Richard Wurmbrand on Preaching

Maybe an antidote to much evangelical preaching? Wurmbrand suffered 14 years of horrific torture for Jesus, more than half of it bereft of light, sound, or contact with other humans. Yet, his love for his captors led many of them to Jesus.

Here's what he says about preaching:

Some tell me "Preach the pure gospel!" I don't know what this so-called pure gospel is. Was the preaching of John the Baptist pure? He did not say only, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" (Matthew 3:2). He also "rebuked [Herod]...for all the evils which Herod had done" (Luke 3:19). He was beheaded because he didn't confine himself to abstract teaching. Jesus did not preach only the "pure" Sermon on the Mount, but also what some actual church leaders would have called a negative sermon: "Woe to you, scribes, and Pharisees, hypocrites!...Serpents, brood of vipers." (Matt 23:27, 33). It is for such "impure" preaching that he was crucified...Sin must be called by its name. Communism is one of the most dangerous sins in the world today. Every gospel that does not denounce it is not the pure gospel.

Now, communism is dead in most parts of the world, God be praised. We still need to be prayerful for its victims in Cuba, Venezuela, Viet Nam, North Korea and China, and most likely to come in Bolivia. But, Wurmbrand's point is well-taken. The church must be like the prophets: opposing all that keeps men in prison for their faith, and in the Satanic, destructive clutches of deceptive philosophies.

Like Wurmbrand, we ought to hate communism (or whatever ism) and love communists.