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1. Christians Killed and Persecuted in Current Times
Christians in North America
Need to Prepare for
World-Wide Persecution and Killings
Articles on this webpage :
1. PREPARING FOR THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH
By Pastor Richard Wurmbrand
2. Corrie Ten Boom: Dire Warning and Word from the Lord concerning the
Rapture and the Martyrdom of the Church
3. 'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'
4. Michael Boldea Jr : Spared Sheltered or Sifted
By Pastor Richard Wurmbrand
2. Corrie Ten Boom: Dire Warning and Word from the Lord concerning the
Rapture and the Martyrdom of the Church
3. 'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'
4. Michael Boldea Jr : Spared Sheltered or Sifted
How To Get Rapture Ready!
Satan's Final Attack Strategy Revealed!
(MUST SEE for Christians!)
VIDEO TOPICS:
* Know the "Accuser of The Brethren"
* Satan's MAIN ATTACK strategy on Christians NOW
* The Enemy's 3 "Secret And Deadly" Weapons!
* The 7 Keys to Being Spotless And Rapture Ready!
* REVEALED! - MASS WITHCCRAFT EVENT (Disguised As Peace Festival)
* A Word On "Ark Time" Before The Trumpet Call
* How To Accept Jesus Christ As Lord And Saviour!
* Know the "Accuser of The Brethren"
* Satan's MAIN ATTACK strategy on Christians NOW
* The Enemy's 3 "Secret And Deadly" Weapons!
* The 7 Keys to Being Spotless And Rapture Ready!
* REVEALED! - MASS WITHCCRAFT EVENT (Disguised As Peace Festival)
* A Word On "Ark Time" Before The Trumpet Call
* How To Accept Jesus Christ As Lord And Saviour!
A WARNING to Christians from the NWO and the NEW AGE- part1
The New Age has one enemy - Christians. They believe we are holding them back and stalling the Age of Aquarius.
A WARNING to Christians from the NWO and the NEW AGE- part2
Obama calls Christians, Veterans, and Anti Abortionists Terrorists
GOVERNMENT SAYS CHRISTIANS ARE TERRORISTS
Government Wants To Imprison Christians
EXCLUSIVE: Americans Strike Back Against Drones
[Nano drones - Hummingbird and mosquito drones
RFID Chips and Multiple Public Vaginal and Rectum Searches that draw blood without change of gloves]
John Whitehead, Constitutional Attorney, founded the Rutherford Institute in 1982 to provide free legal services to people whose individual rights have been threatened. It has become one of the most effective civil liberties organizations in the country, pursuing both litigation to redress abuses and education to alert the public about threats to liberty. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Rutherford Institute focuses on such issues as freedom of speech, religious liberty, defense of property from unlawful seizure, and the ever-escalating government assault on privacy and bodily integrity.
PREPARING FOR THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH
By Pastor Richard Wurmbrand
http://abbasgirlme.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/preparing-for-the-underground-church-by-pastor-richard-wurmbrand/
http://abbasgirlme.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/preparing-for-the-underground-church-by-pastor-richard-wurmbrand/
Are you prepared to suffer for the sake of Christ? Are you prepared to give up your freedom, wife, husband, children…life for Christ? You’d better take some time and think about it. Persecution is coming, and it may be closer than you think.
Christian Persecution Coming To America
Christian pastors must learn what an underground church looks like and what it does. I spoke with a bishop in Britain for an hour or so about underground church work. Finally, he said, “Excuse me, but you speak of my hobby; I am very interested in church architecture. Would you please tell me if the underground churches use Gothic styles in the building of churches?”
The Underground Church is comparatively unknown. We have it right next door, but we are not ready to join it and we are not trained for it. Every Christian pastor must know this because we might pass through tragic circumstances. Even if we do not pass through these tragic circumstances we have a duty to help and to instruct those who do pass through them.
In Muslim nations, in Red China and so on, many believers have become victims. Many have gone into prisons and many have died in prison. We cannot be proud of this. The better thing would have been to be well instructed on how to do underground work and not to be captured. I admire those who know how to work so well that they are not caught. We have to know the underground work.
PREPARING FOR SUFFERING
Suffering cannot be avoided in the Underground Church, whatever measures are taken, but suffering should be reduced to the minimum.
What happens in a country when oppressive powers take over? In some countries the terror starts at once, as in Mozambique and Cambodia. In other places religious liberty follows as never before. And so it begins. Some regimes come to power without having real power. They do not have the people on their side. They have not necessarily organized their police and their staff of the army yet.
In Russia, the Communists gave immediately great liberty to the Protestants in order to destroy the Orthodox. When they had destroyed the Orthodox, the turn came for the Protestants. The initial situation does not last long. During that time they infiltrate the churches, putting their men in leadership. They find out the weaknesses of pastors. Some might be ambitious men; some might be entrapped with the love of money. Another might have a hidden sin somewhere, wherewith he may be blackmailed. They explain that they would make it known and thus put their men in leadership. Then, at a certain moment the great persecution begins. In Romania such a clamp-down happened in one day. All the Catholic bishops went to prison, along with innumerable priests, monks and nuns. Then many Protestant pastors of all denominations were arrested. Many died in prison.
“Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Thy saints at Jerusalem: But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake “ - (Acts 9:13, 15 and 16).
Jesus, our Lord, told Ananias: “Meet Saul of Tarsus. He will be My underground pastor, My underground worker.” That is what St. Paul was – a pastor of an Underground Church. Jesus started a crash course for this underground pastor. He started it with the words, “I will show (him) how great things he must suffer…”
Preparation for underground work begins by studying sufferology, martyrology. Later, we will look at the technical side of underground work, but first of all there must be a certain spiritual preparation for it.
In a free country, to be a member of a church, it is enough to believe and to be baptized. In the Church underground it is not enough to be a member in it. You can be baptized and you can believe, but you will not be a member of the Underground Church unless you know how to suffer.
You might have the mightiest faith in the world, but if you are not prepared to suffer, then when you are taken by the police, you will get two slaps and you will declare anything. So the preparation for suffering is one of the essentials of the preparation of underground work.
CHRISTIANS YOU MUST SEE THIS Part 10
A Christian [should /] does not panic if he is put in prison. For the rank and file believer, prison is a new place to witness for Christ. For a pastor, prison is a new parish. It is a parish with no great income but with great opportunities for work. I speak a little of this in my book, With God In Solitary Confinement.
In other books I mention Morse code, which is also part of the training for the Underground Church. You know what this is – a code by which messages are conveyed. Through this code you can preach the Gospel to those who are to your right and left.
Free parishioners look at their watch; “Already he has preached for thirty minutes. Will he never finish?” When arrested, watches are taken away from you; you have the parishioners with you the whole week and can preach to them from morning to night! They have no choice. There have never been, in the history of the Romanian or the Russian Church, so many conversions brought about as there have been in prison. So do not fear prison. Look upon it as just a new assignment given by God.
Men can accept this. But what about the terrible tortures which are inflicted on prisoners? What will we do about these tortures? Will we be able to bear them? If I do not bear them, I put in prison another fifty or sixty men whom I know because that is what the oppressors wish from me, to betray those around me. Hence comes the great need for preparation for suffering, which must start now. It is too difficult to prepare yourself for it when you are already in prison.[But not impossible]
TRUTH ABOUT THE TRUTH
How much each one of us can suffer depends on how much he is bound up with a cause, how dear this cause is to him, and how much it means for him.
In this respect we have had in Communist countries very big surprises. There have been gifted preachers and writers of Christian books who have become traitors. The composer of the best hymnal of Romania became the composer of the best communist hymnal of Romania. Everything depends on whether we have remained in the sphere of words or if we are merged with the divine realities.
God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth. A good sermon is the truth about the truth about the truth, about the Truth. It is not the Truth. The Truth is God alone. Around this Truth there is a scaffolding of words, of theologies, and of exposition. None of these is of any help in times of suffering. It is only the Truth Himself Who is of help, and we have to penetrate through sermons, through theological books, through everything which is ‘words’ and be bound up with the reality of God Himself.
I have told in the West how Christians were tied to crosses for four days and four nights. The crosses were put on the floor and other prisoners were tortured and made to fulfill their bodily necessities upon the faces and the bodies of the crucified ones. I have since been asked: “Which Bible verse helped and strengthened you in those circumstances?” My answer is: “NO Bible verse was of any help.” It is sheer cant and religious hypocrisy to say, “This Bible verse strengthens me, or that Bible verse helps me.” Bible verses alone are not meant to help.
We knew Psalm 23 – “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want… though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death….”
When you pass through suffering you realize that it was never meant by God that Psalm 23 should strengthen you. It is the Lord who can strengthen you, not the Psalm which speaks of Him so doing. It is not enough to have the Psalm. You must have the One about whom the Psalm speaks. We also knew the verse: “My Grace is sufficient for thee.” But the verse is not sufficient. It is the Grace which is sufficient and not the verse.
Pastors and zealous witnesses who are handling the Word as a calling from God are in danger of giving holy words more value than they really have. Holy words are only the means to arrive at the reality expressed by them. If you are united with the Reality, the Lord Almighty, evil loses its power over you; it cannot break the Lord Almighty. If you only have the words of the Lord Almighty you can be very easily broken.
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES
The preparation for underground work is deep spiritualization. As we peel an onion in preparation for its use, so God must “peel” from us what are mere words, sensations of our enjoyments in religion, in order to arrive at the reality of our faith. Jesus has told us “that whosoever will follow” Him will have to “take up their cross,” and He, Himself, showed how heavy this cross can be. We have to be prepared for this.
We have to make the preparation now before we are imprisoned. In prison you lose everything. You are undressed and given a prisoner’s suit. No more nice furniture, nice carpets or nice curtains. You do not have a wife or husband any more and you do not have your children. You do not have your library and you never see a flower. Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains. Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand.
I personally use an exercise. I live in the United States of America. Can you imagine what an American supermarket looks like? You find there many delicious things. I look at everything and say to myself, “I can go without this thing and that thing; this thing is very nice, but I can go without: this third thing I can go without, too.” I visited the whole supermarket and did not spend one dollar. I had the joy of seeing many beautiful things and the second joy to know that I can go without.
