Corrie ten Boom

During that period the Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine had been the accepted teaching. But there was a problem. And it turned out to be a serious one. This Biblically unfounded doctrine had not prepared the Chinese Church for witness under trial. Christian believers were interrogated and brutalized under the Red Guard. Many fell away from the faith in those times.

Corrie ten Boom’s story is told through her book The Hiding Place, and the motion picture released by the same name in the 1970s.

Corrie ten Boom went home to be with her Lord April 15, 1983, but her inspiring testimony for Christ will endure.

Following is the letter Corrie left warning against a pre-tribulation rapture false doctrine that Christians all over the world, and especially in America need to take very seriously.In this capacity Corrie ten Boom has earned the right to be heard. She is eminently qualified to present this special word of warning to the Western Church:

"The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.

Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change.

My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room.

We may have been the Lord's only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, <strong>"In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."</strong> We too, are to be overcomers – bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate.

Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I can now come to shouting "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" for I have found where it is written that Jesus said,

<strong>"He that overcometh shall inherit all things</strong>
<strong>and I will be His God, </strong>
<strong>and he shall be My son."</strong>
This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive – but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.

Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick.

"Yes, the Lord will heal me,", Betsy said with confidence.

She died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day.

It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.

<strong>There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation that the Christians will be able to escape all this.  These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days.  Mos of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.</strong>

In China, the Christians were told, " Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated- raptured."  Then came a terrible persecution.  Millions of Christians were tortued to death.  Later, I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,

<strong>"We have failed..</strong>
<strong>We should have made the people strong for persecution,</strong>
<strong>rather than telling them Jesus would come first.</strong>
<strong>Tell the people to be strong in times of persecution,</strong>
<strong>how to stand when the tribulation comes,</strong>
<strong>to stand and not faint."</strong>

I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation.  There is no way to escape it.  We are next.

Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation." Then I write it down and learn it by heart.

When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.

"If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;
for the spirit of the glory and of God resteth upon you;
on their part evil is spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified."
I Peter 4:14<strong>"</strong>

I found myself saying, "Hallelujah!
Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!"

In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.

Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered.

The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?"

The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.

"When I was a little girl, I said, I went to my father and said,
"Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"Tell me," said Father,
"When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket?"
"Three weeks before?"
"No Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That's is right," my father said,"and so it is with God's strength."
"Our Father in heaven knows when you need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"He will supply all you need just in time."
My African friends were nodding and smiling.
Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing,
" In the sweet, by and by,
we shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed.

I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago.

But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.

How can we get ready for the persecution?

First we need to feed on the Word of God, digest it, make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work in our lives.
Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History,
but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive
and sitting at the right hand of God.

We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is no optional command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without it.
In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage each other.

But we must not wait until the tribulation comes before starting.
The fruit of the Spirit should be the dominant force of every Christian's life.
Many are fearful of the coming tribulation, they want to run. I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that after all my eighty years, including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that I might have to go through the tribulation also.
But then I read the Bible and I am glad.

When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down.

"Though He shall slay me, yet will I trust Him." Job 13:15
for I know that to all who overcome,
He shall give the crown of life.
<strong>Hallelujah!"</strong>

- Corrie Ten Boom - 1974</div>
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<div class="dict-definition" id="burn-burn-your-black-and-white-sins-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="burn-burn-your-black-and-white-sins-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Burn, Burn Your Black and White Sins by Corrie Ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<a href="http://media.sermonindex.net/21/SID21919.mp3">Click here.</a>

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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<a href="http://media.sermonindex.net/21/SID21921.mp3">Click here.</a>

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<div class="dict-definition" id="i-was-in-prison-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="i-was-in-prison-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">I Was In Prison by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/I%20was%20in%20Prison.mp3
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Youth for Christ Ladies by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/Youth%20For%20Christ%20Ladies%20-%20Corrie%20ten%20Boom%20-%2062614142507.mp3
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<div class="dict-definition" id="tribulation-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="tribulation-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Tribulation by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<a href="http://media.sermonindex.net/21/SID21925.mp3">Click here.</a>

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<div class="dict-definition" id="total-surrender-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="total-surrender-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Total Surrender by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<a href="http://media.sermonindex.net/21/SID21924.mp3">Click here.</a>

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<div class="dict-definition" id="the-secret-door-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="the-secret-door-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">The Secret Door by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/The%20Secret%20Door.mp3
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<div class="dict-definition" id="the-reality-of-the-love-of-jesus-christ-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="the-reality-of-the-love-of-jesus-christ-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">The Reality of the Love of Jesus Christ by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4" width="100%">
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<td width="500"><em>1 Corinthians 13:13</em></td>
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<td colspan="2">Corrie Ten Boom shares her testimony of walking with the Lord Jesus 75 for years. Her times of struggle in terrible persecutions and imprisonment. What joy and happiness she has recounting her life and walk with the Lord Jesus.</td>
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<a href="http://media.sermonindex.net/0/SID0503.mp3">Click here.</a>

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<div class="dict-definition" id="youth-for-christ-rally-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="youth-for-christ-rally-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Youth for Christ Rally by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2011-04-14</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
<a href="http://media.sermonindex.net/3/SID3952.mp3" target="_blank">Click here.</a>

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<div class="dict-definition" id="corrie-ten-boom" data-source="corrie-ten-boom">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Corrie ten Boom</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2012-03-23</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
<address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984636625/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0984636625" target="_blank">In My Father's House </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800794052/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800794052" target="_blank">The Hiding Place</a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875080197/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875080197" target="_blank">Prisoner and Yet...</a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875089860/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875089860" target="_blank">Tramp for the Lord </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875088562/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875088562" target="_blank">Amazing Love: True Stories of the Power of Forgiveness </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310271541/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0310271541" target="_blank">I Stand at the Door and Knock: Meditations by the Author of The Hiding Place </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800758609/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800758609" target="_blank">Each New Day : 365 Simple Reflections</a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875080219/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875080219" target="_blank">Defeated Enemies </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087508947X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=087508947X" target="_blank">Not Good if Detached </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800707397/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800707397" target="_blank">Corrie ten Boom's Prison Letters </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875087620/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875087620" target="_blank">Marching Orders for the End Battle: Getting Ready for Christ's Return </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310225418/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0310225418" target="_blank">Reflections of God's Glory </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875083099/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875083099" target="_blank">Common Sense Not Needed</a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875089836/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0875089836" target="_blank">Plenty For Everyone</a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800717554/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800717554" target="_blank">He Cares for You</a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800709586/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800709586" target="_blank">Father Ten Boom, God's Man </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0687387825/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0687387825" target="_blank">Snowflakes in September: Stories about God's Mysterious Ways </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800717430/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800717430" target="_blank">The End Battle </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800751760/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800751760" target="_blank">Jesus Is Victor </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310252911/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0310252911" target="_blank">Messages of God's Abundance </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800717767/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800717767" target="_blank">Oh, How He Loves You </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593280114/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1593280114" target="_blank">Anywhere He Leads Me </a></address><address><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800717201/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=womenofchrist-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0800717201" target="_blank">This Day is the Lord's </a></address>
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<div class="dict-definition" id="effectual-fervent-prayer-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="effectual-fervent-prayer-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Effectual Fervent Prayer by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2014-09-16</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/Effectual%20Fervent%20Prayer%20-%20Corrie%20ten%20Boom%20-%206241485227.mp3
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<div class="dict-definition" id="interviewen-corrie-ten-boom-dutch-audio" data-source="interviewen-corrie-ten-boom-dutch-audio">
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Interviewen - Corrie ten Boom (Dutch) (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2014-09-16</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/Interviewen%20-%20Interview%20-%20Corrie%20ten%20Boom%20-%20625141230340.mp3
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<div class="dict-definition" id="power-in-prayer-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio" data-source="power-in-prayer-by-corrie-ten-boom-audio">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Power in Prayer by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2014-09-16</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/Power%20In%20Prayer%20-%20Corrie%20ten%20Boom%20-%20626141356511.mp3
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Power Over Demons by Corrie ten Boom (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2014-09-16</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/Power%20Over%20Demons%20-%20Corrie%20ten%20Boom%20-%20623141711543.mp3
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<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Corrie Ten Boom - Meerdere gesprekken -Several Talks In Dutch (audio)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2014-09-16</span>
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<div class="dict-def-body">
http://media.womenofchristianity.com/CorrietenBoom/Corrie%20-%20Meerdere%20gesprekken%20-%20Corrie%20ten%20Boom%20-%2062414848181.mp3
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<div class="dict-definition" id="eternity-corrie-ten-boom" data-source="eternity-corrie-ten-boom">
<div class="dict-def-source">
<span class="dict-def-source-name">Eternity by Corrie ten Boom</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2018-02-12</span>
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<span style="font-size: 12px;">A man may go to heaven</span>
<div id="_mcePaste">without health</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without wealth</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without fame</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without a great nature</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without learning</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without culture</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without beauty</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without friends</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without ten thousand other things,</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">but he never can go to heaven</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">without Christ.</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration but its donation.</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">This life is only the first page of the book, not the last page.</div>
<div id="_mcePaste">"My times are in thy hand..." Psalm 31:15</div>
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">A Letter About Enduring Persecution And Not Escaping It by Corrie Ten Boom</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2018-08-22</span>
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The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.

Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change.

My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room.

We may have been the Lord's only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We too, are to be overcomers - bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate.

Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I can now come to shouting "Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!" for I have found where it is written that Jesus said, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things: and I will be His God, and he shall be My son." This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive - but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.

Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick. "Yes, the Lord will heal me,", Betsy said with confidence. She died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day.

It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.

There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution. In China, the Christians were told, "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated - raptured." Then came a terrible persecution.

Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly, "We have failed. We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them Jesus would come first. Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the tribulation comes - to stand and not faint."

I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it. We are next.

Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation." Then I write it down and learn it by heart.

When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy. "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you; on their part evil is spoken of, but on your part He is glorified."

(I Peter 3:14) I found myself saying, "Hallelujah! Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!"

In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners.

Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.

Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered.

The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?"

The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.

"When I was a little girl, "I said, "I went to my father and said, "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ." "Tell me," said Father, "When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket? Three weeks before?" "No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train." "That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength.

Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ. He will supply all you need - just in time."

My African friends were nodding and smiling. Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing, " In the sweet, by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore." Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed. I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago.

But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.

How can we get ready for the persecution? First we need to feed on the word of God, digest it, make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work in our lives.

Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History, but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive and sitting at the right hand of God.

We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is no optional command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without it.

In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage each other. But we must not wait until the tribulation comes before starting. The fruit of the Spirit should be the dominant force of every Christian's life.

Many are fearful of the coming tribulation, they want to run. I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that after all my eighty years, including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that I might have to go through the tribulation also. But then I read the Bible and I am glad.

When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you.

For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down. Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him, for I know that to all who overcome, He shall give the crown of life.

Hallelujah!

Corrie Ten Boom
1974
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Common Sense Not Needed by Corrie ten Boom</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2018-09-09</span>
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<h1><span style="font-size: 16px; color: #444444; line-height: 24px;">INTRODUCTION </span></h1>
Before World War II I started a work to bring the Gospel to feeble-minded people who were not in institutions. They were not able to go to church: they could not understand the sermon. But did they not need the Lord Jesus, just like you and I? We learn from the Bible that the Lord Jesus has a great love and concern for everyone who is in need. For He said, "Come unto me all..."

Everyone needs the Holy Spirit to understand spiritual truths. I found that when we taught the Gospel in an uncomplicated way the Holy Spirit did not need a high I.Q. to reveal Himself.

The feeble-minded whom I taught in the Bible class we had every Sunday afternoon called it their church. We tried to make it as "churchy" as we could to please them!

In this booklet I tell something of what I learned and experienced during the five years I carried on this small work. It was perhaps unimportant in the eyes of the world, but not worthless in God's eyes. No effort can be valueless when it is in obedience to the command of Jesus, "You must go out to the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15, Phillips).

I am sure that earthly values are different to heavenly ones. I believe that the joy among the angels of God is as great when a subnormal person is saved as when a V.I.P. gives his heart and life to the Lord. Possibly greater. One cannot tell.

A WASTE OF TIME?

Once, in a concentration camp, I was questioned by a Nazi officer. He asked me much about my life, about my work in the Underground, and about my spare time. I told him that I had given Bible lessons to subnormal people.

"Don't you regard that as a waste of time?" he asked. "Surely it is much better to convert a normal person than a subnormal one."

This was fully in accord with his Nazi way of thinking. So I told him about Jesus, who had always cared for all who were weak and despised, adding that it might well be possible that the officer and I were much less important in the sight of the Lord Jesus than one of these poor creatures. I was sent back to my cell.

The next morning the officer sent for me and said that he had slept badly. He had thought much about what I had said.

"You spoke about Jesus," he said, "I don't know anything about Him. Tell me what you know of Him."

I then spoke of the Lord Jesus as the Light of the World who can lighten our life, if we give ourselves to Him and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Three days I was questioned and three days I had the opportunity to speak about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A conversation about the feeble-minded had changed a most dangerous moment for a prisoner into a testimony to the glory of God.

THE OLD, OLD STORY

"How do you explain the things of the Bible to the feeble-minded?" I asked teachers at the American schools where they really did their best to teach the Gospel.

"Oh, just as we do to normal children," they said, "only simplified, and repeating as often as necessary."

Is an adolescent or an adult with a low I.Q. similar to a young normal child? In the slums sometimes we find subnormal persons in their own surroundings. Are their problems the same as the problems of a child?

Yes, many have the same difficulties, but the subnormal often have many more. They have also many problems of normal adults. For instance, they are interested in a strike.

They do not comprehend; they do not have the solution; but at the same time they are called upon to share the struggle for life. Who will bring them the answer? Who will tell them that the One who can help them is Jesus, and Jesus alone? He knows the answer to every situation.

I know from experience, for I was in a concentration camp, where there was a concentrated mass of problems and misery--but Jesus gave the answer. In this dark place I discovered that demons flee at the name of Jesus; He is Victor. That is the message the world must know.

Kareltje was a little boy twelve years old. He had blue eyes and curly hair. He was one of a large, poor family, and his father was cruel to him because Kareltje was feeble-minded. He listened as I told the story of the disciples giving food to five thousand people. As the five loaves and two fishes passed from Jesus' hand to theirs, the bread and fish became sufficient to feed the multitude.

Suddenly Kareltje jumped up, and swinging his arms around him, cried, "There is enough! There is plenty, plenty for everyone! Just take, take as much as you like. There is enough. There is plenty!"

I wished every child of God rejoiced as Kareltje did about the plenty that we have, when taking all from Jesus' hands and passing on to others.

WHO IS CALLED?

Who should bring the Gospel to the subnormal? I asked this question in America of those who understood the need, and always the answer was, "Of course, the ministers."

