Welcome to From the Pulpit.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith, and powerful sermons from modern preachers
too.
This week we have Joseph Tyson with his
message, Three Secrets to Conquer Fear.
In 1945, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill
gave half Europe to Stalin at the Yalta
Agreement.
And with horror we heard overnight that we
were on the wrong side of that line
that divided Europe in two, and that we
were left at the mercy of the Russians.
It took the Russians three years to build
up a communist apparatus in Romania.
And by 1948, the secret police apparatus was
there, the communist party apparatus was there, the
country was surrounded by barbed wire.
We were trapped, and the terror began.
You know what terror means?
Everybody is asked to go to political rallies.
And if you are absent, you are sent
to a labor camp with no trial.
You go to the rally, and you watch
what they say, and they say stupid things,
things you hate, but you have to clap,
and have to shout, and have to show
that you believe them.
Because if somebody sees you that you don't
applaud, they will pick you up and send
you to the labor camp.
And you learn that if you ask a
question, and they think that because you asked
that question, you showed that you didn't believe
them, that question may cost you your life.
And you quickly learn that you don't speak
your mind anymore, you know what they expect
you to say, and you say what they
expect you to say, even if you don't
believe it, because you want to live.
You know what that meant in our terms?
When an order came that from now on,
Baptist churches can only meet Saturday night for
a short worship, and Sunday morning for another
worship, no other activities whatsoever in the church.
No children, no women, no evangelism, no youth
meetings, absolutely nothing but those two meetings, public
meetings, Saturday night and Sunday morning.
There was a pastor who dared say no,
he was picked up, he spent five years
in labor camp, unspeakable labor camp, the worst
labor camp of the country.
Everybody got the message, and you accept.
And they came and told every pastor, you
have to cooperate with the secret police, and
if they ask you to give information about
your members, you give them.
And there was a pastor who said no.
One evening, a jeep stopped on the pavement
right near him.
Two strong men jumped on him, pushed him
in the jeep, there were four strong people
there, took him out of the city on
a dark valley, and the four guys jumped
on him and started to beat him to
death.
When he was almost crushed, they stopped, they
said now it's dead night, nobody knows where
you are, we can leave you dead here,
nobody knows, you get rotten here.
If you sign this letter that you accept
to cooperate with the secret police, we take
you home.
Are you shocked if I tell you that
he signed?
Terror.
Terror that teaches you even what sort of
gestures they expect you to have.
And you learn that because you want to
live.
And you know you won't live if you
don't obey.
That was life under communism.
50s, 60s, and there came a time
when the greatest thing happened to a few
of us.
When we were liberated from fear.
And I think that there is no greater
freedom than that.
When you are liberated from fear.
Not taken out of that system.
But there.
And you become free there.
In my own life it started the beginning
of 1968 with a new experience, with a
new encounter with my Lord.
When I made the determination that what he
saved, he has to possess.
Because he bought me at Calvary.
And I am no more my own.
And I told my wife from now on,
whatever he wants me to be, that's what
I will be.
Wherever he wants me to go, there I
will go.
Whatever he wants me to do, I will
do.
Because he bought me.
And I am owned.
Yes, the Lord made a miracle at the
beginning of 1969 and I was miraculously taken
out of Romania.
And in a string of miracles I arrived
in Oxford, got a scholarship in Oxford University,
studied theology in the Baptist College of Oxford.
For the first time in my life, I
was free to go east or west, north
or south.
For the first time in my life, I
could determine my destiny.
But that wasn't true.
Because just a year before I determined that
I was bought.
And I had only one choice.
To go to his majesty, my king, and
say, my king, when I finish here, where
do you want me to be?
And he said, back home to Romania.
Yes, your majesty.
That's where I will go.
Many, many people advised me that suicide.
You will land straight in a jail because
you stayed here as a fugitive.
Are you so stupid to go back to
the secret police and to go back to
that terror?
That's stupid.
I did.
That's true.
But I belong to the king.
And my relationship with the king has only
one word in it.
Obedience.
And I have to obey the king.
And I'll go.