DOUBT MAKES TRAITORS
I am Jewish. In Hebrew, the language which Jesus Himself spoke and in which the first revelation has been given, the word “doubt” does not exist. To doubt is as wrong for a man as it would be for him to walk on four legs – he is not meant to walk on four legs. A man walks erect; he is not a beast. To doubt is subhuman.
To every one of us doubts come, but do not allow doubts about essential doctrines of the Bible such as the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or the existence of eternal life to make a nest in your mind. Every theological or philosophical doubt makes you a potential traitor. You can allow yourself doubts while you have a nice study and you prepare sermons, and you eat well – or you write a book. Then you can allow yourself all kinds of daring ideas and doubts. When you are tortured these doubts are changed into treason because you have to decide to live or die for this faith.
One of the most important things about the spiritual preparation of an underground worker is the solution of his doubts. In mathematics, if you do not find the solution you may have made a mistake somewhere, so you continue until you find out. Don’t live with doubts, but seek their solution.
TEST OF TORTURE
Now to come to the very moment of torture. Torture is sometimes very painful. Sometimes it is a simple beating. We have all been spanked as children and beating is just another spanking. A simple beating is very easy to take. Jesus has said we should come to Him like children, which is rather like candidates for spanking!
However, with us, Communists did not stop at beatings – they used very refined tortures. Now torture, you must know, can work both ways. It can harden you and strengthen your decision not to tell the police anything. There are thieves who resist any torture and would not betray those with whom they have co-operated in theft. The more you beat them the more obstinate they become. Or, torture can just break your will.
Now I will tell you of one very interesting case which was published by the Czech Communist Press. Novotny, who was the predecessor of Dubcek and who was a Communist dictator, had arrested one of his intimate comrades, a Communist leader, a convinced atheist, and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. (Not only Christians, Jews or patriots were in prison. One Communist arrested another and tortured him just as they would do anybody else.) They arrested this Communist leader and put him in a prison cell alone. Electromagnetic rays, which disturb the mind, passed through this cell. A loudspeaker repeated day and night: “Is your name Joseph or not Joseph?” (His name was not Joseph.)
They tried to drive him mad. Day and night. He felt that he would lose his mind. At a certain moment, he got an illumination. “I have now met unmitigated evil. If Communists torture a Christian, it is not absolutely evil because Communists believe that they will construct an earthly paradise. Christians hinder them, so it is right to torture Christians. But when a Communist tortures a Communist, it is torture for torture’s sake. There is absolutely no justification for it. But wait a little bit. Every coin has two sides, every electric cable has two poles. If there is an unmitigated evil, against whom does this unmitigated evil fight? There must be an unmitigated good. This is God, and against Him they fight.”
When he was called to the interrogator, he entered smiling into the room and told him that he could switch off the loudspeaker now because it had attained its result. “I have become a Christian.” The officer asked him, “How did it happen?” He told him the whole story. The officer said, “Wait a little bit.” He called a few of his comrades and said, “Please repeat the stop before my comrades.” He repeated the story, and the captain told the other police officer, “I told you that this method will not work. You have overdone it.”
The Devil is not all mighty and all wise like God. He makes mistakes. Evil torture is an excess which can be used very well spiritually.
MOMENT OF CRISIS
Torture has a moment of explosion, and the torturer waits for this critical moment. Learn how to conquer doubt and to think thoroughly. There is always one moment of crisis when you are ready to write or pronounce the name of your accomplice in the underground work, or to say where the secret printing shop is, or something of that kind. You have been tortured so much nothing counts any more; the fact that I should not have pain also does not count. Draw this last conclusion at the stage at which you have arrived and you will see that you will overcome this one moment of crisis; it gives you an intense inner joy. You feel that Christ has been with you in that decisive moment. Jailers today are now trained and refined, aware that there is a moment of crisis. If they cannot get anything from you in that moment, then they abandon torturing: they know its continuation to be useless.
There are a few more points in connection with torture. It is very important to understand what Jesus said: “Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for itself.” I have had fourteen years of prison. Brother Hrapov had twenty six, Wong MingDao had twenty-eight. It seems impossible to bear long years of prison. You are not asked to bear it all at once. Do not bear even one day at a time – bear an hour at a time. One hour of pain everybody can bear. We have had a terrible toothache, a car accident – passing, perhaps, through untold anguish. You are not meant to bear pain more than this one present minute.
What amplifies pain is the memory that I have been beaten and tortured so many times and that tomorrow they will take me again, and the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, I might not be alive – or they might not be alive. Tomorrow, there can be an overthrow, as in Romania. Yesterday beating has passed: tomorrow’s torture has not come yet.
LOVE SUPREME
The Bible teaches some words very hard to take: “Whosoever does not hate father, mother, child, brother, sister – cannot be My disciple.” These words mean almost nothing in a free country.
You probably know from The Voice of the Martyrs literature that thousands of children had been taken away from their parents in the former Soviet Union because they were taught about Christ. You must love Christ more than your family. There you are before a court and the judge tells you that if you deny Christ you may keep your children. If not, this will be the last time you will see them. Your heart may break, but your answer should be, “I love God.” [Give your children over to God and trust that God will keep their faith or, if they are very young, that God will send others to them to teach them.]
