Dear brothers and sisters and dear children, I
always say dear children because I have never
seen a child in prison for 14 years.
And for me it is a special joy
to see children.
In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 11, we
are given the example of a prayer.
Today is a day of prayer.
How do you pray?
Praying is a great art, for which a
lifetime is not enough to learn it.
But we can learn something from this art.
Here is a very interesting prayer that each
of us has already said.
Let the kingdom of our father David be
praised, which comes in the name of the
Lord.
And then comes the interesting prayer in four
words.
Hosanna in the highest.
What does Hosanna mean in the highest?
If you asked the average German believer, what
does the word Hosanna mean?
So praise God, that's one opinion.
Who knows something else?
What is Hosanna?
Blessed is he who comes.
Who knows something else about the word Hosanna?
Hosanna is a summary of two Hebrew words,
which are still sung in the synagogue today.
Hoshana.
Hoshana means help.
And Na means please.
Hoshana is a prayer.
Hoshana means please help.
Now, here it says Hoshana or in German
Hosiana.
Hosiana in the highest.
What does that mean?
God please help, but in the highest.
How can one get help in the highest?
In the first book of Moses, chapter 49,
verse 25, I am glad that so few
people know the Bible.
Most people here know the Bible by heart.
In the first book of Moses, chapter 49,
verse 25, it says, Jacob, bless your son.
Your father's God has helped you, and you
have been blessed by the Almighty, with blessings
from above and blessings from below.
There are two kinds of blessings.
Blessings from above and blessings from below.
And the Jews had both kinds of blessings.
And now that they knew both, they made
a choice and said, we choose the blessing
from above.
Hoshana, please help, but in the highest.
Please help in the highest.
Hoshana in the highest.
What is this hoshana, this help in the
highest?
The circumstances of my life were such that
for many years, I knew the world of
thieves, robbers, murderers.
My wife knew the world of prostitutes and
thieves well.
If someone wants to see hardworking beggars, he
should look for them among the thieves.
What a thief prays.
Before every thief, the really classic thieves, those
who are worthy of this name, before every
big thief or bank robber, they pray.
I have seen them pray all night long,
but according to the orthodox way, if you
know it, you throw yourself to the ground
in front of the Lord, then you get
up again, you hit big crosses, then you
throw yourself down again for nights.
You go, if you are orthodox, as it
is with us, or Catholic, you go to
church and light candles, and pay for mass,
and say the rosary, you pray for blessings
in the depths, you pray that your theft
succeeds, and if someone does not give the
tenth, but gives abundantly, for God's sake they
are thieves.
After they have stolen, they give a lot
to the church, and they also give to
the poor.
They live in a blessing in the depths.
It should not be a word, an ugly
word about religion, about Jesus, or even more
about Mary, to speak in front of prostitutes.
They do not allow that.
They lead their own lives, but have reverence
for God.
There is such a prayer in the depths.
I was a lot in playhouses.
You will be surprised, I still go to
playhouses.
In America there are very large playhouses, and
I immediately direct the attention to me, they
surround me, what are you doing here?
I have never seen a priest in a
playhouse.
They answer, maybe we have seen, but he
did not wear such a collar.
And then I can talk to them about
the Lord.
In the playhouses a lot is prayed, when
money is placed on the roulette.
One prays, oh, may the number 34 come
out, and the other prays for number 8,
and even the loving God can not make
that this ball is held at several numbers
at once.
And businessmen do not always pray for pure
business.
In the war a lot was prayed, not
only in Catholic or Evangelical churches, but also
in free communities.
In French communities for the victory of France,
in the Russian church for the victory of
Russia, and in German churches, of course, for
the victory of Germany.
And here the loving God could not make
that everyone should win together in a war.
There are prayers in the depths, when disputes
arise in a family, or in a business,
or in a community, or between different communities,
or between different missions.
Sometimes disputes occur, and then the mission directors
pray.
I have seen both sides praying.
And each side prays that they should keep
justice.
But both cannot keep justice.
And priests pray without having exactly checked if
the religion they propagate is the real one.
Even modernist priests pray.
Even those who say that God is dead
catch their service to God with prayers.
You lie to the Bible, and you catch,
and you close with prayer.
Just like in communities where the Bible is
really preached.