And when I went back there, I didn't
go back to prison.
Because I was free.
I was free before, I was free in
the free world, and I was free when
I went back.
Because I came to discover that in the
so-called free world, people weren't free.
And that freedom doesn't depend on where you
are.
I want to tell you tonight, how did
God liberate me and my closest friends and
co-workers, how did we liberate us from
fear?
Because I know that there are many people
here who are not free from fear.
And I'll show you what sort of fears.
I think that the first thing that the
Lord did was to repair my eyes.
That's the first way in which he liberated
me from fear.
Mending my eyes, repairing my eyes, or changing
my eyes, whichever way you want.
I have difficulties with English language, so you
choose your word for that.
But here is what I mean.
In Matthew 6, 22-24, Jesus says that
all that is in you depends on your
eye.
If your eye is good, then everything in
you is light.
If your eye is bad, everything in you
is darkness.
It all depends on the quality of your
eye.
And if you want a biblical illustration, imagine
the servant of Elijah.
When that poor guy went that morning out
and saw Samaria surrounded by military, enemies, armies,
and he came almost dead to his master
and said, Master, we are lost.
The city is surrounded by enemies, armies, and
they are ferocious, and they are deadly, and
we are finished.
And the great man of God smiled and
said, Oh Lord, open his eyes.
And something happens to his eyes, and all
of a sudden he said, What?
Master, look there, there are more with us
than against us.
He just got his eyes repaired.
Now in 1970, as I was studying in
Oxford, one of the most beautiful experiences of
my life was that Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones
accepted me in the Westminster Fellowship, going every
first Monday of the month from Oxford to
London for a whole day of theological debates
with the doctor in the chair.
And for two years, I heard the doctor
again and again saying, You must make the
sovereignty of God the pillar of your thinking,
the pillar of your theology, the basis of
your existence.
And I did.
That was one lesson that went into my
whole being and changed all my outlook.
Because I tell you now how that fits
with the eye.
The sovereignty of God means this.
With my bad eye, I look at the
communist enemy.
They are ferocious.
They are almighty.
They have all the power in their hands.
That's my bad eye.
But when I have my eyes mended, I
see above them my sovereign God who manipulates
them for his own purposes.
Now, it happened in October 1974.
I was arrested.
I committed a big crime.
I wrote a booklet entitled The Christian Manifesto
in which I described the failure of communism
to produce the new man and how only
Christ could solve the problems of that society.
I sent a copy to Ceausescu.
My wife should tell you how we went
together at the office of the president and
we registered it as a message to the
president.
And then we went home and waited for
his answer.
And his answer came one morning at six,
seven policemen with a mandate to search our
house and then to put us on trial.
And they came for the formal indictment.
Now, that was to be frightening experience.
There were six senior officers there at the
long table, a small table in front and
me behind that little table.
And the colonel in the midst read the
indictment and then he explained how grave the
situation was.
How could I stand up against them?
After all, isn't it written in Romans 13
that the authorities are of God?
Now, I never interrupt the speaker.
It's not polite.
But I just couldn't keep my tongue then.
You see, when you are there, it's not
you who speak.
So, I immediately jumped in and said, Sir,
would you let me explain how that Romans
13 applies here?
He said, OK, go on.
I said, Sir, what happens here is not
between you and me.
What happens here is between my God and
myself.
My God has some dealings with me here,
Sir.
I don't know what.
Maybe he wants to teach me a few
lessons here.
I only know, Sir, that you will do
to me only as much as my father
wants you to do.
And you will not go one inch beyond
that because you are only my God's instruments.
He didn't like that interpretation of Romans 13.
But how I loved it because, you see,
I saw above them my father pulling six
strings and manipulating his six puppets.
Now, that's a good eye.
And that's understanding properly the sovereignty of God.
And I went across Romania in that time
telling my people that sovereignty of God means
that God is so much in control that
he uses even his enemies, the ones who
want to destroy his cause, he uses them
always to promote his cause.
And at the end of the day they
always discover that somehow they just pushed God's
cause onward.
And they bite their nails and say, why
did we do it?