Nadia Sloboda left her house for four years of prison. Her children were taken from her, but she left her house singing. The children, for whom the police waited with a truck to take them as she left, told their singing mother, “Don’t worry about us. Wherever they put us, we will not give up our faith.” They did not.
When Jesus was on the cross He not only suffered physically; He had His mother in front of Him, suffering. His mother had the Son suffering. They loved each other, but the glory of God was at stake and here any human sentiment must be secondary. Only if we take this attitude once and for all can we prepare for underground work.
Only Christ, the Great Sufferer, the Man of Sorrows, must live in us. There have been cases in Communist countries when Communist torturers threw away their rubber truncheons with which they beat a Christian and asked, “What is this halo which you have around your head? How is it that your face shines? I cannot beat you anymore.” It is said of Stephen in the Bible, that “his face shone.” We have known cases of Communist torturers who told the prisoner, “Shout loudly, cry loudly as if I would beat you so that my comrades will know that I torture you. But I cannot beat you.” Thus, you would shout without anything happening to you.
There are other cases when prisoners really are tortured, sometimes to death. You have to choose between dying with Christ and for Christ or becoming a traitor. What is the worth of continuing to live when you will be ashamed to look into the mirror, knowing that the mirror will show you the face of a traitor?
LEARN TO BE SILENT
In the Underground Church, silence is one of the first rules. Every superfluous word you speak can put somebody in prison. A friend of mine, a great Christian composer, went to prison because Christians had the habit of saying, “How beautiful is this song composed by Brother _____.” They praised him, and for this he got fifteen years of prison. Sing the song, but do not mention the name of the one who has written it.
You cannot learn to be silent the very moment the country is taken over. You have to learn to be silent from the moment of your conversion.
The secretary to Solzhenitsyn was put under such pressure by the Communists (and she had been denounced by Solzhenitsyn’s wife) that she finished by hanging herself. If Solzhenitsyn had kept silent, this would not have happened.
Another question which is very important: I thank God for the years which I passed in Solitary confinement. I was, for three years, thirty feet beneath the earth. I never heard a word. I never spoke a word. There were no books. The outward voices ceased. The guards had felt soled shoes; you did not hear their approach. Then, with time, the inner voices ceased.
We were drugged, we were beaten. I forgot my whole theology. I forgot the whole Bible. One day I observed that I had forgotten the “Our Father.” I could not say it any more. I knew that it began with “Our Father…,” but I did not know the continuation. I just kept happy and said, “Our Father, I have forgotten the prayer, but you surely know it by heart. You hear it so many thousand times a day, so you assign an angel to say it for me, and I will just keep quiet.” For a time my prayers were, “Jesus, I love You.” And then after a little time again, “Jesus, I love You. Jesus, I love You.” Then it became too difficult even to say this because we were doped with drugs which would destroy our minds. We were very hungry. We had one slice of bread a week. There were the beatings, and the tortures, and the lack of light, and other things. It became impossible to concentrate my mind to even say so much as, “Jesus, I love You.” I abandoned it because I knew that it was necessary. The highest form of prayer which I know is the quiet beating of a heart which loves Him. Jesus should just hear “tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock”, and He would know that every heartbeat is for Him.
When I came out from solitary confinement and was with other prisoners and heard them speaking, I wondered why they spoke! So much of our speech is useless. Today men become acquainted with each other and one will say, “How do you do?” and the other answers, “How do you do?” What is the use of this? Then one will say, “Don’t you think that the weather is fine?” and the other thinks, and says, “Yes, I think it is fine.” Why do we have to speak on whether the weather is fine? We do not take earnestly the word of Jesus Who says that men will be judged not for every bad word, but for every useless one. So it is written in the Bible.
Useless talking in some countries means prison and death for your brother. A word of praise about your brother, if it is not necessary, may mean catastrophe. For example, somebody comes to visit you and you say, “Oh! I’m sorry you were not here before – brother W. has just left.” The visitor could be an informer of the secret police. Now she will know that bro-ther W. is in town! Keep your mouth shut. Learn to do it now.
PERMISSIBLE STRATAGEMS
You cannot do underground work without using stratagems. I know of one case which happened in Russia. The Communists suspected that the Christians were gathering somewhere and they surveyed a street. They knew that the meeting must be there somewhere. They saw a young boy going toward the house where they supposed the meeting would be. They stopped the boy and the police asked him, “Where are you going?” With a sad face, he said, “My oldest brother died, and now we gather the whole family to read his testament.” The police officer was so impressed that he patted the boy and said, “Just go.” The boy had not told a lie.
We are not obliged to tell an atheist tyrant the truth. We are not obliged to tell him what we are doing. It is indecent for his side to put questions to me, an impertinence.