I do not think so. Ministers know the language of grown-up people. We cannot expect them to speak the language of the normal and subnormal at the same time. There will be people with a special gift for speaking to the feeble-minded. There are special difficulties and needs and problems in this peculiar mission. Sometimes I think I would prefer Kindergarten teachers. But they must understand that a grown-up feeble-minded person is different from a child of four. Once I heard a teacher speak to them in the same way that she would have done to her Kindergarten pupils. The women and men looked in my direction and laughed as if to say, "How silly!"

Children like to hear a story. These people like stories too, but after half an hour's talk about Jesus' love they will still be listening. They are grown-ups and they must be treated the same way as grown-ups. The language must be plain and clear--no dogmatic talk, no arguments, only the old, old story in plain language. The best way to reach them is by love. Love means understanding, and this love is available (Romans 5:5). God must lead, for without the Holy Spirit no one can bring the message to anybody, normal or abnormal. The human spirit fails, except when the Holy Spirit fills.

THE JOY OF BRINGING THEM THE GOSPEL

The feeble-minded lack common sense, but they also lack analytical criticism, which, like a brake, can be a hindrance to some normal people. When they trust a teacher (and they do that very soon) they believe everything told them. They just accept what is said.

Once Jake, a tramp, told me that he had seen lightning destroy a tree just in front of him. It was imagination, but I did not argue. I just said, "Jake, if the lightning had killed you, would you have been ready to die, ready to come before God?"

"No," he answered.

I looked at the other boys and asked, "And which of you boys would have been ready to die?"

Their heads went down, for feeble-minded people often express their feelings through their attitude. One boy said, "None of us is ready."

"Well, boys," said I, "we must seek the solution; for we all know that some day the moment will come when we must die."

Then I told a story, giving them examples, which is far better than arguing.

"Once there was a boy who had to die. He was not at all afraid, for he knew that Jesus loved him and had died for him on the Cross. He loved Jesus for that reason, and he knew that Jesus was preparing for him one of the many mansions in heaven. I am sorry that you do not know what that boy knew."

"But we do," protested one, and someone else added, "We are all ready to die, for we all know that Jesus loves us." The whole class was sitting upright at that moment and their faces beamed.

Is it so simple? I doubted it myself for a moment, and then the Holy Spirit said to me, "The jailer of Saint Paul received the same answer: `Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'"

How simple is the Gospel!

CONFESSION OF GUILT

I had no experience when I started "church" for feeble-minded adults. There they were sitting before me. For some weeks we had had our weekly service. One Sunday Joan was sitting near to Jake. In the midst of my message I saw that Joan could not resist putting her arms around the dirty neck of Jake. She held her face close to the unshaven cheek of the tramp. What should I do? My assistant saw the embarrassing situation. With a serious face, she came to me and said, "I want to tell you something. This morning I was in a church, and I saw all the gentlemen sitting in their pews on one side and the ladies on the other side. We have a real church here, but why do ladies and gentlemen all sit together?" I answered quite seriously, "I had forgotten, but indeed we are going to have a real church service. Come, gentlemen and boys, you sit on the right side, the girls and ladies on the other side."

Everyone obeyed, and the love-sick couple were separated, but the problem was only solved for the moment. That week Jake and Joan went into the woods for mischief. Fortunately the director of social work found them there and told Jake that if he did this again he would be sent to prison. Joan was sent to the institute, where she was given daily work under good leadership.

The next Sunday, when I was preaching, Joan ran to me. Her whole face was excited. She had been into mischief, had been scolded for it, and was very upset. She broke into my sermon, and laid her arms around me and sobbed: "I have been so naughty. I went a walk with Jake and I will never, never do it again."

A person often has a big ego. My first thought was one of irritation at losing the thread of my message through the interruption. But then I understood that this demonstration was a very plain form of public confession of guilt.

My assistant helped me again. She took the hands of Joan, which I could not get loose, and said, "I'm glad, Joan, that you told this to Miss ten Boom. Let's go into the corridor and ask the Lord Jesus to forgive. Then we can go and have a drink of water."

They left, and after a few moments I rediscovered the thread of my sermon.

WHO IS NORMAL?

It was winter. Holland was occupied by the Germans. We were sitting around the stove before the service began. A girl entered and said, "I hate all Germans, and my father does too."

"That is not right," said Herman.

"Why not?" she replied. "They are our enemies! They have taken away our food! They have taken my brother to Germany! They have..." and a list of crimes followed.

"Hate is not right," repeated Herman. "Jesus says, `You must love your enemies.'"

"I can't," said the girl.

"Jesus does, and He can teach you," said the boy.

That same evening I was at a dinner-party with many normal Christians, and the conversation was about the Germans.

"We are not only allowed to hate," said the leader of the dinner party. "We MUST hate."

Who is normal, and who subnormal?

HYPNOSIS?

"Your work among the feeble-minded is nothing more than hypnosis," people told me. "They have no common sense, and no criticism. They just believe whatever you tell them."

"I believe in the Holy Spirit," I answered.

During the war, bombs were falling on Haarlem. One fell on a house, near where Jo was living. Jo was a girl of thirty-two, a poor creature, nervous and fearful. The next Sunday she came to church and told me what had happened.

"The bomb fell and all the windows broke and there was a terrible noise, and..."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I was so frightened, but I just thought of one thing."

I understood what she meant by "one thing". "One thing" meant prayer.

"What happened then?"

"Jesus took all my fear away!"

How many normal people thought at a moment when bombs were falling, of praying? There was no one there to put this idea into Jo's mind by suggestion, or hypnosis.

No human being, yes, but Jesus was there.

THE LORD'S SUPPER

Once the father of a backward girl spoke to me.

"Why can my daughter never partake of Communion? Is the Lord's Supper only meant for strong-minded people?"

"Pray about it!" I answered. "I'll do the same."

That week I discussed the matter with a minister. God showed us that it was His will for them to receive the Lord's Supper as well as Baptism. About fifteen people I knew who loved the Lord were baptized and received the Lord's Supper. Never have I received such a blessing from the Sacraments. There was earnestness and joy.

A boy continued to kneel and would not rise. I took his hand and brought him back to his chair, but he kept his eyes closed. In this way he wanted to preserve the blessing and joy of that moment!

We in Holland have a long, imposing formulary for the Holy Communion. Before we all went to the Lord's Supper, I translated the dignified words into their language.

"He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."

I explained the text in the following story:

"Once there was a lady who went to the Lord's Supper. But she did not believe that Jesus had suffered on the Cross for her, and she did not love Him at all. What do you think about that?"

"That is terrible," they responded.

"Yes, I think so too," said I, "and the most serious thing is that God also thinks it is terrible, and He says: `It is far better NOT TO GO AT ALL than to take the bread and wine without loving Christ. For if one does so, I must punish him.' If you don't believe, don't go."

They understood.

CONFESSION OF SIN

We were together in our church room and I spoke about the meaning of "sin".

"Do you all know what the word `sin' means?"

They told me they surely knew. It was disobedience, bad words, and ugly thoughts. It was lying, killing, beating, swearing, unbelief in Jesus Christ.

"Have you ever sinned?" I asked.

"Never," was the unexpected answer from Marie, a poor imbecile woman.

Her whole face was radiant with pride. I tried to argue, but could not convince her. Then I spoke of the love of Christ and she told me:

"I know that Jesus loves me so, that He died on the Cross for me. I love Jesus and tell Him everything." Her whole face was beaming with joy.