Somebody recorded one of those sermons and sent
it to the government.
And I had an official from the government
who said one day, you have such a
strange view on us, Mr. Tson.
Your sermon on sovereignty of God is so
strange.
You see, you don't move among enemies then.
They are God's instruments.
And whenever they arrested us and beat us
and did all those things, each time when
we came out, we came stronger, and everybody
in the country listened better to our preaching.
And I pointed to that and I said,
don't you see because of what they do
to us, the gospel has much bigger strength?
Don't you see how they push God's cause
always?
Look at it.
Understand it.
Sovereignty of God means that he uses always
all his enemies to promote his cause.
Now, that applies in America too.
You know how?
Look around you and identify all the people
who make your life miserable.
Look at the people whom you say, if
this person wouldn't exist, my life would be
heaven on earth.
And from today, you start saying, these are
my father's instruments working on me and on
my character.
And Romans 8, 28 is active through them.
All things cooperate for my ultimate good, including
these people who step on my toes everyday
and wreck my nerves everyday.
They are my father's instruments.
And if you open your eye like that,
all your body is light.
Look at all the dangers, all the threats,
all the problems, everything in that light.
With those eyes, the eyes of the sovereignty
of God, and all your being will be
full of light.
That's the first way in which God liberated
me from fear.
There was a second liberation.
Glorious liberation.
It's in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14 and
15.
Jesus Christ shared my flesh and blood, in
order that through death he might render powerless
him who had the power of death, that
is the devil, and might deliver those through,
listen, those through fear of death were subject
to slavery all their lives.
Satan keeps people in slavery all their lives
by what?
By fear of death.
And when I understood that, I understood that
Satan's tool of enslavement is fear of death,
and I understood that Christ liberated me from
that, why and how?
Well, he died my death.
There is no more death for me.
There's no death for me.
I don't die.
I go home.
I go to glory.
So I was arrested, and that officer got
very upset with me, and he said, don't
you understand where you are?
Don't you understand my power?
Don't you understand that I do whatever I
want with you?
Sir, let me explain that to you.
Look, sir, if you come tomorrow with your
car straight on the pavement or the walkway
where I am and then hit me, because
I know you can't do that, I won't
say, look what this rascal from the secret
police is doing to me.
No.
I would look up and in that instant
I would see my father saying, Joseph, enough
there, come up here.
Sir, you only send me to glory.
But sir, let me tell you something.
My God is very strange God.
He will use you to send me up.
But at the same time He will charge
you with murder.
Now in order to prove this, watch out.
This is staggering.
I said, sir, this was March 1974.
At New Year Eve, the beginning of this
year, in the northern part of the country,
this was in the south, a group of
Christians, a group of Baptists were spending that
New Year Eve together as we do.
And among other things, they put scriptures in
a bowl.
And each one drew one scripture as God's
promise for the New Year.
And they all read them and they all
rejoiced in what God said for them.
And then when they finished with that, one
of them remembered me.
And he said, poor brother Joseph, he is
there at the secret police in interrogation.
I wonder, what will the Lord give Joseph?
Now look, brethren, let's make this agreement.
I take this scripture from here and we'll
see that it reaches him.
And then I took my wallet, I took
a piece of paper, I gave it to
that secret police officer.
He said, sir, this is the scripture that
man took from that bowl.
Please read it.
And he reads Proverbs 22 to 23.
I will defend their cause, but I will
spoil the life of them that spoil them.
And his hand trembled.
And kindly he gave me back that verse.
He didn't keep it.
And he said, this is us.
I said, yes, sir, and watch out.
Now you see, there was another time when
I was charged with treason and another major
threatened to shoot me.
And all of a sudden my face shone
and he said, What?
When I threaten somebody to shoot him, he
at least gets afraid.
But you smile.
You are abnormal.
No, sir, I am not abnormal.
I am supernormal.
Because you cannot threaten me with glory.
When you shoot me, you send me to
glory.
I am not afraid of glory.
And you should have seen their frustration.
Because there is nothing more dangerous on this
planet than people who are not afraid of
dying.