RESISTING BRAINWASHING
One of the greatest methods is not only physical torture; it is brainwashing. We have to know how to resist brainwashing. Brainwashing exists in the free world, too. The press, radio and television brainwash us. There exists no motive in the world to drink Coca-Cola. You drink it because you are brainwashed. Water is surely better than Coca-Cola. But nobody advertises, “Drink water, drink water.” if water were advertised, we would drink water. Some have driven this technique of brainwashing to its extreme. The methods vary, but brainwashing in my Romanian prison consisted essentially of this: we had to sit seventeen hours on a form which gave no possibility to lean, and you were not allowed to close your eyes. For seventeen hours a day we had to hear, “Communism is good, Communism is good, Communism is good, etc.; Christianity is dead, Christianity is dead, Christianity is dead, etc.; Give up, give up, etc.” You were bored after one minute of this but you had to hear it the whole seventeen hours for weeks, months, years even, without any interruption.
I can assure you, it is not easy. It is one of the worst tortures. Much worse than physical torture. But Christ has foreseen all things because with Him there is no time. Future, past, present are one and the same: He knows all things from the beginning. Communists invented brainwashing too late! Christ had already invented the opposite to brainwashing – heart washing. He has said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Stephen, the first martyr for Christ, had around him hundreds with big stones in their hands to throw at him. He said: “I see.” And the wife of Stephen probably thought he saw the danger he was in and would run away. But he said: “I see JESUS standing at the right hand of God.” Perhaps she said (it is not recorded), “Don’t you see all the mob around you ready to throw stones at you?” “Oh yes! I see some little ants there below not worth mentioning. I look to JESUS.” He did not look to those who wished to kill him. Blessed are the pure in heart.
I had passed through brainwashing for over two years. Now the Communists would have said that my brain was still dirty. In the same rhythm in which they said, “Christianity is dead,” I and others repeated to ourselves: “Christ also has been dead, Christ also has been dead.” But we knew He rose from the dead. We remembered that we lived in the communion of saints.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
One of the greatest problems for an underground fighter is to know how to fill up his solitude. We had absolutely no books. Not only no Bible, but no books, no scrap of paper, and no pencil. We never heard a noise, and there was absolutely nothing to distract our attention. You looked at the walls, that was all. Now normally a mind under such circumstances becomes mad.
I can tell you from my own experience how I avoided becoming mad, but this again has to be prepared by a life of spiritual exercise beforehand. How much can you be alone without the Bible? How much can you bear to be with yourself without switching on the radio, or a record player, etc.?
I, and many other prisoners, did it like this. We never slept during the night. We slept during the day. The whole night we were awake. You know that a Psalm says, “…bless you the Lord,… which by night stand in the house of the Lord.” One prayer at night is worth ten prayers during the day.
All [MOST] great sins and crimes are committed during the night. The great robberies, drunkenness, reveling, adultery – this whole life of sin is a night life. During the day everyone has to work in a factory, college, or somewhere. The demonic forces are forces of the night, and therefore, it is so important to oppose them during the night.
In solitary confinement we awoke when the other prisoners went to bed. We filled our time with a program which was so heavy, we could not fulfill it. We started with a prayer, a prayer in which we traveled through the whole world. We prayed for each country, for where we knew the names of towns and men, and we prayed for great preachers. It took a good hour or two to come back. We prayed for pilots, and for those on the sea, and for those who were in prisons.
After having traveled through the whole world, I read the Bible from memory. To memorize the Bible is very important for an underground worker.
THE JOY OF THE LORD
Just to make us laugh also a little bit, I will tell you one thing which happened. Once while I lay on the few planks which were my bed, I read from memory the Sermon on the Mount, according to Luke. I arrived at the part where it is said, “When you are persecuted… for the Son of man’s sake, rejoice you, in that day and leap for joy….” You will remember that it is written like this. I said, “How could I commit such a sin of neglect? Christ has said that we have to do two different things. One to rejoice, I have done. The second, to ‘leap for joy,’ I have not done.” So I jumped. I came down from my bed and I began to jump around.
In prison, the door of a cell has a peep hole through which the warden looks into the cell. He happened to look in while I jumped around. So he believed that I had become mad. They had an order to behave very well with madmen so that their shouting and banging on the wall should not disturb the order of the prison. The guard immediately entered, quieted me down and said, “You will be released; you can see everything will be all right. Just remain quiet. I will bring you something.” He brought me a big loaf of bread. Our portion was one slice of bread a week, and now I had a whole loaf, plus cheese. It was white. Never just eat cheese; first of all admire its whiteness. It is beautiful to look upon. He brought me also sugar. He spoke a few nice words again and locked the door and left.
I said, “I will eat these things after having finished my chapter from St. Luke.” I lay down again and tried to remember where I had left off. “Yes, at ‘when you are persecuted for My Name’s sake, rejoice… and leap for joy because great is your reward.” I looked at the loaf of bread and the cheese. Really, the reward was great!
Out of bread I made chessmen, some of them whitened with a little bit of chalk and the others gray. I played chess with myself. Never believe that Bob Fisher is the greatest chess master of the world. He won the last match with Spassky. He won eight games and lost two. I, in three years, never lost a game; I always won either with white or gray!
Never allow your mind to become distressed because then the Communists have you entirely in their hands. Your mind must be continually exercised. It must be alert, it must think. It must, everyone according to his abilities, compose different things, etc.
I have told you all these things because they belong to the secrets of the underground worker when he suffers. May God bless you !
Soon persecution of Christians in America?!!
