he opened the Bible he could barely read it because of the copious amount of tears that filled his eyes. Sometime later he found out the carpenter and his wife had been praying earnestly for him. Wurnbrand said that every word that he read were like flames of love burning in his heart. He realized for the first ime in his life that there was a God of love who loved him, even though he had beeen living a bad life and had nurtured a hated towards the concept of a âlovingâ God.
The Power of Intercessory Prayer
But now for the first time he knew that Jesus had suffered at the cross of Calvary for his sins and he was loved and accepted of God. Richard and his wife became believers in Jesus the Messiah. All the hatred that he had formerly held toward God was washed away under the blood of Christ and Richard and his wife Sabrina were born of the Spirit. That is the power of intercessory prayer!
Richard prepared himself for the ministry. He was ordained as an Anglican minister in 1938 at the start of world war 2. Both Richard and his wife were arrested several times. They were beaten and hauled before a Nazi court. They suffered under the Nazi regime throughout world war 2. But Richard said, it was only a taste of what was to come.
Russian Troups Enter Romania
Towards the end of world war 2, Richard Wurmbrand became a Lutheran and he pastored a Lutheran church in Romania. But, the same year, 1 million Russian troups entered and occupied the entire territory of Romania.
Within a very short space of time the Communists took over Romania. The reign of terror began. Out of fear 4,000 priests, pastors & ministers became Communists overnight. They confessed their allegience and loyalty to the new Communist Government because they all feared for their survival.
Romaniaâs Resistance
Harsh persecutions of any enemies of the Communist government started with the Soviet occupation in 1945. The Soviet army behaved as an occupation force (although theoretically it was an ally against Nazi Germany), and could arrest virtually anyone at will. Shortly after Soviet occupation, ethnic Germans (who were Romanian citizens and had been living as a community in Romania for 800 years) were deported to the Donbas coal mines. Despite the Kingâs protest, who pointed out that this was against international law, an estimated 70,000 men and women were forced to leave their homes, starting in January 1945, before the war had even ended. They were loaded in cattle cars and put to work in the Soviet mines for up to ten years as âreparationsâ, where about one in five died from disease, accidents and malnutrition.
Once the Communist government became more entrenched, the number of arrests increased. All strata of society were involved, but particularly targeted were the pre-war elites, such as intellectuals, clerics, teachers, former politicians (even if they had left-leaning views) and anybody who could potentially form the nucleus of anti-Communist resistance. The existing prisons were filled with political prisoners, and a new system of forced labor camps and prisons was created, modeled after the Soviet Gulag. Some of the most notorious prisons included Sighet, Gherla, PiteĹti and Aiud, and forced labor camps were set up at lead mines and in the Danube Delta.
Underground Church
Richard and his wife knew that Christianity and Communism were totally opposed to each other. They knew that a true follower of Christ cannot compromise. So they created an âUnderground Churchâ movement to preach the pure gospel of Christ and to reach out to the unsaved people of Romania and secondly to reach out secretly to the Russian soldiers. They secretly printed thousands of Bibles and Christian literature and distributed it to the Russian soldiers. Many of the Russian soldiers were convicted and they gave their life to Christ.
So the underground church grew. But, in 1948 the Secret Police arrested Wurmbrand and he was placed in solitary confinement for 3 years. He was then transferred to a group cell for the next five years. Whilst in prison he continued to win the other prisoners to Christ. After 8 years in prison he was released and he immediately resumed his work with the undergound church. A few years later, 1959, he was arrested again and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. However, after spending 5 years in prison an organisation called the Christian Alliance negotiated with the Communist Government and they managed to secure his release for a fee of $10,000. They quickly got Richard Wurmbrand out of Romania and took him to England, then to the USA.
In 1966, Richard was called to Washington DC to give his testimony before the United States Senate. He took off his shirt to show the Senate the scars and the wounds that he received whilst he served time in prison under the Communist Government in Romania.
The newspapers throughout the USA, Europe and Asia carried his story all across the world. Christian leaders called him the âVoice of the Underground Church.â
In 1967, with a $100 old typewriter and 500 names and addresses, Richard Wurmbrand published the first issue of THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS newsletter. This newsletter was dedicated to communicating the testimonies and trails facing our brothers and sisters in restricted nations worldwide. Richard wrote:
âThe message I bring from the Underground Church is:
âDonât abandon us!â
âDonât forget us!â
âDonât write us off!â
âGive us the tools we need! We will pay the price for using them!â
âThis is the message I have been charged to deliver to the free church.â
Richard Wurmbrand and his wife travelled throughout the world to establish a network of over 30 offices. Their primary aim was to call Christians to shoulder their responsibility and to demonstrate the real substance of their faith by supporting their brothers and sisters in Christ who are being persecuted in heathen lands.
The VOICE OF THE MARTYRS newsletter continues to inform, and lead to action, Christians throughout the free world of the plight of those who suffer for their faith in Jesus Christ. Throughout their network of offices around the world, the newsletter is published in over 30 different languages. To this cause, VOICE OF THE MARTYRS presses on, serving in nearly 40 countries around the world where our brothers and sisters are systematically persecuted.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews brings a convicting word to the Christian church:
â Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them that suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.â
(Hebrews 13:3)
We have a responsibility to those who suffer for their faith in Christ.
Today, there is an estimated 200 million Christians in heathen nations who are suffering persecution for their faith in Christ.