You cannot do anything to them.
They are beyond your reach.
But it was this certainty that there is
no death for me.
It's only the invitation home.
It's the invitation to glory.
And I can hardly wait.
And when I preach at the funeral of
young and clean boy or girl, I make
that mention.
Look how God finished them so quickly.
And He has so much work on me.
So He keeps me so long in the
valley and say, You stay there.
I still didn't finish with you.
And I am craving to go home, to
go to glory.
Freedom.
Because Christ died my death.
And there is no more death.
So, there is more than that.
I shared with my wife at that time
and I shared with a few other people.
If we can find at least ten people
who are not afraid of dying, who stand
up and preach the whole counsel of God
and then pay with their death, we conquer
this land for the Lord.
And when that man first time threatened to
kill me, the one whom I gave that
scripture, then I said to him, Now, let
me go on with the explanation, sir.
You should know, sir, that your supreme weapon
is killing.
My supreme weapon is dying.
Here is how it works, sir.
My sermons are on tapes all over the
world.
All over the country.
When you kill me, I sprinkle them with
my blood.
And everybody in the land knows that I
died for my preaching.
And everybody will pick up that cassette or
that tape and say, I better listen again.
That man really meant it.
He died for it.
Sir, my preaching will speak ten times louder
after you kill me.
In actual fact, I will conquer this land
because you killed me.
Go on and do it.
He sent me home.
And then one of his colleagues commented to
another Baptist minister, We know that Mr. Son
would love to be a martyr, but we
are not that big fools to fulfill his
wish.
Now that pastor ran to me to tell
me that shocking news, that even if I
beg them, they will not kill me.
I said, stop, stop, stop a little bit.
Because I see something very, very serious here.
For so many years, I was afraid of
dying.
Because I was afraid of dying, I kept
quiet.
And I wasted precious years in doing nothing.
I wasted my life because I wanted to
save it.
And when I decided to give it away,
to die for the Lord, they tell me
that even if I beg them, they will
not kill me.
Don't you see now I can go across
this country and I can preach whatever I
want, wherever I want, because I know they
will not kill me even if I ask
them to?
As long as I wanted to save my
life, I lost it.
When I lost it, I found it.
And somebody said some words like this somewhere.
That's when I found out that those words
were literally true.
If you give your life away in the
service of Christ, and you will find it.
So, that's how Christ liberated me, by showing
me the glory, and showing me the meaning
of martyrdom.
And because he showed me these things and
opened my eyes to see these new values,
instead of the value of survival, I was
free.
And what an extraordinary feeling to be there
at the secret police and to be free.
You don't have to come to America to
be free.
You can be free at the headquarters of
the secret police in Romania.
That's real freedom.
Only Christ can give you that.
There is a third way in which Christ
liberated me from fear.
You find that in 1 John 4, verse
18.
Amen.
There is no fear in love.
Perfect love casts out fear.
And he who fears is not perfected in
love.
One of the first days in interrogation, I
have to imagine this, I was placed under
house arrest, and for six months I had
to go every morning from Monday to Friday
to interrogation at the secret police headquarters.
They confiscated my library before.
I had to be in interrogation from Monday
to Friday.
I lived above the church, in a little
apartment there.
And I was allowed to preach Friday night
and Sunday morning and evening.
I had no library.
I was in interrogation five days, and I
had a fresh sermon Friday night and two
good sermons on Sunday.
Six months.
One of the first days in interrogation, they
kept me until eight in the evening, and
it was late, and the man just said,
well, take your coat and go home, and
tomorrow morning at eight be back in the
battle.
I turned to him.
I said, sir, why do you use that
language of war?
You should know, sir, that every morning before
I come here, I pray for you and
for your salvation, and I pray for your
family, and then I come to meet the
man for whom, whose salvation I just prayed.
I don't come to a war because you
don't go to a war with a man
for whom you just prayed.
I could see how it would hit him,
and he just choked, and he couldn't breathe.
And he just said, okay, go home.
Later on in the interrogation, the other man,
there were always two there, but sometimes, for
certain reasons, one was absent, and usually when
one was absent, the other one could speak.