I knew that Marie had only some months to live. She had cancer. I was not afraid that she was not ready to appear before God's throne. Why Jesus died on the Cross she did not understand, but she was thankful for His love--perhaps more thankful and glad than many good, normal Christians, who have a sound theology but whose eyes do not sparkle as do Marie's eyes, when one speaks of Jesus' love.

PROPHETS AND PRIESTS

Some subnormals can understand at times more than one would expect. For the sake of experiment, I taught them the star constellations. After some practice, they were able to lay white beans on the table to represent Orion and the Big Dipper. Later, I took them for a walk in the evening and showed them the real Orion. In excitement, they shouted, "Look, it is just like our white beans."

I found that they had not understood at all what I had meant by the white beans.

To teach them spiritual truths was far more successful, for here we experienced the Holy Spirit working with their spirits. Common sense was not needed.

I had told them about the difference between priests and prophets. I asked Marie if she had understood it.

"Oh yes; that is very easy. Both are messengers between God and men. A priest stands with his face to God. A prophet has his back to God and his face toward men."

It was a rather good answer, but I was not sure that she had really understood, so I asked:

"What was I today when I gave you the Bible lesson?"

"A prophet," she replied, "for you brought God's message to us. But you were also a priest when you prayed together with us and asked the Lord to make our hearts ready for His love."

PRAYER

What is prayer? Normal people understand and know, but how may we make the feeble-minded understand?

A class of children was sitting before me. Their ages ranged from sixteen to forty-seven. Children? Yes: the woman in the first seat had the mentality of an eight-year-old, although she was born in 1906.

That evening when I stopped explaining, I knew that I had failed. Nobody understood what praying meant. The next week the girls came to the class, quite excited. They had heard over the radio how our little Princess was baptized. They had a lot of questions to ask.

"Why did the Princess cry?" "Does baptizing hurt?"

Some described the Princess lying on a beautiful pillow which the Queen had embroidered, for the feeble-minded have great imaginations.

I tried always to combine my lessons with the subject that occupied them, so I let them tell all they knew and then I asked:

"What do you think about Prince Bernhard? When the little Princess learns to talk and tries to tell her papa about her experiences as a little child, will the Prince take time to listen?"

"Yes, of course," they answered.

"Surely not. Would such a great Prince listen to a conversation about broken dolls and gathering flowers?"

"Oh yes, he will," they shouted.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he loves his baby-Princess!"

"Yes, I believe that too," I said. "And you know, that is why Jesus will listen when people tell Him everything. It is because He loves you and me."

"Me too?" asked a poor woman, with a new light in her eyes.

"He loves you too! And what if the little Princess would never talk to her father? The Prince would be very unhappy. The same way Jesus is unhappy when you do not talk to Him. He is happy when you tell Him about your needs, your joy, your hunger, your pain, your fears. He will listen, just as the Prince will listen to Princess Beatrix when she wants to tell about a new pair of shoes, a sore little finger, a piece of chocolate, or being scared of a big dog. Telling Jesus everything, that's prayer."

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

Before a dignified assembly of theologians and other important people, I told about bringing the Gospel to subnormal people and the possibility of giving them the blessing of the Sacraments.

"But what about church discipline?" they asked.

We had the Lord's Supper in the magnificent cathedral of Haarlem. About a hundred normal Christians joined us in order to let our people know that there was a congregation accepting them. When communicants went to the Table, Jantje left the pew and wanted to join them. I stopped him and said, "No, Jantje, you are not permitted to go; you know that." Then Jantje took his hat and left the church. His eyes were dark with anger.

Next week I asked: "Jantje, do you know why Willem was allowed to go to the Lord's Supper? He had told me that he loved Jesus! Do you love Jesus too, Jantje?"

"No, I don't." was his answer.

"Do you know," I asked, "why Annie was allowed to partake? She prays every day and tells Jesus all she needs and all she enjoys. Do you pray, Jantje?"

"No, I never do."

"You see, Jantje, that is why you were not allowed to go to the Lord's Supper. But from now on you too must pray and love Jesus, then the next time you may join us. Won't you ask Jesus to come into your heart?"

Jantje did. And from that moment he began to pray, and when we talked about Jesus' love, his eyes sparkled with joy.

Yes, we had church discipline, but of a special order.

ANOTHER WORLD WAR?

Although their minds have not developed, often physically the feeble-minded can be just as strong as normal people.

Jan and Henk were fighting before the church service. It took rather a strong effort to separate the wrestling men. I got Jan outside the building. Henk was allowed to join the church service. But I was not surprised when after church I found Jan outside the door, and he told me that he had made up his mind to break a chair on the guilty head of Henk.

I prayed for wisdom and the Lord gave it.

"Listen, boys," I said; "do you know that this is the way the war started? Two men quarreled, and some took the side of one and some the side of the other. This grew and grew till two countries were fighting a war. Then other countries joined in, and now we have a World War."

Jan and Henk looked very worried. They knew perfectly well what a World War meant. We were in the very midst of one. The faces of all the feeble-minded people around looked anxious. What were they to do? One World War was bad enough, and now Jan and Henk had perhaps started another.

"I wish I knew someone who could help us," I said with a deep sigh.

Henk suddenly got an idea.

"I know someone," he shouted. "The Lord Jesus."

"Sure He can help us. Let us ask Him!"

We closed our eyes, and I asked the Lord Jesus to forgive Henk and Jan and to give them love instead of hatred in their hearts. All went home satisfied.

That same evening, while I was pulling the curtains to prepare for the blackout, I saw Henk and Jan walking before the house arm-in-arm. Both smiled at me and seemed to say, "All is well now. There won't be another World War!"

PUSHING AWAY

I had spoken to our boys about prayer. Jake, the tramp, accompanied me home. (My friends often said, "Such dignified friends you walk around with!") First he had told me how he had set up in business. He had taken the door off his room and chopped it up into small pieces to make firewood. He had sold the wood, going from door to door. This was good business in Holland during the war. Cost: not one cent. Profit: enough money for many weeks. It was not easy to persuade Jake that what he did meant stealing.

"Jake, do you know what prayer is?" I asked.

At first he was silent.

"Do you mean like this?" Jake asked hesitatingly. "Often I feel something I can't push away."

"That's it, Jake! Praying is asking Jesus to push away what you cannot push yourself. Jesus can do everything, and He loves you so much that He wants to push away the bad things in your life."

Next day _I_ had something _I_ could not "push away". I was downhearted and the spirit of worry was in my heart. Then I remembered the conversation with Jake and I asked, "Lord Jesus, will You push away the worry?"

And He did.

BEHOLD THOU ART THERE

Apart from running a church for the feeble-minded, I had clubs and classes for them. One of the most faithful members was a man named Roel.

Roel had a strong inferiority complex and tried to compensate for it by boasting of all his abilities. He was a broad-shouldered man of twenty-eight years.

"My, the police were happy that I was so active," he told me. "A very bad man went into a bush with a little girl. I told a policeman, `Go into that bush; there is a job for you to do.' Later he said, `Thank you, Roel, for having warned me just in time.'"

I knew Roel long enough to understand what that story meant. Roel himself had committed the crime and was found by the police. The feeble-minded often told of a sin that burdened their heart but attributed it to someone else. They were always the imaginary hero who had discovered the crime!

"Roel," I said, "don't you know that God is angry when you do such things?"

I spoke about God's judgment of sins that evening. When next I had a talk with Roel, a minister who visited the class was present. I could see that Roel was afraid.

"Is God here?" he asked.

"Sure He is."

"Then I will go home as quickly as I can."

