Battle for the soul of a nation.

Good morning brothers and sisters in Christ. I wish to introduce you to a man called Richard Wurmbrand. I read his book TORTURED FOR CHRIST as a teenager and last year I was inspired to order a copy of it online which I did. I reread it and I was stunned at the power and the message contained in the book. There are so many things in this book that I believe are relevant to the church in Nigeria today considering the political and ethno-religious climate. Please take out time and read it atleast for historical reference. Let me give you a short bio of this great Saint and then a striking excerpt from his book.

Richard Wurmbrand stood alone among more than 1,000 leaders to denounce the control of Romanian communism. The communists had closed Sunday schools and oppressed the church. Pastor Wurmbrand resisted the communists’ control of the church and went underground. For many such acts of aggressive love, he and his wife both went to prison. By the time he came out he had lost everything. Even doctors declared that considering the scars on his body he was not supposed to be alive. He never wore shoes until his death because they had been disfigured by torture. These are his words...

  The Seduction of the Church
Once the Communists came to power, they skillfully used the means of seduction toward the Church. The language of love and the language of seduction are the same. The one who wishes a girl for a wife and the one who wishes her for only a night both say the words, "I love you." Jesus has told us to discern between the language of seduction and the language of love, and to know the wolves clad in sheepskin from the real sheep. Unfortunately, when the Communists came to power, thousands of priests, pastors, and ministers did not know how to discern between the two voices.
The Communists convened a congress of all Christian bodies in our Parliament building. There were four thousand priests, pastors, and ministers of all denominations-and these men of God chose Joseph Stalin as honorary president of this congress. At the same time he was president of the World Movement of the Godless and a mass murderer of Christians. One after another, bishops and pastors arose and declared that communism and Christianity are fundamentally the same and could coexist. One minister after another said words of praise toward communism and assured the new government of the loyalty of the Church. My wife and I were present at this congress. Sabina told me, "Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting in His face." I said to her, "If I do so, you lose your husband." She replied, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband." Then I arose and spoke to this congress, praising not the murderers of Christians, but Jesus Christ, stating that our loyalty is due first to Him. The speeches at this congress were broadcast and the whole country could hear proclaimed from the rostrum of the Communist Parliament the message of Christ! Afterward I had to pay for this, but it was worthwhile. Orthodox and Protestant church leaders competed with each other in yielding to communism. An Orthodox bishop put the hammer and sickle on his robes and asked his priests to no longer call him "Your Grace," but "Comrade Bishop." Priests like Patrascoiu and Rosianu were more direct. They became officers of the secret police. Rapp, deputy bishop of the Lutheran church in Romania, began to teach in the theological seminary that God had given three revelations: one through Moses, one through Jesus, and the third through Stalin, the last superseding the one before. I attended the Congress of the Baptists in the town of Resita-a congress under the Red flag, where the anthem of the Soviet Union had been sung with everyone standing. The president of the Baptists praised Stalin as a great teacher of the Bible and proclaimed that Stalin did nothing but fulfill the commandments of God! It must be understood that the true Baptists, whom I love very much, did not agree and were very faithful to Christ, suffering much. However, the Communists "elected" their leaders and the Baptists had no choice but to accept them. The same condition exists today in Communist nations among the very top religious leadership of the "official"1 church. Those who became servants of communism instead of Christ began to denounce the brethren who did not join them.
Just as Christians in Russia created an Underground Church after their revolution, the coming to power of communism and the betrayal by many official church leaders compelled us to likewise create in Romania an Underground Church: one faithful to evangelize, preach the gospel, and reach children for Christ. The Communists forbade all this and the official church complied....

P.S
They never saw the horrors of communism  coming. Please let's not sell our birthright for a platter of 'change'. Communism sounded like a great change , after all the royal families and rich class of Europe where robbing the countries blind.
"We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society. The teachings about this society are called 'socialism'."
-Vladimir Lenin, "To the Rural Poor" (1903); Collected Works, Vol 6, p. 366 .

The masses where incensed. They were sure it must work. Infact it had to work. 'Anything but the royals!' Revolution ! Change!
But at the end of the 20th century an estimated 100 million people had been murdered under the communist regime. THINK ABOUT IT.