As an adult and a relatively new believer, filled with the Holy Spirit, I read an important book. It was impactful then and still is so many years later. It is called “Tortured for Christ,” written by Richard Wurmbrand. He was an evangelical Lutheran minister imprisoned for fourteen years and tortured for his faith in his native Romania, which had become communist after World War 2.

Have you ever heard of this man? His work lives on in the ministry he founded, “The Voice of the Martyrs.” Taken to the very edge of existence by his tormentors, he lived to share those stories around the world, founded the ministry, and pioneered the concept of smuggling Bibles behind the Eastern European bloc of communist countries called “The Iron Curtain.”

Here are some powerful lessons I learned from his life.

When Communists took over Romania, one of the first things they did was arrest anyone who disagreed with them, especially Christian leaders. Richard was put in prison alongside his peers. It was strangely ironic, he said—sort of prison humor, I think—that one of the first ways they tortured these Christians was to put them all together in one big group cell. He points out, however, that after days of terrible suffering, all denominational bickerings ceased and there developed a real unity.

Their Communist captors tortured them terribly, daily. The goal was to force them to turn their back on Jesus, to renounce their Christian faith. I will not go into detail about what they experienced; you can use your imagination or, better yet, read the book.

Something happened that startled Richard Wurmbrand. He was younger, in years and in his faith, than many of his fellow sufferers. Among the imprisoned were two Christian leaders, both respected authors of many books and preachers acclaimed throughout Europe. They were household names, having held evangelistic crusades attended by thousands. Men he looked up to.

However, these two men were among the first who capitulated to the torture. What’s more, not only did they renounce Christ and Christianity, in order to prove their new conversion to communism, they were tasked with torturing the Christians who stubbornly refused to renounce their faith. This they did to avoid further personal pain. Does that surprise you? Their sadistic captors are the very embodiment of evil. Richard could calibrate that. But this?

Richard, by contrast, stuck it out by the grace of God.

I literally wept as I read one story. Richard had been hung upside down while his tormentors beat the bottoms of his feet into a bloody pulp. Later, writhing in pain in his cell, desperately trying to retain his sanity, he forced himself up off the bed and onto his feet to stand in the presence of the Holy One of Israel.

Even now, the memory moves me. He starts praising God not for what he has done or given, nor for all His promises. He praises God for who He is. And as he did so, filled with God’s Spirit, he began to dance in that little solitary cell, on bruised, broken, and bleeding feet, caught up in a vision of the holiness of God.

There will come times that test your faith. You will question, you will doubt. But will you forsake the Faithful One, who is Holy, Holy, Holy?

Let me close with this summarizing and revelatory insight. Holiness is about identity. Who God is. And in His light, who we are.

I wish I had words to express this to you. In every way, God, in His holiness, is unspeakable. Words fail to describe without diminishing.

Isn’t it astonishing, wondrous, astounding that this high and lofty One cares one iota about you or me? Aren’t you amazed that the One who cast a billion galaxies into existence has the hairs on your head numbered? “What is man,” the psalmist rightly inquires, “that you are mindful of us?”

Abraham Joshua Heschel was a prominent Jewish theologian and philosopher. I appreciate his writings so much. His book “God in Search of Man” presents his philosophy of Judaism. The point of it all is this: The Holy God, compelled by love, is in search of you and me. He is seeking people who will honor His holiness, who will be His prized possession, His treasured people, to serve as a witness so that His glory and knowledge cover the earth.

The God of the Bible, the One, True God, is searching for those who will recognize His holiness. He is looking for people who have hearts to know Him. Why? Because He loves.

We speak of love so casually. In a cartoon years ago, Charlie Brown said, “I love the whole world. It’s just people I can’t stand.” That is funny and honest. For our part, we tend to speak in glowing generalities. We love the world. We love the Jewish people. We love sinners. Truth be told, it’s just our neighbor we can’t stand. Or a fellow member in the church we won’t speak to. Or a relative that we refuse to be around.

We need a vision of God’s Holiness.

I want you to hear, in the prophet Hosea, the pathos of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob… and Yeshua.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them (Hosea 11:1-4).

God wants us to be close to Him, to be near to Him. He wants to be tender with us. He picks us up and holds us to His cheek. He bends down and feeds us. In the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, YHWH is portrayed as a “jealous” God. He is the Holy God who loves with a passionate love, which is, I think, the best translation of “jealous.”

He is passionately searching out, drawing near, desiring fellowship with you. The Holy One wants you to know Him and call Him Father. He wants to place you on His shoulders, as He did with Israel, and carry you about like a parent carries a young child.

A story is told of Karl Barth, the premier theologian of the twentieth-century church. Near the end of his life, he was asked a question. “Professor, you have vast knowledge based on deep study. You have written many things and been faithful over a lifetime of ministry. Based on your experience. If there is one thing you could say to me that you consider your greatest insight, your most profound wisdom, what would that be?

Without hesitation, the venerable old man said, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

Only someone who understands the holiness of God can be overwhelmed by the simple declaration that “Jesus loves me.” There is no explaining this love. It is beyond comprehension. Only the Holy Love of the Holy God explains Jesus’ actions and mercy toward us.

I hope and pray this study has helped you. Let us end where we began, in the Book of Hebrews. And please know, dear one, that this is my prayer for you: Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire (28-29).

Amen.