There are prayers from the depths.
There is a Hosean in the depths, a
Hosean not in the heights.
Help me God on this low level, on
which I am.
I don't want another level.
I am satisfied with this, and help me
on this level.
Now there are other prayers as well.
There are really saints who got rid of
these things, but somehow kept the I.
And they ask, what is wrong with a
personal prayer, I have a husband, a drunkard,
or a son, a drunkard.
What a terrible tragedy this is.
Or a woman who betrays me, or a
man who beats me, or I don't know
what.
All kinds of things happen.
And you pray for yourself.
God, help me, so that my husband changes.
Don't help the man, so that he changes.
But help me, so that I don't get
tormented by this man.
Don't help him, so that his soul should
be redeemed.
But help me, so that I don't get
tormented by his sinfulness.
God, you see how difficult it is for
me with my son.
Not how difficult and dangerous for him his
sinfulness is, but how much I torment myself,
how much I cry.
And please help me.
This is also a prayer.
In the Reformation, the Protestants abolished the holy
images.
And we are no longer used to praying
for a picture of Jesus or a picture
of Mary.
But usually, in our prayer, we have a
picture in front of us.
My own picture.
There I am, Richard Wurmbrand.
I have my picture in front of me.
And I ask Richard, what are your most
urgent needs?
What are your most urgent desires?
And I pray to Richard Wurmbrand.
And I bring to God what Richard Wurmbrand
wants for himself.
A Canaanite woman came to Jesus and complained
to him that she was very tormented because
her daughter was possessed by the devil.
She did not say, the daughter is possessed
by the devil, help her, but help me.
It is, of course, a terrible torment to
have a daughter possessed by the devil.
But she did not think of the daughter.
She thought of the I.
And therefore, at the beginning, Jesus refused to
grant her her request.
We were asked this question in communist prisons,
where there are still many prisoners today.
There are probably some 10,000 prisoners today.
10,000 in Vietnam alone.
10,000 in Mozambique, in communist Africa.
Nobody knows how many in Ethiopia, in Angola,
in Red China, where Brother Wang Mingdao has
been in prison for 34 years.
We read in the newspapers about the liberalization
in China.
He has not yet learned about this liberalization.
He is still in prison.
And in Russia, Brother Mikhail Ershov has been
in prison for 45 years.
So, there are these many prisoners.
And in prison life, there one is very
pushed to a prayer from the depths, to
a prayer for the I.
If I can tell a personal experience, we
were initially in solitary cells, in a prison
called Malmaison.
This was one of the most terrible prisons
you can imagine.
The terrible thing was that you were guarded
by dogs.
Big shepherd dogs.
They took you to the bathroom, to the
toilet, to an examination, or they transferred you
from one cell to the other.
Everywhere on the corridors, these big dogs guarded
you.
These dogs were very well trained.
They jumped on the gurgles of the prisoners.
They never bit.
They only jumped on the gurgles.
But imagine what it is like when such
a dog...
We did not know that he would not
bite.
You can train a dog so much, in
the end he can still bite, right?
And when such a dog jumps on your
gurgles, it was so, so terrible.
At that time I could not, and probably
not the others either, I could not speak
to the others because I was in the
solitary cell.
At that time I could not say, Our
Father.
I said, Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy
will be done, as it is in heaven,
as it is in earth, in all things
except one.
In one thing must my will be done.
Out of this prison I must escape.
If you want me in another prison, that
is fine.
But in this prison with the dogs, I
do not want to stay.
Your will be done in heaven.
Do you want to push the devil out
of heaven?
Do you want to take him to heaven
and not take the others to heaven?
Do you want to take everyone to heaven?
Do you want to take the others to
heaven?
Do with heaven what you want.
On earth, whatever you want should happen.
One should be rich, one should be poor,
one should be ill, one should be healthy.
Everything is fine for me, except one thing.
In this one thing must my will be
done.
Out of this prison I must escape.
Finally, this is the prayer of all people.
This is the prayer of all people.
Everyone has one thing, or two, or three,
which he keeps on his own will.
Everything else I leave to God.
What will happen to the devils in Iran?
There is a great God, Inshallah, the Turks
say.
God should take care of these devils.
In Cambodia, three million people are starving.
I leave that to God.