Walk the War Before You - What It Means to Live by the Spirit
Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. âGalatians 5:16â17 In seminary, this passage reshaped my vision of the Christian life. At one level, the passage is simple. It contains an exhortation (âwalk by the Spiritâ), a promise (âand you will not gratify the desires of the fleshâ), and an explanation or rationale (the conflict described in verse 17). But as we meditate on this passage, we discover that it also offers a threefold vision for the Christian life as a whole. Acknowledge the War Within First, Paul insists that the starting point for the Christian life is recognizing the war between the flesh and the Spirit. I say âstarting pointâ because of the logic of verses 16 and 17. In seminary, I was taught that one way to clarify the logic of a passage like this is to read the verses in reverse order while keeping the logical relationship intact. In other words, turn an âA, because Bâ argument into a âB, therefore Aâ argument. âI eat, because I am hungryâ becomes âI am hungry, therefore I eat.â When we do that, the passage looks like this: (Verse 17) The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Verse 16) Therefore (thatâs the logical connection) walk by the Spirit, and you will certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh. As Christians, we wake up every day in the midst of a war. Fleshly desires pull us in one direction; the desires of the Spirit pull us in the other. The status quo is a frustrated stalemate in which we are kept from doing what we want to do. Spiritual desires frustrate fleshly desires, and fleshly desires frustrate spiritual desires. Starting with this recognition means we can be realistic about the difficulty of the war. The frustration we feel in the face of the passions of the flesh is real, and Paul encourages us to be honest about it. Thatâs where we begin as Christians. Staggering Promise of Not But according to Paul, we donât have to stay there, because, second, we have a new destination. We donât have to surrender. We can live a life in which we absolutely donât gratify the desires of the flesh. This is a staggering promise. The ânotâ in verse 16 is intensified in the original Greek; itâs whatâs called an emphatic negation. Paul essentially says, âIf you walk by the Spirit, you will absolutely and certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh.â Now, itâs important to be clear about what Paul is and isnât promising. Heâs not saying that our fleshly desires disappear altogether. Instead, he promises that we will not gratify or complete those desires. In other words, the desires may still be present and still at war with our spiritual desires, but now, as we walk by the Spirit, we wonât indulge them. The basic idea is that all desires have a direction, a destination, a trajectory. They incline us towards some perceived good, some object that we believe will satisfy. In short, desires want to take us somewhere. Where Do Desires Lead? In Galatians 5, the desires of the flesh lead to the works of the flesh: âsexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.â Paul is clear that those who practice such things â by habitually gratifying those desires â will not inherit Godâs kingdom. On the other hand, the desires of the Spirit lead to the fruit of the Spirit: âlove, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.â So again, desires, whether of the Spirit or the flesh, have a destination, and when that destination is reached, the desire has been gratified. The itch has been scratched. Notice, however, the critical assumption Paul makes: the presence of the fleshly desire doesnât mean that we have to indulge it. Itâs possible to resist where our desires want to take us. For Paul, walking by the Spirit doesnât remove all fleshly tendencies and inclinations in this life. Instead, it interrupts them. It redirects them and reorders them so that they no longer dishonor God or harm people. Itâs important to be clear on this point so that we donât erect impossible and unrealistic expectations for the Christian life. In this life, the desires may still rise up, but according to Paul, they donât have to master us. They donât have to rule us. We donât have to gratify or indulge them. We donât have to scratch. We can be free. But only if we walk by the Spirit. Essential Bridge Walking by the Spirit is the third element in this vision of the Christian life, and the bridge between our present struggle and the future victory. Itâs the path that gets us from frustration to freedom. Which means that the pressing question for us is this: What exactly does it mean to âwalk by the Spiritâ? The image is clear enough. Walking is a form of movement. Itâs neither standing still nor running. Itâs steady movement, in a particular direction, under a particular power (in this case, the Spirit). Galatians 5:24â25 sheds further light on the image: And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. âWalk by the Spiritâ corresponds to âkeep in step with the Spirit.â Itâs as though the Spirit sets the pace and we keep up. Thereâs a rhythm to our walking. Like a drummer, the Spirit lays down the beat, and we march along. This basic idea appears in various forms throughout Paulâs letters: Walk rightly with the truth of the gospel (Galatians 2:13). Walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). Be led by the Spirit (Galatians 5:18). Keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:26). Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called (Ephesians 4:1). Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord (Colossians 1:10). âWalking by the Spirit is the bridge between our present struggle and the future victory.â Other phrases that appear throughout the New Testament include walking in love, walking in the light, walking as children of the light, walking according to Paulâs example, and walking in the truth. In all of these examples, the idea is the same: there is a conduct, a âwalking,â that accords with the gospel, the Spirit, and the truth. There is a way of life that fits the gospel. Before We Can Walk Walking by the Spirit flows from something more fundamental, though, and this is crucial. Before we can keep in step with the Spirit, we must first âlive by the Spirit.â That is, we must possess life by the Spirit. The life in question is resurrection life. We possess it because we belong to Jesus and have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Itâs what Paul elsewhere describes as âbeing made alive with Christâ (Ephesians 2:4). This is conversion, when God raises us from spiritual death by grace through faith in Christ. He elaborates on this reality in the great gospel passage of Galatians 2:19â20: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. âThe Spirit is the animating power in our lives, shaping our daily decisions as we wake up in spiritual war.â Crucified with Christ so that the flesh has been killed. Raised with Christ so that he lives on our behalf and we possess life by his Spirit. This is the good news which so transformed Paul and is able to transform us. So, then, walking by the Spirit refers to our daily conduct, rooted in our union with Christ in his death and resurrection and empowered by the Spirit who redirects our desires to godly fruitfulness. The Spirit is the animating power in our lives, shaping our daily decisions as we wake up in the midst of the spiritual war. Paulâs call is for us to daily take up arms in the battle, to encourage and gratify our spiritual desires, and to keep in step with the Spirit because we belong to Jesus. Article by Joe Rigney Teacher, desiringGod.org