"But He is everywhere. At your home too."

The minister tried to explain God's omnipresence.

"Roel," he said, "the sun shines here, the sun shines at home too. It is the same sun. There is air here and air at home. It is the same air. God is everywhere at the same time!"

Roel had always shown little respect for logical talking, a safe attitude to cover his absolute lack of common sense. He smiled and said, "The sun is not God. The air is not God. I am going home, for God is here."

"Roel, listen," I said, "Whether you like it or not, God IS in your home and He sees everything, even what you did in the bushes. Roel, God is angry with you, and there is no escape. The only thing is to tell Him that you are sorry and ask His forgiveness in Jesus' name. And then ask Jesus to come into your heart again. He will make you strong and good."

And Roel did.

MONGOLOIDS

I like Mongoloids. Often they are such lovable people. Why does God allow them to be born to quite healthy parents, who neither drank nor committed those sins which so often cause the birth of subnormal children? I don't know. Mongoloids are sometimes as sweet as very little children. Their IQ is exceedingly low.

Anton was a Mongoloid. He could neither speak nor walk along. He was for a very short time in my class. He listened to my Bible stories, but when I spoke too long to suit him, he yawned like a monkey. I did not know how much Anton understood really.

Once I took his hand and touched his five fingers one after another and said, "Jesus loves Anton so much." The next week, immediately Anton saw me, he took my hand and with his fingers outspread he just looked at me with a face full of longing. "Jesus loves Anton so much," I repeated, touching a finger at every word. Then I taught him to do it himself. After that, every week, Anton showed me with his fingers how much Jesus loved him. The last time I saw him, I told him while he touched his left fingers with his right hand, "Jesus loves Anton so much. How thankful I am for that! You too, Anton?"

"Yes," said Anton, as his face lit up.

It was the only word I ever heard from Anton. It is the most worthwhile word that any normal or subnormal person can speak to the Lord Jesus.

THE OCEAN OF LOVE

I shall never forget what a minister told me about a feeble-minded boy, Toontje by name, who attended his church services regularly and was always seated in the first pew.

"I wonder if Toontje understands one word of what I say," he sometimes said to his wife.

Once he preached about the abundant love of God that passes all understanding. Suddenly he saw a look of great joy upon Toontje's face. The minister almost forgot the rest of the congregation, and spoke as if to the poor boy alone about the ocean of God's love in Jesus Christ.

Next morning he said to his wife, "I cannot forget Toontje's happy face; I am sure that he has grasped something of the joy of God's love. I am going to visit him this morning."

When he arrived at the home, the door was opened by Toontje's mother. "This morning," she told him, "we found that Toontje had died in his sleep."

The minister saw on the face of the dead boy a look of heavenly joy as he grasped so much of the love of God.

Do we not all need the Holy Spirit to enlarge our hearts to contain only a little more of the joy unspeakable and full of glory, God's abundant love in us, otherwise our hearts would burst with happiness?

JOY IN HEAVEN

Bringing the Gospel to subnormal people is not popular work in the eyes of the world. To convert a "big shot" is more important than to change a subnormal person who cannot organize a mission, cannot start a drive to collect money, cannot write books, and cannot do what splendid, gifted Christians can.

Does heaven have the same standards as on earth? I do not think so.

I know that the last words of Jesus, before going to heaven, were, "Go ye--and preach the Gospel to EVERY creature." And I think that the subnormal have received a special grace to enable them to understand the Gospel.

I believe that the joy before the angels of God when a subnormal person is converted is as great as when a "big shot" gives his heart and life to Jesus. It is possible that the joy is greater; heaven is different from earth. One can never tell.

"FINALLY, BRETHREN----!"

My experiences in four years' work in Haarlem brought me into contact with only a handful of the many subnormal people of the world. I reached only a few of the feeble-minded in one town in one small country. Besides this, there are all the psychopaths, the shell-shocked and the insane. What difficult problems are these that I have not touched upon!

The woman with the seven demons was a difficult problem? And did not Jesus succeed?

Bringing the Gospel is not OUR work. It is God's work. He will use us who are ready to obey.

God's kingdom will come. It is great to fight in a war knowing beforehand that your King is the Victor.

CORRIE TEN BOOM PAPERBACKS

(FROM SPIRE BOOKS:) THE HIDING PLACE Miss ten Boom's experiences of God's faithfulness in German-occupied Holland during World War II while hiding Jews in her family's home, and while imprisoned in a German concentration camp.

(FROM CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE:)

COMMON SENSE NOT NEEDED A very helpful book for those who work among mentally retarded people.

A PRISONER AND YET This book is another footnote to the Acts of the Apostles. Miracles were the norm during the dark days in the concentration camp where the author's father and sister died while they were imprisoned there. Here Miss ten Boom shows how the power and grace of God are sufficient to surmount every adverse circumstance.

AMAZING LOVE Despite the horrors even of the concentration camp, it is possible to find victory in Christ. Corrie ten Boom paints vivid word-pictures of her firsthand experiences in camps and jails, with actresses and students, the sophisticated and the illiterate.

DEFEATED ENEMIES Christians ought to realize that the victory has already been won and the enemy of our souls has been defeated in God's timeless eternity. Out of the depth of her own spiritual experiences, the author shares with her readers how God works.

MARCHING ORDERS FOR THE END BATTLE Everything is heading towards the great and final battle which John describes in the Book of Revelation, and that battle has started already. But we know: Jesus was victor. Jesus is victor. Jesus will be victor. --From the Preface

NOT GOOD IF DETACHED Fruit grows in profusion on the branch that has known much training and pruning. Dependence on God, produced by the fires of affliction, coupled with a daily walk with the Lord Jesus, is the explanation of that which seems just "to happen." This book reveals the secret of abiding in Him.

PLENTY FOR EVERYONE Well known for her prison experiences in Germany during World War III, this worldwide traveler relates some very interesting accounts of those whose lives have been transformed by Christ. You will enjoy this readable book.

CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CRUSADE Fort Washington, Pennsylvania 19034

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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Corrie and Betsie in Ravensbruck</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2018-09-12</span>
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<p style="text-align: center;">(From the Hiding Place)</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Ravensbruck</u></b></p>

