This begins a weekly column honoring those who were not afraid to share their faith.

A pastor by the name of Florescu was tortured with red-hot iron pokers and with knives. He was beaten very badly. Then starving rats were driven into his cell through a large pipe. He could not sleep, but had to defend himself all the time. If he rested a moment, the rats would attack him.

He was forced to stand for two weeks, day and night. The communists wished to compel him to betray his brethren, but he resisted steadfastly. In the end, they brought his fourteen year-old son and began to whip the boy in front of his father, saying that they would continue to beat him until the pastor said what they wished him to say. The poor man was half-mad. He bore it as long as he could. When he could not stand it any more, he cried to his son: “Alexander, I must say what they want! I can’t bear your beating any more!”

The son answered, “Father, don’t do me the injustice to have a traitor as a parent. Withstand! If they kill me, I will die with the words, ‘Jesus and my fatherland.’”

The communists, enraged, fell upon the child and beat him to death, with blood spattered over the walls of the cell. He died praising God. Our dear brother Florescu was never the same after seeing this. -From Richard Wurmbrand’s book, “Tortured for Christ” detailing life under the communists in Romania, where he spent fourteen years in and out of prison for his faith in Christ.
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