They were afraid of each other.
So when the major was alone one day,
he said, Mr. Zorn, when I interrogate somebody,
I feel how they hate me, and they
are justified to hate me because I am
not nice to them.
But with you, Mr. Zorn, it is different.
I don't know how to put it, but
I want you to know that it's a
delight for me to be with you.
I have to confess, it wasn't a delight
for me to be with him.
Or was it?
He told me in the last day of
interrogation, he said, Mr. Zorn, you go free,
and I'll miss you.
Because, you see, in six months, I had
so many occasions to tell him my experiences
with my God, and he would forget that
it was an interrogation, and he would just
listen for hours, and then he would remember
and say, well, we are in an interrogation,
let's go on.
I'll miss you.
Because, you see, the Lord told us that
those people there have only one chance to
hear the Gospel, if we are arrested.
We are there because we have to witness.
We have to show them Christ.
I think that the most beautiful experience, I
think, of those years for me was when
I was arrested in Palm Sunday of 1977.
Sunday morning, before going to preach in the
city of Yarsh, two gentlemen picked me up
and took me down to Bucharest that Sunday.
And I found out why.
It was another of my writings, and they
consider that a treason.
And because we were six who did it,
it was also a conspiracy to commit treason.
And treason brings 25 years in prison, but
conspiracy to commit treason is capital punishment.
On Monday morning, as the official interrogation started,
there were the two usual interrogators there.
About lunchtime, a general came in.
He made a sign like that, the hand.
The two immediately left the room.
And the general just started to curse me,
and then jumped on me and started to
beat me.
Slapped me and hit me.
Eventually he hit me with the fist in
the forehead.
I hit the wall, it almost cracked my
head.
And when he finished with that, he just
turned around and he left the room.
The others on the corridor heard my screamings.
They just came in and they shrugged their
shoulders.
Let's go on with our interrogation.
On Thursday, that week, about lunchtime again, the
general came in again.
Made the same sign, the two went out.
And I just caught the table like this.
I braced myself for the second round of
the boxing.
And he saw that gesture and he smiled.
And he sat down at the other table
and said, Don't worry, this time I came
to talk to you.
Now, the Lord told us that we don't
have to prepare beforehand our speeches when we
go there.
You only prepare your speeches when you come
to the pulpit.
When you are arrested, he said, Don't worry,
you will be given what to say at
that moment.
At that moment, I can tell you the
most beautiful stories of those things that the
Holy Spirit gives you there.
So the moment he said, I came to
talk, it just jumped from me.
Mr. General, because you came to talk, first
of all, I want to apologize for what
happened on Monday.
Just came out of the blue.
And he looked at me and it didn't
make sense to him because on Monday he
beat me.
Why do I apologize?
So I said, well, let me explain.
You know, Mr. General, on Tuesday, I was
kept here all day without interrogation.
And I had time to think and to
pray.
And it dawned on me, Sir, this is
the Holy Week.
And you beat me in the Holy Week.
But for a Christian, there is nothing more
beautiful in this world than to suffer when
his Lord suffered.
You realize, you gave me the most beautiful
gift of my life.
I am sorry I shouted.
I should have thanked you for the most
beautiful gift of my life because you beat
me in the Holy Week.
Again, I saw a man who choked.
Well, I shouldn't have done it.
Let's talk.
And an interesting talk, following that, he decided
that I should go and preach in my
church for Easter.
And then to go back immediately after the
Easter.
When you preach sermons in that situation, you
have to know that they are much, much
better sermons than in any other time.
Especially when you know that it may be
your last.
It comes out very good.
So, I don't know if
those people profited for eternity.
You just heard before that all our preaching
is either for salvation or for condemnation.
Now, my job there was to show those
people the love of Christ.
That's why I was there.
And with all that I did there, they
had to see that somebody whom they hurt
loved them.
So that they could say, it's a delight
for me to be with you.
That was my job.
To show them the love of Christ.
And I told people, this is the aggression
of love.
I'm not a victim when I go there.