<div style="text-align: center;">Corrie and Betsie were taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp. This was worse than any other prison they had been in. The first two days they had to sleep out in the open. It poured with rain, and the ground became a sea of mud. Then they were packed into a huge barrack-room. It had been built to house 400 people, but there were now 1400 prisoners in it. They had to sleep on straw mattresses filled with choking dust and swarming with fleas. Even the guards did not like going into the barrack-room because of the fleas.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Roll-call was at half-past four in the morning. There were 35000 women in the camp, and if anyone was missing they were counted again and again. So it often went on for hours. If the prisoners did not stand up straight the women guards beat them with riding whips.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">The work was extremely hard. Corrie and Betsie had to load heavy sheets of steel on to carts, push them for a certain distance, then unload them. All the time the guards shouted at them to work faster.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">They were only given a potato and some thin soup at lunch-time, and some turnip soup with a piece of black bread in the evening. The prisoners who were doing lighter work had no lunch at all.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">If the prisoners became ill, the guards took no notice of them unless their temperature was over 40C, which meant they were seriously ill. Then they had to join the long queue for the camp hospital. But nothing was done for them when they finally got there. When the hospital was full, the weakest prisoners were put onto lorries and taken to gas chambers to be killed. Then their bodies were burned. The tall chimney above the ovens in the centre of the camp was always belching grey smoke.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">This was the "hell on earth" to which Corrie and Betsie had come. Yet when they arrived at Ravensbruck, God had shown them that He could still help them, even in a place as terrible as this.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Before they had left Holland, on the day Father ten Boom's will had been read, one of Corrie's relations had managed to smuggle a small Bible to her. She had also received a bottle of vitamin drops in one of the parcels sent to prisoners by the Red Cross. When the prisoners arrived at Ravensbruck they had to give up everything they had with them. Corrie was determined to keep the Bible and the vitamin drops. Somehow she managed to smuggle them in without a guard seeing them.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">When they first moved into the barrack-room, the conditions there made the women angry and selfish. There were arguments and fights. Everyone suffered so much that they spent all their energy looking after themselves.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">When Betsie noticed this, she began to pray that God would give peace to the barrack-room. Very soon the atmosphere changed. The women became a little more patient with each other. They even began to make a few jokes about their troubles.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">In the evenings, after a hard day's work and a miserable supper, Corrie and Betsie took out the little Dutch Bible. At first a small group gathered round to listen, then more and more women joined them. The guards never came in to stop them, because of the fleas. So Corrie and Betsie thanked God for the fleas!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">The women came from many countries, including Poland, France, Germany and Russia. Corrie translated the Bible from Dutch into German, someone else translated the German into Polish, and so on.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Under these terrible conditions, the goodness in the words of the Bible shone out brightly and their message of God's love brought comfort. With death all around, the promise of eternal life and the glory of heaven gave the women hope for the future.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">One day, Betsie was cruelly whipped by a guard for not working hard enough. But she did not give in to hatred. She prayed for the guards as much as she prayed for the prisoners. Corrie found this very difficult, but somehow Betsie seemed to have risen above all the suffering, and to be living very close to God.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">One night as they were lying on their bunks, Betsie whispered to Corrie, "I can see a house, somewhere in Holland. It is a beautiful house with a large garden. There is a large hall with a carved wooden staircase. We are going to look after people who have been hurt in the war, until they can live a normal life again. Corrie, I believe God is going to give us a house like this."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Later on, Betsie had another vision. This time she saw a concentration camp in Germany. But there was no barbed wire in this camp, and there were no guards. All the buildings were painted a cheerful green. It was a camp for German people that had been hurt by the evil of Hitler, even people like the guards at Ravensbruck, who had been taught to be so cruel.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">"Corrie," she said, "we must tell people how good God is. After the war we must go around the world telling people. No one will be able to say that they have suffered worse than us. We can tell them how wonderful God is, and how His love will fill our lives, if only we will give up our hatred and bitterness."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">All this time Corrie had been giving Betsie a few vitamin drops each day because she was so weak. But there were so many other needy prisoners that she began giving drops to them also. She gave them to more and more people. She knew the bottle must soon be empty. But every day more drops came. Nobody could understand it, until Betsie reminded them of the story in the Bible of the widow's jar of oil, which did not run dry for many days.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Gradually, however, Betsie became weaker and weaker. It was bitterly cold, for it was now November. In the end, Betsie was so ill that she was admitted to the hospital. Corrie was not allowed to visit her sister, but each day went to look at her through one of the hospital windows. Finally, one day Betsie's bed was empty.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Corrie was heart-broken. At first she did not dare to look in the room where the dead where placed. Then another prisoner called her. There was Betsie. Yes, she was dead. But her face had changed. Instead of being full of pain and suffering as it had been, it was now beautiful, like the face of an angel!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><b><u>Death or freedom?</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Once again it was roll-call. The women stamped their feet to keep warm. Suddenly Corrie heard her name: "Prisoner ten Boom, report after roll-call."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">What was going to happen? was she going to be punished? Or shot?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">"Father in heaven, please help me now," she prayed.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">When she reported, she was given a card stamped "Entlassen", which means "Released". She was free! She could hardly believe it. She was given back her few possessions, some new clothes and a railway pass back to Holland. After a long, hard journey, she arrived back among friends in her own country.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">Afterwards she learned that she had been released by mistake. A week after her release all the women of her age in the camp were killed.</div>
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">Authority Over Demons by Corrie Ten Boom (sermon transcript)</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2021-08-17</span>
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<a href="/images/women-of-christianity/uploads/2021/08/Corrie-Ten-Boom-pic.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-15386" src="/images/women-of-christianity/uploads/2021/08/Corrie-Ten-Boom-pic-234x300.jpg" alt="" width="234" height="300" /></a>

I have here a very clear glove.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>A glove cannot do anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It cannot write.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It cannot cut bread.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It cannot do anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But now it can even play piano...I know that it’s not the glove that can play piano, but the hand in the glove.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we cannot do anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Without Jesus we can do nothing.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But with Him we can do everything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now you see that when my hand is only in the midst of this glove, the glove cannot do anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I believe that’s why the Bible says, one of the best and the most sweetest commandments of the Bible, “Be filled with the Spirit”.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And don’t forget that the Bible has no suggestions, but commandments.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>
<blockquote>We cannot do anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Without Jesus we can do nothing.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But with Him we can do everything.</blockquote>
And first I will read for you first Ephesians 6:10-20, in the translation of Phillips:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“In conclusion be strong – not in yourselves but in the Lord, in the power of His boundless resource.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Put on God’s complete armor so that you can successfully resist all the devil’s methods of attack.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>For our fight is not against any physical enemy:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>it is against organizations and powers that are spiritual.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I read somewhere, this time it’s unparalleled in demon population on this planet.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Therefore, you must wear the whole armor of God, that you may be able to resist evil in its day of power and that even when you have fought to a standstill you may still stand your ground.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Take your stand then with truth as your belt (‘Who is our truth?... Jesus’), righteousness your breastplate (‘Jesus is our righteousness’), the gospel of peace firmly on your feet (‘Jesus is our peace’), salvation as our helmet (‘Jesus is our salvation…He in us, we in Him’), and in your hand the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Above all be sure you take faith as your shield, for it can quench every burden missile the enemy hurls at you.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Pray at all times with every kind of spiritual prayer, keeping alert and persistent as you pray for all Christ’s men and women.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And pray for me, too, that I may be able to speak freely here to make known the secret of that Gospel for which I am, so to speak, an ambassador in chains.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Pray that I may speak out about it as is my plain and obvious duty.”

We have a tremendous task in this world.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And it is good that we realize that we are standing in the midst of a terrific battle.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Some time ago, I had a talk for men in Germany.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We had a good hour.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We listened together to what the Holy Spirit had to tell us.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now I know that half of these men were Baptist and half were Lutheran.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>After, when I was through, we had some conversation, and one of them asked me, “Tell me, uh what is, uh, what do you think about the right way of baptism?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I thought, ‘I don’t know where that question comes from.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I fear that it comes from the corner of the enemy.’<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>You know, I knew that when I would say one thing, that half of the people should throw away my whole talk because I did not agree about their doctrine of baptism.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Should I say the other thing, then the other half was against me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

So, I prayed for wisdom, and I’m so glad for a check written in my name and signed by Jesus Christ.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>In James 1:5 he wrote a check that I always should cash it in, “If, in the process, any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God – who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty – and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Isn’t that good?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Boy.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“But he must ask in sincere faith without secret doubts as to whether he really wants God’s help or not.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I never know who has a sense of humor.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>If this Phillips, or James or the Holy Spirit.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I think all three.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I’m sure all three have it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“The man who trusts God, but with inward reservation, is like a wave of the sea, carried forward by the wind one moment and driven back to the next.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I say ‘Father, you have said.’<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>has given me now.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I know that God likes it when we pray with boldness and say ‘Father, you have said’.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>God has meant business with His promises and He likes it when we mean business with His promises.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The Lord gave me wisdom.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