REAR ADMIRAL LEE
ADDRESSES PERSECUTION ON CHRISTIANS...
Corrie Ten Boom:
Dire Warning and Word from the Lord
concerning the
Rapture and the Martyrdom of the Church
Miss Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch survivor of the Nazi Concentration Camps. Her family had hidden Jews during the German occupation of Holland. For this they had been captured and sent off. Corrie was the only one in her family to come out alive. Corrie was just one of the many evangelical Christians sent to concentration camps during the World War II. Her life hung in the balance during an ordeal that went on for years. But God was with her. Her faith was preserved in and through those terrible trials. She lived to testify all over the world of how God kept her in, through, and out of that time of tribulation. Corrie and her sister Betsy made this wonderful discovery.
"There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." and "God will give us the love to be able to forgive our enemies". - Corrie Ten Boom Corrie was finally released because of a typographical error. For this slip-up to occur in the highly efficient Gestapo was surely a miracle.
The definitive book and DVD that tells her story is called, 'The Hiding Place'.
Corrie Ten Boom has become a beloved light bearer for evangelicals around the world. She is a shining example of a Western Evangelical Christian who was tested under fire. She was proven and refined in the crucible of history. And she came through as gold.
In this capacity Corrie Ten Boom has earned the right to be heard. She is eminently qualified to present this special word of warning to the Western Church.
In her worldwide travels Miss Ten Boom met with many Christians abroad. Many in the Suffering Church were enduring persecution just as she had. She met with Church leaders of the underground church in China. There she became aware of what had happened to the Chinese church in 1949. At that time Mao Tse Tung was bringing China into communism. The American missionaries had left the country. Chinese Christians entered into a time of intense persecution.
During that period the Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine had been the accepted teaching. But there was a problem. And it turned out to be a serious one. This Biblically unfounded doctrine had not prepared the Chinese Church for witness under trial. Christian believers were interrogated and brutalized under the Red Guard. Many fell away from the faith in those times.
Other Christians found the promised spiritual reserves. They endured these tribulations and came through victorious.
(See the wonderful video 'China Cry' by tested and proven Chinese overcomer Mrs. Nora Lam.)
The Chinese experience with Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine is a telling one. You will look for that doctrine in China today, and you will not find it. It is extinct, ...... as dead as the Dodo bird. It seems that this shameful escapist doctrine has been tried in the crucible of history.
And it has been found wanting!
The Chinese Church leaders asked Corrie to bring a word of warning to the Christians in the West by the Holy Spirit. Responsible evangelicals realize that our present religious freedom will not remain forever.
Corrie knew her Jesus in a deep and personal way. She also knew her Bible very well. Her life of victorious witness under persecution demonstrated and burned into her soul the truths found in its pages. The life and witness of Corrie Ten Boom is a rare example of a true saint. Here we see an otherwise ordinary modern Christian who embraced blood covenant devotion in the midst of great trials to emerge as an overcomer.
The letter Miss Boom wrote in 1974 has been entitled "Prepared for the Coming Tribulation". In this letter she expressed a plea. She exhorts Christian believers to prepare themselves in Christ.
Bible believing Christians in the west are wise to pay close attention here. The present political cover we have will not be with us forever. And one autumn day we may wake up to a different world, even a New World Order.
In such a situation our faith will surely be put to the test. If we are not forewarned and forearmed we might not be prepared for the trials. Christians not rooted and established in the faith could be offended, and many probably will be.
Our Apostle Paul prophesied a great apostasy, a great 'falling away' from the faith. (2 Thessalonians 2: 3) Many of which will surely occur due to the rapture not taking place before the Great Tribulation.
Carnal Christians [I would just say, those Christians who have been fed wrong doctrine, many from well meaning ministers who have been wrongly and strongly indoctrinated so that they are deaf to the teaching and leading of the Spirit] may be offended by this word of exhortation. Many just don't want to hear such messages and will denounce it as "negative".. But the woman of wisdom is still crying out in the streets. (Proverbs 1) Unfortunately, most of those who pass by are just not listening.
But the true saints will pay attention and discern the spirits here. These are the wise virgins, who have a full supply of theoil of the Holy Spirit. They are preparing their lamps against the coming night. And they, at least, deserve to know the truth.
So this message to the western church is exceedingly important. Miss Boom's message of warning and encouragement is set forth below:
'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'
- (Written in 1974)
"The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.
Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives of Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change.
My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room.
We may have been the Lord's only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We too, are to be overcomers – bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate.
Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have read the last pages. I can now come to shouting "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" for I have found where it is written that Jesus said, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things: and I will be His God, and he shall be My son."
This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive – but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.
Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick.
"Yes, the Lord will heal me," Betsy said with confidence.
But she died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day.
It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.
There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world.
I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.
In China, the Christians were told, "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated – raptured." Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death.
Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly, "We have failed. We should have made the people strong for persecution, rather than telling them Jesus would come first. Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the tribulation comes, – to stand and not faint."
I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it.
We are next.
Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation." Then I write it down and learn it by heart.
When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.
"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you; on their part evil is spoken of, but on your part He is glorified." (I Peter 3:14)
I found myself saying, "Hallelujah! Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!"