But there are one or two questions that
oppress me.
Should I be guarded by dogs?
Or should my husband be harmed?
Or should I do something else?
My will should take place in this.
And I and the others, we had a
hard fight to get rid of this point.
Who asked me to get out of this
prison?
I did.
But how could there be such an I?
Jesus taught us that if someone wants to
follow me, he should deny himself.
I should have given up long ago.
There should not have been such an I.
And it is always the lack of self
-denial.
It is the fact that we did not
give up the I, which makes this I,
this damned I, the root of every sin,
the I, appear again and again.
Our saviour taught us a prayer.
In this prayer, the word I does not
appear.
This is the model of the prayer.
He is not my father, he is our
father.
He is also the father of the one
with whom I do not agree.
He is also the father of the one
with whom I am in dispute.
He is also the father of the one
with whom I do not agree in the
interpretation of the Bible.
He is our father.
And then we say, give us, not give
me, give us, this also means the Cambodians,
and also the prisoners in the communist and
Islamic camps, and also the American millionaires, and
also the American revolutionaries, and every human being,
give us our daily bread today, and do
not forgive me my sins.
I have really committed a great sin.
I may have heard, and killed, and lied
in my life, and done my part, but
I am not the only one who has
sinned.
Forgive us our sins.
I am strongly tempted, and can fight very
hard against this temptation, but I do not
say, do not lead me into temptation.
There are still millions of people who are
under the same circumstances.
Do not lead us into temptation.
And do not free me from the evil,
from the evil of a bad man, or
a bad woman, or bad children, or from
the evil of communism, or Islam, or a
false religion.
There are hundreds of millions of people who
are in this situation.
One must, this image of the ego, that
must disappear.
And this ego is so great, that I
have spoken to great Protestant preachers in America.
I do not know how it is in
Germany, but in America, there appear the magazines
of Billy Graham, or Oral Roberts, or the
great American preachers.
They have in one or the same magazine,
three or four times their own photograph.
The photograph of Billy Graham, or Oral Roberts,
and so on.
And I have asked these great preachers, would
you publish a picture of Mary, in your
magazine?
No way.
Would you publish a picture of Jesus?
Also not.
But your picture.
Was this poor young woman, Mary, not at
least as holy and as good as you?
And we have renounced the picture of Mary.
We have renounced the picture of Jesus.
And we all have replaced her with the
picture of the ego.
And in prayer, the center is the ego,
which comes from the depths, which should have
long since disappeared.
And our song is Hoseana in the depths.
I have the ego.
I like this ego.
I appreciate this ego very much.
If this ego wants something, then it has
to be right.
If I strongly desire it, who can have
better desires than the ego?
And I pray to the ego.
There is another Hoseana.
This Hoseana in the Bible.
Hoseana in the heights.
There you forget the ego.
For the benefit of others.
We are all ready.
For others, I give 10 marks, or 100
marks, or 1000 marks, or I don't know
how much, or 1 mark.
I can give that to him.
But he should not give the ego, which
exists.
How much should I give?
You should not give anything.
He should not give the ego, which exists.
The ego should have long since disappeared.
Everything here is God.
Everything here belongs to God.
And God decides from his own budget how
much he wants to give for this purpose,
how much he wants to give for another
purpose, or what he wants to keep for
the good of this family, or this child,
and so on.
We have to get to this delusion of
the ego and think of the others.
In Russia, our brothers are being arrested recently,
Yakunin and Velikanova.
Not only that they are being arrested.
Somehow, we belong to the same body.
We believe in one holy church.
If one member suffers, then all the others
also suffer.
But you can see that they do not
suffer.
If your back was hit, how would you
scream?
What kind of face would you make?
Would you not scream?
Would you not cry?
But you are being hit today.
In your brother, in Yakunin, in Velikanova, and
in all the others, they are being hit.
They are being held in forced jackets.
And something worse is happening.
We now have proof that in Soviet prisons
young Christian prisoners are being locked in the
same cell with bandits, so that they become
homosexually raped.
And there is such a terrible suffering.
Children are being taken away from their parents.
And even if you get out of prison.
The Jews were in Egypt.
They were freed from Egypt.
They came out of Egypt, but Egypt never
came out of them.
After they were freed from Egypt, they still
wore the golden Egyptian robe.
