Welcome to this special episode of the China Compass Podcast, #21 in this “Prison Pulpit” series! I'm your China travel guide, Missionary Ben. You can follow me on X (@chinaadventures) where I post daily reminders to pray for China (PrayforChina.us). To learn more about our various ministry endeavors and to get any of the missionary biographies I’ve helped to publish, please visit www.PrayGiveGo.us!

My little book Unbeaten tells the story of my arrest, interrogation, and deportation from China in 2018. One of the appendices, Remember My Chains, is a message I’ve given all over the world about praying for the persecuted church. You can get both the book and the accompanying sermon, at www.Unbeaten.vip, or read the latter for free on my China Call Substack: https://chinacall.substack.com/p/remember-my-chains

Once again, we are turning to the late Richard Wurmbrand to speak to us on behalf of those of the persecuted church who are currently being imprisoned and tortured for Christ. 

For those who don't know who Richard Wurmband is, here's a brief intro:

Lutheran minister in Romania. 

14 years in prison, 3 in solitary confinement.

After “escaping”, published ”Tortured for Christ"

Helped start Voice of the Martyrs (however…)

Michael Wurmbrand’s VOM “Open Letter”: https://www.billionbibles.com/michael-wurmbrand-vom.html

Michael Wurmbrand’s ministry (free books!): https://richardwurmbrandfoundation.com/

Sermons in Solitary Confinement

Most likely published in the early 1970s, just a few years after he fled Communist Romania…

Read the book for yourself: https://richardwurmbrandfoundation.com/pdfs/ssc-english.pdf

Today's excerpt comes from: A Christian Prisoner Encounters Gabriel

Also, today we looked at a short, unpublished Bible meditation by the late Reverend Richard Wurmbrand, edited by his son Michael:

In Chinese Prisons You Need Permission To Cough

In Red China's prisons, our brethren and sisters in faith have to sit motionless, leaning toward the wall, from five in the morning until nine o'clock at night, day after day, month after month, for years. Every day is for them like an enemy decided to torture them to death. They are not allowed to speak to the other inmates of the cell. They are forbidden to cough, to laugh, or to weep. If a prisoner has to cough, he must say to the warden who continually spies on him "Bau-gau," which means "Please give me permission."  It is "Bau-gau" for spitting, for scratching oneself, for killing vermin. (Not exactly: to baogao is tomake a report or confess)

If all at once or someone in the cell goes mad and begins to sing, the rest have to sit motionless, while their fellow-prisoner is silenced through beatings. And how could they help him? They have chains on their hands and feet. 

In Hebrews 13:3 it is written, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." 

Try to sit six hours like this, motionless, on the floor (in prison, it is on the cold concrete), to see how your brethren fare! They endure not only this physical suffering and food which has the taste of sawdust. They suffer from doubts, too. "Why did my Heavenly Father allow me to come here?" 

Our brethren bear all this for Christ's sake.

Please check out Richard Wurmband’s longer book of prison stories, In God's Underground: https://richardwurmbrandfoundation.com/pdfs/IGU-english.pdf

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And don’t forget to check out everything we are involved in at PrayGiveGo.us. Hebrews 13:3!