I said ‘Well, will you open your Bible at Mark 16, verse 15 where the Lord Jesus said, “You must go out to the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He who believes it and is baptized will be saved, but he who disbelieves it will be condemned.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>These signs will follow those who do believe:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>they will drive out evil spirits in my name; they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up snakes, and if they drink anything poisonous it will do them no harm; they will lay their hands upon the sick and they will recover.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>After these words to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into Heaven and was enthroned at the right hand of God.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>They went out and preached everywhere.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The Lord worked with them, confirming their message by the signs that followed.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

Now, three things here that the Lord tells us and the first is go to bring the gospel, then baptize, and then the power over demons and sicknesses. I said, "May I ask you, how far are you with the first of the three?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Did you do your utmost to bring the gospel over the world with your prayer, your purse, your testimony?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Are you not yet ready with that?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What about this third thing?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Did you cast out demons, did you lay your hands on the sick?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Did you do all these three things, are you not yet ready with that or is there still something left?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now will you first do one and three and do everything you can for to bring the gospel over the world and then to lay hands on the sick and cast out demons, and if you are through with these then come to me and I will tell you what I think about number two."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And yet I can only tell you one thing about that system and that is that Jesus has not given us this great privilege and blessing to quarrel about, but to enjoy it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now, they smiled and the both halves were still with me.

Now, in this time it is very important that we understand that there is a terrific fight against the very representatives of the headquarters of evil, and you and I are standing in the front line, and you and I are the only people in the world who can cast out demons in the name of Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Do you realize that?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Communists can’t do that.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Beelzebub is not willing to do it, so you and I must do it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>
<blockquote>Now, in this time it is very important that we understand that there is a terrific fight against the very representatives of the headquarters of evil, and you and I are standing in the front line, and you and I are the only people in the world who can cast out demons in the name of Jesus.</blockquote>
I have written a little booklet, “Defeated Enemies”, where I tell about what I have experienced of a follower of demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>This is not demonology, this is not theory, it’s just what I experienced when I went over the world and I had to speak and to preach and to, to lay hands on sick and to bring the gospel and go over the world as a tramp for the Lord.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I didn’t realize at all that we have the task of casting out demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Oh yes, I had experienced it when I was in the concentration camp, where we were together in a terrible place where people had had training in cruelties, where the demon of hatred was in the hearts of many people, and Betsie and I were there together with 700 prisoners in a very small room.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And these poor prisoners were often so nervous and too afraid.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>We had to sleep on very small cots with two or three.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And sometimes it was as if there came a wave of hatred and darkness over that room, and the people started to fight and it was a very great danger in such a small place.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I will never forget how my sister behaved.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

One day she heard that they were fighting together and one said “I kick you out of bed and I won’t help you any longer lay so against me,” and then Betsie said, “Let’s pray”.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And Betsie started to pray, and when she was praying it was as if a storm lay down and was all quiet and then she stopped.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We knew that there were demons around us, and we had never thought about casting out demons, but we read in the little forbidden booklet that we had, the Bible, we read that we may and must cast out demons and then there were demons who do not go without fasting.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And Betsie said, “What about when we just give our fast and that the enemy gets us, that we give that back to the Lord and say ‘Lord, it’s not our will, but we fast, but may You use it Lord.’ ”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I’m so glad that God never takes a theological examine from you before He helps you.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It’s just understood, and He did it, and we got power over demons.
<blockquote>I had spoken about we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, and God’s promises are the greatest realities.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And our problems are the material for God to build His miracles.</blockquote>
And then after that period of my life that I was a prisoner there, then I had to go over the world, and in my book, “Amazing Love” you can read how for the first time I came face to face with demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I had spoken about we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ, and God’s promises are the greatest realities.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And our problems are the material for God to build His miracles.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And if we need a great miracle we must hand God our impossibilities. ‘Twas a very nice sermon.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

And the next day there came a woman to me with her daughter who was demon-possessed.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And she said, “Did you believe what you said yesterday?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "I told you, I believed every word."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She said, “Alright, here is my daughter, she is possessed by a demon of fear.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The moment that they heard a noise, even when someone opened the tap in the house, then that girl shrank down of fear, and hid her face on her mother’s lap.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It was a girl 15 years old.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She said, “Can you cast out the demon?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "No.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>That’s not my work."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“Oh yes,” she said, “I thought it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>You were very beautiful what you said in your talk, but you don’t believe it yourself.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "I believe it."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then I said, "Oh, Lord, I believe it, I believe it, but what must I do?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Lord, I must not cast out demons…that‘s not my work.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Or, is it Your will?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then the Lord said, “Yes.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I said to the mother, "Do you believe?" and she said, “Yes, I believe the Bible and I believe Mark 16.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then I spoke to that demon in that poor girl.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I asked that girl, "Do you love the Lord Jesus?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She said, “Yes, but He must make me free.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Yes, He will make you free."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I said to the demons, "In the name of Jesus, leave that girl."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And the mother and the girl left, and that girl was just as demon-possessed as before, and I was disappointed and frustrated.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

I went in the house of the minister.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>So I went to his study.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Pastor, I have experienced this.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I am so sorry.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I believe in the Bible.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I believe that the promises of the Lord are the greatest reality, but I think my faith was not strong enough.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Will you do it?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>This dear breath of the girl?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He said, “What do you mean?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "You must cast out this demon."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He said, “I, I don’t think about it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I never did that before.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "But, but Pastor, you must do it then."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Pastor, open, open your Bible and read Mark 16."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Read it aloud."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he read it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he read, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And these signs shall follow them that believe:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>in My name shall they cast out the devil.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he said, “Oh, Lord, I have never known that.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Forgive me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Forgive me, Lord.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>This girl is not the only one in my church, in my congregation.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There are more, Lord, I have never seen that I have a duty here.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

And I had joy in my heart.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I thought, "Now I know why I had to have that, that defeat.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I had to go to that minister."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I understood a little bit of God’s side of the embroidery. <span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And that next day, the woman came with her daughter and she said, “The moment that I recrossed the threshold of our house, the demon was gone from my daughter.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And she was absolutely free.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Why did God wait with liberating that girl?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Because I had to go to that minister to have that talk.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>That was an encouraging beginning.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And don’t I strive to study the Bible in this.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I read in 1 John 5:18, “The true child of God…is in the charge of God’s own Son and the evil one must keep his distance.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He still has a big thorn in his side, after all.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Napoleon said to this gentleman, “When they follow me, and when you are my soldiers, I must tell you that also when you are hungry there will be no food.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>When there is bad weather, you will not have shelter.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What is awaiting you is blood and sweat.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But I can promise you one thing:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>when you follow Napoleon, you fight for a general who never lost a battle.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But he lost the last battle.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>
<blockquote>When we are in the army of the King of Kings, we fight for a King who never lost a battle and who will never lose a battle, and every knee will bow before Him.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And at our side is a Mighty High Priest and legions of angels.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we have a Book almost bursting by good news.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we stand in the power of the blood of Jesus.</blockquote>
And when we are in the army of the King of Kings, we fight for a King who never lost a battle and who will never lose a battle, and every knee will bow before Him.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And at our side is a Mighty High Priest and legions of angels.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we have a Book almost bursting by good news.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we stand in the power of the blood of Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What this Book tells us that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we have the authority of Name of Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And like a traffic officer has authority over the law behind him, and if you don’t obey him you get a ticket, you and I have the authority of Jesus’ Name.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And if the devil does not obey you, then you give him a ticket.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He is a defeated enemy.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We have to extend the victorious side.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>