And whoever spent many years in a communist
or Nazi prison, will never be freed from
prison.
You have nightmares.
I still have nightmares.
And there is this whole struggle.
And this struggle is an attempt to get
back to the self.
I suffer so much.
My children suffer.
I heard something shocking from Mrs. Wintz.
You know who she is.
The General Secretary of the Russian Baptists, who
was recently freed.
And his wife told me.
She came with her two children to prison.
He had the children, and she had not
seen him for a long time.
Maybe half a year.
And now the children came.
And the children did not want to go
to the father.
They said, this is not our father.
Our father is beautiful, but this man is
ugly.
We will not go to this man.
And the lecture was over, and the children
did not want to hug him.
Can you imagine the pain that it must
have been for Mrs. Wintz to see the
children and not hug them?
Now they love him.
So there are other things that you can
think about than about the self with its
suffering and joy.
You can also pray differently than Hosea in
the depths.
There is a famous personality in the church
from the time of the Middle Ages, Katharina
von Genua.
At the end of her life, she said,
Heiland, you know that for 30 years I
have never asked for anything for myself.
There is also such a self-denial.
You should not only donate money, you should
donate the I.
The I should be given away for the
benefit of others.
For 30 years I have not asked for
anything for myself.
This is Hosea in the depths.
And our brothers and sisters who go through
difficult conquests, there are not only the external
conquests.
You are beaten, you are tortured.
There is this inner conquest that you have
to go through.
And even if you are tortured, you should
not force yourself to give up the I.
With the I, I am ready for everything.
And you can beat so much and you
can starve me and I will never get
the right to the I.
And he was sure that he had a
blessing from God.
Hitler was very sure that he had a
blessing from God.
There were three or four attacks against him
and none of them succeeded.
And that gave him the strength.
He knew that he was protected from the
foresight.
A communist investigator told me that if there
is a God, then he is on our
side.
We conquer one country after another.
He is not on your side.
They are also blessed.
Blessed from the depths.
There is a blessing from the heights.
And that is the meaning of the prayer
Hosanna in the heights.
And we should all learn today, because I
am a Jew and I can speak a
little Hebrew, I always try to say a
little of Hebrew in my sermons.
And let us therefore learn Hosanna in the
heights Hosanna means help me God, but not
in the depths.
Help me in the heights.
Help me to deny my self, to forget
my own suffering.
It is only a drop in the great
sea of suffering in which Jesus suffered himself
and all the saints.
And I take this burden on me and
I forget about my self.
I have noticed from German songs, you probably
know these songs, that every pulse would be
a thank you and every breath a song.
You all sang that, right?
If you really mean that every pulse should
be a thank you and every breath a
song.
Yes, where is the breath and the pulse
for a lament?
Where is the breath and the pulse for
the bitter lament, look what is happening to
me and God help me in this thing
that oppresses me.
You don't have time for that.
Every breath a song and every pulse should
be a thank you.
Do you really want to live with Jesus?
That is also from a German song.
Do you really want to live with Jesus?
Your own self has to go.
Let's take our songs seriously and listen to
the self as the center of our prayer.
This self is also from the depths.
How can you achieve that?
You achieve that you see in other people
something valuable, a small need.
Even those who oppress you you have to
see as a human being.
And in this song I know, I have
seen the scene in the film again, Martin
Luther King, you probably heard about him, the
famous black preacher who was killed in America.
He preached once and many of the white
chauvinists and racists hated him because he stood
up for the rights of the black people.
And once during the sermon a white young
man jumped on the podium and slapped Martin
Luther King in the face during the sermon.
The other blacks were of course outraged and
wanted to laugh at this white man.
And Martin Luther King stood up in front
of him and said wait a little bit,
if you had been white and if you
had been taught from an early age, this
dirty nigger, if you had sowed this with
your mother's milk and if you had been
raised like this then you would also be
like this white young man.
We should understand him, we should love him.
He didn't even allow him to be punished
by the police.
He forgave him.
You can give up the I for the
sake of the other and even for the
sake of the one who insults you and
who slaps you.
May I once again tell an episode from
my prison life?
Not that I want to brag but somehow
I know everything that happens to me from
the first source.
The other things have been told to me.