I am the attacker.
Love on the attack.
Going there and saying, thank you for the
beating.
That's the aggression of the love.
That's the most beautiful war you could ever
fight.
Be an aggressor of the love of Christ.
To everybody who hates Christ and hates you
because of Christ.
Look again to the people you think are
making your life miserable.
And start to be an aggressor of love.
And say, Lord, teach me how to show
these people love.
Give me ways in which I love them.
And you will see how many ways He
will show you how you can love those
people.
And start loving them practically.
Doing things of love to them.
And that moment you are no more the
victim of their hate and of their malice
or their wickedness.
And even if they don't take it, even
if that is their condemnation, you are victorious.
Because you transform yourself from a victim into
a Christ-like attacker.
Because Christ came into this world as the
aggressor of love.
And He accepted all the hate of the
world and absorbed it in the cross and
instead of that He said, Father, forgive them.
And that's how He conquered.
There is one other way in which my
Lord taught me how to be free.
I'm a sinner.
Saved.
But still, I failed.
And sometimes I fail miserably.
I'm not ashamed to say it.
But I'm ashamed before Him.
Because after so much love that He showed
me, I shouldn't fail Him.
Well, He taught me one important thing.
And that is that I have to be
accountable.
And that means that I made the discipline
of my life that I always have an
older man, a godly man, to whom I
go to confess my failures.
I always saw that I had one.
And I had for a time a pastor
in Romania, and then another pastor, and Richard
Wurmbrand was for a while my mentor and
my confessor.
When I came to this country in exile
in 1981, I went to the pastor of
the First Baptist Church in that city.
And I told him my spiritual discipline.
And now I wanted him to be the
man to whom from time to time I
should come.
Because, look, I travel every Sunday in other
place for the mission.
And I live in hotels and I may
be tempted with this and that.
And I handle money and all sorts of
temptations.
And I have to be accountable and I
have to confess.
And I was so shocked when I saw
that man so embarrassed.
He never had anybody to go like that
to him.
And he didn't know what to do with
that.
But, you know, when I kept silent about
my sin, my body wasted away through my
groaning all day long.
For day and night thy hand was heavy
upon me.
My vitality was drained away as with the
fever heat of summer.
And then I acknowledged my sin to thee
and my iniquity I did not hide.
I said I will confess my transgressions to
the Lord.
And thou didst forgive the guilt of my
sin.
How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
How blessed is the man to whom the
Lord does not impute iniquity.
To whose spirit there is no deceit.
Of course, you know, this is Psalm 32.
But James tells us that in James 5,
16, confess to one another.
I have to put myself to shame to
somebody.
If we confess, we are forgiven.
And that is freedom.
Freedom from sin comes through confession of sin.
Through accountability.
I always have to be under that accountability
to somebody.
I am free.
In his mercy, my Lord sought me in
the slavery of sin.
And he liberated me when he washed my
sins away.
That's when I experienced freedom.
And then he took me through all these
other steps.
To mend my eyes.
To see that he is sovereign and there
are no more enemies in the world for
me.
They are only my God's instruments.
To understand then that he died my death.
I don't die.
I go to glory.
That dying may be God's instrument for me
to conquest.
I was liberated then when I understood that
I conquer my enemies by loving them.
I cannot be afraid of the people I
love.
I am afraid only of the people I
hate.
But when I hate, I am in bondage.
When I love, I am free.
And when I learn the discipline of not
letting any sin between me and the Lord
and confess it and stay clean.
I keep my freedom intact.
What a joy to be a free being.
A free person.
Free to live to the God-given potential.
Free to let the Lord use you as
he wants to use you.
Because you are free, you are not blocked
in your energies inside.
Which area you are not free in.
I didn't come in vain tonight.
God brought me here for you.
Because you have some slavery in one area
or another.
And he wants you to be free.
And he gave me this message tonight for
you.
Will you take it now and apply it
and say, Lord, all these words were for
me.
And I accept to personalize them here, here,
here, here.
And you look into your life and say,
they apply here, here, and here.
Change me, Lord.
Liberate me, Lord.