In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. [the New World Order Illuminati controls all the main media - you need to find a good source of alternate media on the internet] But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.
Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered.
The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?"
The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.
"When I was a little girl, " I said, "I went to my father and said, "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"Tell me," said Father, "When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket? Three weeks before?"
"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength. Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ. He will supply all you need – just in time…"
My African friends were nodding and smiling.
Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing,
" In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore."
Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed.
I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago.
But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.
How can we get ready for the persecution?
First we need to feed on the Word of God, digest it, make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work in our lives.
Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History, but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive and sitting at the right hand of God.
We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is no optional command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without it.
In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage each other.
But we must not wait until the tribulation comes before starting.
The fruit of the Spirit should be the dominant force of every Christian's life.
Many are fearful of the coming tribulation, they want to run. I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that after all my eighty years, including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that I might have to go through the tribulation also.
But then I read the Bible and I am glad.
When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down.
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him", (Job 13:15) for I know that to all who overcome, He shall give the crown of life. Hallelujah!" - Corrie Ten Boom - 1974
Coming Persecution And The Baptism Of The Holy Spirit
by Brian Long
Michael Boldea Jr : Spared Sheltered or Sifted
Aug 5, 2009
Whether for expediency’s sake, or due to the underlying fear that discovering the truth might contradict our own presupposed interpretation, a great majority in the church today have chosen to clump together the three distinct and independent ideas of judgment, wrath, and persecution, into one interchangeable and confusing mass of doctrinal amalgam.
Due to the blending together of these three individual concepts, many within the house of God today are either confused as to what the end times will be like in respect to the children of God, while others are wholly indifferent and apathetic concerning this topic, because to them it is nothing more than a futile intellectual exercise.
“We’re not going to be here anyway, so why bother discussing it? God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, so there, it’s settled.”
This is the danger of clumping together three very different concepts, and drawing our own conclusions. Judgment, wrath, and persecution are very different in and of themselves, and when we place all three under the same umbrella, we get a distorted view of what the future holds for us as children of God.
Of the three, one is reserved exclusively for the godless, one is reserved exclusively for the children of God, and one is interchangeable, poured out over unbelievers, as well as believers who have strayed, or otherwise dismissed the commands of God. In order to understand the difference between judgment, persecution, and wrath we must take each individual concept, and see what the Word of God would say about each of them. As always, the Word must have the final authority, and as such we must bend our will to conform to the truth of God’s Word, rather than bending the truth of God’s word to conform to our will.
We begin with the concept of judgment, since of the three it is mentioned earliest in God’s word. Judgment is also the only one of the three that is interchangeable. What I mean by this is that the righteous judgment of God can be applied to the godly and the ungodly alike, as evidenced in the Word of God.
The first mention of the judgment or judgments of God is recorded in the book of Exodus, as God reassures Moses that he will make a way for the people of Israel to be released from the bondage of slavery in Egypt.
Exodus 6:6, “Therefore say to the Children of Israel: I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”
Before delving into the judgments of God against the Egyptians, and His faithful protection of the people of Israel in the land of Goshen, there are certain truths concerning the judgments of God that we must establish.
First, the judgments of God are always just, and based on truth rather than supposition. God does not guess when He judges. God does not suppose, nor does He harbor any doubt when He speaks judgment upon a person, a land, a people or the entire world. The Word tells us that justice, and judgment is the habitation of His throne, and as such go hand in hand in executing His righteousness. I realize it has become a popular pastime of many a Christians to second guess, or outright question God’s judgments, or the justice thereof, but the foolishness of such practices cannot adequately be described by a mind as limited as my own.
Romans 2:2, “But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.”
I hear comments such as ‘it was unfair for God to do that’, or ‘I think God should have shown a bit more grace’, and each time I find them both tedious and foolhardy. I shake my head, and wonder how it is that man has so elevated himself and his view of himself, that he stands ready to question God, or presume that God was not just, merciful or gracious. God’s judgments are just! God’s judgments are based on truth, and according to truth! [ Romans 9: 14-29]
The second thing we must acknowledge when considering the judgment of God, is that it is impartial. God does not show favoritism, God does not show nepotism, He judges without partiality, and those who sinned without law will perish without law, while those who sinned in the law will be judged by the law.
God weighs the hearts of men, He judges based on what the eyes cannot see, He goes beyond the exterior shell, or the image we attempt to project, and everything from our intent, to our motivation, to our thoughts are an open book to Him.
Romans 2:11-12, “For there is no partiality with God. For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law.”
God’s judgment also begins in His house, and acts as a sifting mechanism, separating the wheat from the chaff, those who truly serve Him with a heart of worship and righteousness, and those who serve Him only in the hope of receiving earthly rewards.
1 Peter 4:17-18, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now ‘if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”
The judgment of God is very different from the wrath of God, because the wrath of God is reserved in exclusivity for the sons of disobedience. It is when God pours out His wrath that His children are sheltered by His omnipotence, and are safe under the shadow of His wing.
Although the wrath of God was provoked, stirred, and even waxed hot against Israel in the Old Testament, it was never poured out, at least not in the measure other passages in Scripture describe it. Even when His wrath was stirred and provoked, it was against those who sinned, committed idolatry, forsook God, mocked His messengers and despised His words.