And to be sure I tell from my
own experience but it is exactly the same
experience that other Christians have had in communist
prisons.
I was brought to a big cell after
years we were there at the 100 prisoners
and there is always the oldest cell who
gives you the place where you will sleep
and he tells me there and there they
share the bed with this man I introduced
myself to him, Wurmbrand Wurmbrand seems to be
a good German name like Siegfried.
I said my name is Wurmbrand and at
that time I looked a bit German I
had blond hair.
He asked me what I was I said
I was an evangelical priest Wurmbrand can't be
anything else than a German.
I asked him what his name was he
told me his name I asked him how
long he was sentenced he said lifelong I
asked him what he did he said he
killed 1432 Jews he was a war criminal
I said to him you must suffer terribly
you probably won't sleep at night regretting what
happened he said I really don't sleep at
night I'm sorry I didn't kill more Jews
he was a man full of hatred the
hatred was even angrier than the fact that
I myself was a Jew and now we
were several believers in the same cell as
him we washed ourselves there very rarely once
I didn't wash for three years some of
the boys here would like that so we
washed ourselves very rarely and when one washed
himself the water in the basin remained very
dirty and when this man washed himself the
Christians followed him with the same dirty water
to identify with him to break his ego
to realize I'm not better than this man
I experienced grace if it wasn't for grace
I could have been like him he is
also a man a man whom God loves
if he didn't love him he wouldn't have
created him a man for whom Jesus died
on the cross and he is not just
a man he has a guardian angel and
the angel wants to see him and how
beautiful it would be if he would come
to heaven after so much murder and he
was loved so much by people who forgot
the ego who sang a hosanna in the
heights and not a hosanna in the depths
in the depths we could have prayed that
he should be crucified after all that he
did and that would have been a prayer
there are many such prayers during the war
it was prayed like this it wasn't expressed
like this it was said with holy words
the Frenchman should be crucified the Russian should
be crucified and the Germans should be crucified
there are also such prayers in the depths
and the Christians didn't pray to get rid
of the plague I should get rid of
the plague to be in bed with such
a person but he should get rid of
the plague to appear before God with so
much sin and this person really turned around
there was a hosanna in the heights and
after he turned around we in Romania and
in Russia there are also brothers here who
go to these countries and they kiss each
other there is this holy kiss there are
other customs in Germany but we don't have
it without the kiss brothers and sisters meet
so often they kiss each other three times
one says the peace of God be with
you and the other says the peace of
God be with you I had a community
in Romania with an average of 500 people
every Sunday morning at the end of the
service everyone kissed each other three times it
took an hour we didn't have cars in
front of the door I didn't even have
a bicycle I had time to kiss my
brothers why was the car outside we kissed
each other three times and I got 1500
kisses every Sunday if it was an average
sermon sometimes I managed to keep a sermon
that was looked at particularly well then I
got a supplement of kisses and then the
jaws hurt afterwards I don't want to introduce
any Russian customs the importance of the holy
kiss Tertullian, one of the great Christian teachers
from the 3rd century said that every service
that ends without a kiss is not accepted
by God what is the meaning of this
holy kiss I once sat at a table
with a young man he ate bacon and
he said to me I love bacon with
garlic but I'm going to my bride and
there I will get kisses and therefore I
can't eat garlic and Christians in Russia know
when I go to the service I will
be kissed by 500 saints I'm not allowed
to eat garlic this mouth will be kissed
by saints no bad word, no lying word
no mean word, no word of quarrel no
word of hatred you keep your mouth clean
for the kisses that you will get from
the brothers now you could do it without
kissing but you shouldn't eat garlic when you
know you are coming with brothers even if
you don't kiss each other on the mouth
and now to come back to this man
this man turned around and then he kissed
the brothers and he kissed me and he
said to me I never imagined in my
life that I would kiss a Jew but
you will get an extra kiss there is
the possibility not to stay in the depths
there is an ocean in the heights you
can be elevated to completely different areas than
the ones you have known so far I
just want to tell you very briefly some
of you may know how I came to
believe I am a Jew and in my
parents' house I never heard a word about
Jesus neither a good nor a bad word
but two events occurred in my life that
brought me to Jesus you can't describe everything
in books I wrote several books I didn't
describe everything there the books would be too
long the first event was at the age
