Running With the Footmen - Paul M. Williams

Bethesda Shalom

Jeremiah 12:1-5

The year was 1944 when the Communist party seized power in Romania. Literally overnight, a million Russian troops poured onto the soil of Romania. In what was heralded as the “freeing” of Romania, saw instead, women raped, shops looted, men robbed and murdered. Christians were imprisoned, tortured, kidnapped, and murdered for possessing the same faith as you and I. Romania, which had formerly been dubbed “the granary of Europe”, became a starvation camp. Yet despite this, in the years leading up to this brutal persecution, God in His faithfulness had been preparing His people for the horrors of the Communist Regime through the afflictions of the Nazi backed “Iron Guard” who too persecuted Christians in the run-up to the Communist takeover of Romania.

A Christian Pastor, writing of his experiences during this said this: “My wife and I were arrested several times, beaten, and hauled before Nazi judges. The Nazi terror was great, but only a taste of what was to come under the Communists. My son, Mihai, had to assume a non-Jewish name to prevent his death. But these Nazi times had one great advantage. They taught us that physical beatings could be endured, and that the human spirit with God's help can survive horrible tortures. They taught us the technique of secret Christian work, which was a preparation for a far worse ordeal to come; an ordeal that was just before us”. I want to tell you Brothers and Sisters; before God asks His people to sit the final exam, He first enters them for the mock. God prepares His people Saints of God — He prepares us for battle in the school of His training.