Zephaniah 1:14-18, “The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers. I will bring distress upon men, because they have sinned against the Lord; Their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like refuse. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath; But the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy, for He will make speedy riddance of all those who dwell in the land.”
I wanted to include this entire passage of scripture, because it paints a vivid portrait of what the day of the Lord’s wrath is. Yes, the day God’s wrath is poured out upon the world will be a frightful day indeed, a day of trouble, distress, devastation and desolation, for all those who have sinned against the Lord. It is not from judgment, or persecution that God will shelter us, but from His wrath. Of the three God’s wrath is the only one reserved for the ungodly, and the sons of disobedience, and His children will suffer no part of it.
Throughout the New Testament whenever the wrath of God is mentioned it is within the context of the disobedient, or those who have rejected God.
Romans 1:18-19, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has show it to them.”
Now we come to the difficult part, the part that pertains exclusively to the children of God, that of sifting or the persecution of the saints. It is not a topic many are excited to talk about or expound upon, because the culture in which they were raised has excluded the possibility of persecution for them.
Every time I preach on persecution in America, I get more blank stares from the audience than any other topic, because they just can’t relate to the idea of persecution. I would most likely get the same blank stares if I were to go into a fully stocked supermarket and start talking about how we would stand in line for hours on end for such basics as oil, sugar and bread when I lived in Romania, with the very real possibility that they would run out before we got to the head of the line. Some things just don’t register yet, but they will with time.
Throughout the centuries we have seen the folly of living with the mentality of ‘it could never happen here, and if it did it would never happen to me.’ Things we thought would never happen in America are happening, and it would behoove us to remember that for two thousand years the followers of Christ have been persecuted throughout the world, and even now in many nations the selfsame persecution is raging. Why would we be spared when all others weren’t? If God judges without partiality what makes us special an exempt from that which countless brothers and sisters are even now enduring?
What we must acknowledge and accept, although it is difficult for some who have fashioned their own pseudo-gospel, is that the Word of God does not lie, and in it we are encouraged to live with the expectation of persecution. It does not speak of mere probability, or potential, but certainty.
2 Timothy 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
If one’s desire is not to live godly in Christ Jesus, but merely pretend when it is convenient for them, then they have nothing to worry about. Just as the pebble is moved along by the rushing river, so will Christians whose desire is not godliness be moved about, perpetually finding the path of least resistance, conflict, and sacrifice. The sad truth is that most would readily sacrifice more for their flesh than they would for their soul, and compromise their deepest held beliefs for the promise of an easy and hardship free life.
[ But remember they are the ones who will experience the wrath of God !
Hebrews 10: 26-31 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” [Deuteronomy 32:35] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” [Deut. 32:36; Psalm 135:14] It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. ]
If however our desire is to live godly, then we must now and for the rest of our existence purpose in our hearts that we will not be moved, we will not be shaken, and we will not let go of Christ no matter the cost.
I believe the season of threshing has already begun within the house of God, and after the threshing comes the sifting. In order for God to do great and mighty works in and through the church during these end times, that the words of Christ might be fulfilled, He needs to first purge and purify the Bride [the true believers] that it might be that pure and spotless entity standing in stark contrast to the darkness of this present world.
In those days, the world will see your hope and hate you for it, they will see your steadfastness and despise you for it, they will see your protection and persecute you for it, but some will see the hand of God upon you, His light shining through you, and humble themselves falling at the foot of the cross in repentance.
God’s desire is not to spare us from being sifted! God’s desire is to mold our character, and strengthen our constitution, to grow our faith and [spiritually] mature us by way of sifting. Our perception of how God views us has much to do with whether or not we accept the idea of sifting as one that God not only endorses but employs frequently. While we tend to believe that God sees us as helpless, fledgling baby birds, who venture no further than the safety of the nest, God sees us as His ambassadors, as those who would be shining lights in a world of darkness, those who would stand for truth and confront the forces of darkness.
There is an exchange between Jesus and Peter in the gospel according to Luke that is very telling and sobering. Jesus forewarns Peter that Satan had asked for him that he might be sifted as wheat, but rather than say ‘I intervened, and it won’t happen’, Jesus says, ‘I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail!’
If Peter had any hope that he might be spared sifting, that somehow his faith would not be tested, it is at this moment that the illusion is shattered.
Luke 22:31-32, “And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon, indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
This passage is a sobering reminder, that even the most mature of believers, even those who have been in ministry for decades, are not spared the sifting.
In conclusion, may we continually acknowledge that God’s judgments are just, His sifting no matter how violent is both purposeful and necessary, and His wrath against the sons of disobedience is long overdue.
Yes, God is love, God is mercy, God is grace, but He is also holy and righteous and just. We cannot divide His attributes and appropriate only the ones that suit us, or that appeal to our view of how we think God ought to be.
In His love, mercy and grace God sent His Son to die upon a cross for the sins of men, but in His holiness, righteousness and justice He will pour out His wrath upon those who rejected and despised the priceless sacrifice that was made on their behalf.
With love in Christ,Michael Boldea Jr.