of 7 or 8 I came from school
with a friend he was standing in front
of a church at that time I didn't
know the difference between a Catholic church and
a Mormon church they were all the same
he was standing in front of a church
now I know it was a Catholic church
and he said, wait for me my father
said to me I should tell the priest
something I said to him, I will go
with you and so I came to a
church for the first time it was a
Catholic church I was very impressed I saw
a crucified man my reason tells me I
couldn't see a crucified man I probably saw
a crucifix but what stayed in my memory
was that I saw a crucified man and
I couldn't understand why this man was beaten
so hard you could see the wounds, the
blood you could see the pierced heart you
could see the head with the thorn crown
and I had a feeling of compassion and
love for this man I saw a young
lady who looked at me with love probably
it was a statue or a picture of
Mary and then the priest came he quickly
finished with this other man and then he
came to me and stroked my hair which
meant a lot to me I was an
unkempt child I was an unkempt child since
I was a child and I wasn't stroked
I was a very poor child in all
my childhood I only ate one and a
half cakes I stole one, I got half
of it but I can still see it
in front of me I remember this one
and a half cake there is a baker
of mine he could compensate for what I
didn't eat I didn't eat chocolate in all
my childhood when rich children ate chocolate I
put the paper behind them I was the
most poorly dressed boy in the whole school
and I was laughed at I was always
beaten because I was a Jew and in
Eastern Europe they beat Jews I didn't know
what Jew meant but I was beaten and
I wasn't used to someone stroking me he
touched my head and stroked it children were
brought to Jesus to be touched we bring
children to Sunday school to teach them but
they were brought to Jesus to be touched
his touch taught them there was so much
love in this touch this is what the
prayer should be touch like a holy hand
a holy hand now it's not like that
I remember his touch it was so gentle
and so loving and so deep more than
60 years have passed and I can still
feel it and he asked me what can
I do for you I didn't say anything
he said I am a younger Jesus and
he taught us to never let anyone pass
us without doing him any good it's summer,
it's very hot can I bring you a
glass of cold water and he brought me
a glass and Jesus turned this water into
wine I went out of this church drunk
for the first time I heard that there
is such a mysterious being the name didn't
tell me anything but he taught me that
you should never let a Jewish ugly and
weak orphan pass you I don't have money
for the child I don't have chocolate for
the child but I can stroke him and
I can give him a glass of cold
water if there is now the charity of
the church of martyrs in 50 countries and
with millions the underground church was helped here
in this hall is someone who has decorated
many more than 20,000 bibles and we
have many such and if all this exists
and families of martyrs are supported and if
we can do for Vietnamese and if we
can proclaim the word of God and if
there are Jewish Christian communities in Jerusalem, Tel
Aviv and Haifa they all come from that
a young man, Jesus, stroke a child and
told him, I can't let anyone pass me
without doing him any good a glass of
water had this effect the priest probably died
and said, I didn't do anything good in
my life now you can learn his name
was Giuseppe Cavani and then my second meeting
which brought me to this height Hoseana in
the height we talk to people and leave
them in the depth or we talk to
people and count them in the depth and
I met people who swung me up in
the height that was one, but I was
a child and children forget quickly and later
I remembered and when I was an adult
I met in the Hitler time a German
carpenter who prayed in the Hitler time he
was 70 years old God, I have served
you on earth and I want a reward
here on earth that I don't die before
I bring a Jew to faith because your
son was born in the Jewish people but
there are no Jews in my village I
am old, I am sick, I am poor
I can't go around looking for Jews bring
a Jew to my village and I will
do my best to bring him to faith
now I am a special kind of priest
I am a priest who believes that God
never fulfills a prayer if you ask a
Jew from him he will give you two
but it is forbidden by God to get
as much as you ask from him he
will give you more or better there was
not one Jew in this village I came
with my wife and he brought us to
the Lord a man at the age of
70 an uneducated carpenter in Kronstadt and he
swung me and my wife to heaven let
us pay attention to this when we meet
a person he may not be a murderer
or a thief but he is always bad
enough he is an ego and this ego
is bad enough and this ego should be
denied should my meeting with him not be
prosaic I can't teach him much I can't
teach him philosophy I can't teach him the
bible but I can give him a glass
of water I can give him a word
and this word can pull him out of
the depth don't leave people in the depth
and don't push them into the depth sometimes
we do this through our sins but we
