Dear Doves,
In reference to the „7/7/7“ subject ( http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/june2007/friedrichw630.htm )
I was reminded to a devotion by Richard Wurmbrand about the figure “seven” which is the symbol of holiness.
Richard Wurmbrand (1909 – 2001) was a Romanian evangelical Christian minister, author, and educator who spent a total of fourteen years imprisoned in Romania. During his imprisonment, he was beaten and tortured. He was the founder of Voice of the Martyrs.
His best-known book is entitled Tortured for Christ. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wurmbrand
I like to read in his precious Daily Devotions. However unfortunately I’ve only the German edition “Erreichbare Höhen”. Perhaps some of you have the English edition. As I liked to share with you soon possible his devotion from a July 29 about “the holiness of the figure 7” I thought I have to search at google.com hoping to find perhaps an online-edition.
What I found was the English title, namely “Reaching Toward the Heights”, and between many links to amazon.com and other book stores I found also a link to a beautiful blogger-website, where Richard Wurmbrand’s devotion from April 25th was posted.
http://blog-by-the-sea.typepad.com/blog_bythesea/2006/12/bound_by_these_.html
I decided there and then to write to the author of that site, Teresa Polk, hoping perhaps to get from her some ideas where to find the original English version.
Soon later I got answer from Teresa! She wrote that she could not find the book right now, perhaps she put it into a storage box and she would look later.
Really late Sunday evening again Teresa wrote:
“Here it is: ....”
enclosed was the whole text which she did typewrite from Richard Wurmbrand’s book.
Wow!!! What a surprise and joy! Praise the Lord!
She added: “...Also, here is the url for the website of Voice of the Martyrs, the organization that Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand founded. His books that are still in print in English can be ordered from that website:
http://www.persecution.com/ “
Now, here it is:
Richard Wurmbrand:
“And God blessed the seventh day”(Genesis 2, 3)
In the Bible the figure 7 is the symbol of holiness.
"Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied" (Jude 14). Every seventh year the land had to remain untilled. When seven times seven years passed, the Jews had the year of Jubilee, in which all the land sold in the meantime returned to its first possessor. The days of the creation were seven; seven of each clean animal were saved from the flood. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says in seven ways who He is. On the cross He pronounces seven words. The Book of Revelation contains letters to seven churches, etc.
Why is just the figure 7 the sacred figure? The Chaldeans did not have our decimal system, but a heximal one, e.g. six figures and a zero. The decimal system is arbitrary. In the computers men use the binary system, having only a 1 and a 0. In the heximal system, our 7 was written 10, because there were no more than six figures. Seven became the holy figure because in looking to its written form "10" it symbolized the fact that if you put before the 0, sign of human nothingness, the 1, sign of the one God, the insignificant man becomes important, more important than all the simple figures.
The Jews were descendants of the Chaldeans. So the 7 became their holy figure. In opposition to 7, 6, being the last simple figure, became the symbol of everything petty. The number of the apocalyptic beast is six, six, and again six (Rev. 13:18), which means a trifle, a trifle, and again a trifle. A lamb can destroy it.
If you are an impersonation of the 7, a man who has denied himself and has become a 0; and if God, "the one," has put Himself as a shield before you, then don't fear huge beasts. They are paper tigers. You will be the victor.
( „Reaching Toward the Heights“ Richard Wurmbrand – Daily Devotions – July 29)