Melissa the Hopeful🏠Homemaker@BiblicalBeauty
In an interview in 1974, Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian pastor once imprisoned for 14 years, shared an important insight on the reason he experienced such intense persecution under Communist leaders:
Pat Robertson: "That was your only crime, that you said, I want to bring men to eternal life, tell them they have an immortal soul, tell them about Jesus?"
Wurmbrand: "Well, I would not say that this is the only thing. So much they would have allowed. Nothing would have happened to St. John the Baptist if he would have said only, 'Repent. The Kingdom of Heaven is near,' but when he said, 'You, Herod, are bad,' then he was beheaded.
Jesus could have delivered hundreds of sermons on the mount and parables. Nothing would have happened to Him, but when He said, 'Woe unto you, hypocrite Pharisees,' then He was lost.
And in preaching the Gospel, you have to do two things: to proclaim the Kingdom, but also to denounce sin. And we did this side, and the greatest sin committed in humanity today is Communism, not only that it has killed 60 million people in Red China and 30 million in Russia, but it poisons youth and children with atheism. It uses brainwashing. It puts Christians in psychiatric exams, not only in prisons where simply they break their will and their mind, and they try to subvert the whole world with Communism.
So I preached both sides of the Gospel. I denounced the sin, and at the same time, I extended to them the invitation to come to the Kingdom."