lift them up in prayer the prayer and
the beggar should become one we should rise
up what does it mean to become one
of the prayer and the beggar you know
the verse in John 10 Jesus says you
are gods to whom does God pray Jesus
says you are gods and in Zechariah chapter
12 verse 8 at that time the Lord
will send the people to Jerusalem and it
will happen that whoever will be weak among
you at that time will be like David
and the house of David will be like
God to whom does God pray there is
the beggar and the prayer will become one
it is a ocean in the height one
has really swung to godhood and this is
what I had to tell you this is
the gospel we have a problem that we
announce in communist countries the mission it
is very difficult to announce in communist countries
now the bible has to be translated into
Chinese the old translations are no longer good
first of all the letters have changed they
have changed again for the second time new
letters were printed but the words in the
last 30 years in China got a new
meaning we can not say in the new
translation God is good also in the radio
broadcasts because for 30 years in China the
word good was only used on Mao Zedong
and the communists and the young generation knows
good means communist say to a young Chinese
half China is under 15 years and you
say to a young Chinese God is good,
he understands God is a communist imagine the
difficulties that exist you have to completely change
also with the Russians it is very difficult
to announce the gospel I speak fluent Russian
and I spoke to Russians and I said
to them a man had 100 sheep and
he lost one and they said it is
a lie it does not exist a man
can not have 100 sheep I said a
man had a vineyard and when he asked
for money the workers rebelled he was a
capitalist when I said Jesus is king we
learned that in school all kings were bad
guys I have already written a gospel in
Marxist language it is a very difficult work
we ask you to stand behind this work
with your prayer you need a lot of
wisdom in this underground work you have to
know everything that a Christian has to know
you have to know everything that a policeman
has to know you have to know everything
that a smuggler has to know I spend
hours every week reading detective novels criminal novels
to find new methods criminal novels drug smuggling
jewelry smuggling every novel gives me new ideas
a police novel how do the policemen find
the thieves what mistakes can you avoid it
is a very difficult work and it is
enough a single man brought in 20.000
bibles I received a letter from England I
am in prison for drug smuggling I turned
myself in and I apply for the mission
and when I become free I will serve
in this mission he brought in 1200 bibles
to Russia and I asked him how he
did it he said it is my professional
secret how I did it with drugs this
is how I do it now it is
a very difficult work but we hope that
you will pray for this work that you
will help that the word of God will
be proclaimed and that the families of the
murderers will be supported there are so many
families who starve because their parents are in
prison and then they will be punished for
not being able to pay I close this
was not my longest sermon the longest sermon
in my life was 11 hours this is
not the longest sermon but let us remember
in prayer there has to be a hosanna
in the heights a hosanna with the renunciation
of the I we identify with God prayer
and prayer should become one one should swing
in the heights there should not be only
words the last thought I want to conclude
with something from the Hebrew in every language
when I preach I can say this is
the word of God when I preach in
Hebrew I cannot say this is the word
of God because the Hebrews do not have
the word the word of God came through
the Hebrews there is no line here that
is not written by a Jew but a
Jew cannot say that this is the word
of God because in Hebrew there is no
word for word the Hebrews say davar davar
means thing the real thing davar is a
thing if you read the prologue to the
gospel of John in Hebrew it starts like
this in the beginning it was davar, the
real thing and the real thing was with
God and God was the real thing we
do not believe in words that are only
words this is clear only words that are
davar are real words a word should be
a real thing why are Jews such good
merchants because they believe in real things not
in words they do not believe in promises
they only believe in cash they only believe
in reality this is a good merchant this
is part of the Hebrew to not only
believe in words words can deceive us even
our own words can deceive us and can
keep us in the depths a hosyanah in
the heights is a hosyanah that does not
exceed the words you come with your whole
reality in front of the real God I
do not know if I explained what I
had to say well it is difficult for
me to speak in German it is not
my language maybe I did not explain well
but you should not only listen to a
preacher you should also look at him and
you should look at his heart what he
wants to tell you and can not tell
you and when he looks at the heart
then you know I love you from the
bottom of my heart and I want your
prayer to be and my prayer also hosyanah
in the heights