I know that part of Mark, there is a question mark behind that last part of Mark 16.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>In Germany there was a girl who was rather ill, and a brother came to her and said, “Do you believe in the Bible?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She said, “I believe the Bible from cover to cover.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“When we read Mark 16 that Jesus says ‘In My name thou shalt lay hands on the sick and they will recover,’ do you believe that?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“Oh, yes,” she said, “I never heard that before, but I didn’t know that that was in the Bible, but I believe it because it is in the Bible.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he laid hands on her and she was healed.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And she was so happy.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She ran to her pastor.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She said “Pastor, did you know that, that it was in the Bible?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And brother so-and-so has done it, what you can read in Mark 16, that Jesus said ‘In My name you will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.’ “<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And the pastor said, “My dear lady, I’m so sorry that I must tell you that Mark 16 is added to the Bible long, long after original was written.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She was very disappointed.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But suddenly she said, “Oh my, what a book is the Bible that even an added promise has so much power that I am healed!”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>
<blockquote>My friends, when we act on the words of God there happen miracles in us and God watches over His work to perform it.</blockquote>
My friends, when we act on the words of God there happen miracles in us and God watches over His work to perform it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I wrote once in my little paper, it’s hard this time, that someone said, was asked, “Do you believe that Jonah was in the stomach of the whale?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he said, “Yes, I believe that, and if the Bible has told that the whale had been in the stomach of Jonah I should also have believed it if it was in the Bible.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Yes, it is good to act on the Word of God.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But, it is also very necessary that we obey the Word of God.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“Cast out demons in My Name,” said Jesus.

I’m so glad that in the armor of God is also prayer.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I believe it is in my book “Not Good If Detached,” but I tell that I was in a group of…a small conference in Germany, of what you call here in the front the Christian fellowship.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Ten students, Christians, had brought ten non-Christians.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I had to speak Saturday evening and 3 times on Sunday.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>On Saturday after I had spoken, every student took one of the non-Christians and made a walk and walked with them, and they said “Corrie, not one of them has accepted your message.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But we will pray.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We will pray this night and we will pray tomorrow and we will stand behind you with our prayers.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

Now, God did miracles that Sunday, when people prayed and the devil had not much power to come in between.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And in the evening, 8 out of 10 had made a decision for the Lord Jesus, that made the angels in heaven rejoice.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I went to my bedroom very happy and thankful and exhausted.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Germans have very thoroughly thought much, and between the 3 meetings I had many, many talks, but I was so happy with what the Lord had done.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

But when I came in my room, Trudy followed me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And Trudy said “Oh, Corrie, I must thank you, what you have done for my Otto.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He was so dark.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>He was a medical student, and her fiancé also was a medical student, and she said “Oh, he was so dark and unhappy, and now he has accepted the Lord Jesus and is so glad and so full of joy.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Now let me just praise and thank the Lord.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But what about you, Trudy?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She said, “I don’t come to speak about myself.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I will speak about Otto.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I thought, "OK," and I talked about Otto.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

But suddenly, in the midst of our talk, I turned to her, or rather to demons in her, and I said, "In the name of Jesus I command you demons go out of this girl.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She is not bought by your blood, but by the blood of Jesus Christ, who has paid everything for her at the cross of Golgotha.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I command you to leave her and I forbid you to come back or to come in anyone else.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Go to the place where Jesus tells you to go."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I’ve never seen such a change on the face of a human being.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>From the darkness she came into light and she shouted, “I’m free, I’m free, is there hope for me?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I didn’t know it!”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then she told me that she had intended to commit suicide the next day.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I could hardly, I stood trembling on my feet.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I did not know anything of her, and I even had not discerned that she was demon-possessed.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I, after she had left, I thought "I must have a prayer, I must talk it over with someone."
<blockquote>I’ve never seen such a change on the face of a human being.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>From the darkness she came into light and she shouted, “I’m free, I’m free, is there hope for me?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I didn’t know it!”</blockquote>
<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I ran downstairs and in the hall where we had our meeting I saw all these same students on their knees.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I said "I’ve come to tell you that Trudy is liberated."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>They said, “We knew.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "What did you know?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>They said, “We knew that she was demon-possessed and when she went to your room we went in prayer.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we prayed "God, use Corrie Ten Boom to liberate that girl."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And after some time, suddenly our prayer went over in praise and thanks and we knew that she was free.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

Now do you see what prayer means?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I did not know anything about that girl.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But, there were these students who were praying.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I was very happy about this experience.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I have found over the whole world a lack of knowledge among theologians, among Bible students in the seminaries, in the Bible schools, the people do not teach to cast out demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I must say here, that Pentecostal church is here much more advanced than the other churches.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But more so, now here comes a difference also in the other churches.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But, my friends, don’t forget that you have to cast out demons in this time.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you can do it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Not because of your faith, for that is very small, perhaps no bigger than a coconut, even perhaps not bigger than a mustard seed.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But that doesn’t matter.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It can remove mountains.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you have the authority of the name of Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you have the legal juice of the name of Jesus and you stand in the power of His blood.

Perhaps you will say that, “Listen, I can understand when you go over the mission field that you find many people that are demon-possessed, but you are here in America.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Have you never had someone in your counseling room who said, “Oh, I wanted so much to accept the Lord Jesus, but I cannot.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I’m not able.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The moment that I will ask Lord Jesus, ‘come into my heart,’ it is as if there comes something between Him and me.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And the people say that I always ask, I always ask with them.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>When I counsel and even when I preach I have always the worry somewhere in the critical connection in the same moment, and I can tell my dear Lord quite difference sermons than I tell the people in front of me, then I ask, "Lord, what is wrong?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What is there in the life of this person who is wanting and longing to be saved, but she cannot?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>
<blockquote>When you are on the territory of the enemy you are in their power.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now when you go for fun to a fortune teller, or you are asked to believe the lines in your hand...then I can tell you, you are in the territory of the enemy.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you are in great danger.</blockquote>
And then the Lord tells me which question I ask. Then I say, "When did you go to spiritist meeting?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Or I ask, "When did you go to a fortune teller?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I never ask, when they have been to a fortune teller, if they have come to a spiritualist meeting.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The Holy Spirit teach the discernment.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The answer is almost always the same.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>“Oh, yes, it was then and done, but I did it just for fun.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then I tell them about East Germany.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>In East Germany, the border between west and east is sometimes in the midst of the wood.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now, when you are walking in that forest, in that wood, and you should not be alert, it is possible to come very easily into the eastern part of that wood in Germany.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And especially when you had a game and then you are playing, and suddenly you are on the wrong side of the border, and then the police come and catch, “Just come with me to the Police Station.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Do you think it helps you when you say, “Oh, excuse me, but we were just playing?”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>No.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>When you are on the territory of the enemy you are in their power.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now when you go for fun to a fortune teller, or you are asked to believe the lines in your hand... this nonsense, and that it’s very often here in America, then I can tell you, you are in the territory of the enemy.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you are in great danger.

Now, the people don’t always believe that, so it is the best that we make the Bible speak.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then I always immediately ask them to open their Bible to read Deuteronomy 18:10-13, “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Though shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.” [KJV]<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Why is it an abomination in the eyes of God?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Because instead of asking God for help they have asked the enemy for help.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>That’s why you must be perfect with the LORD thy God.

Now if people really are serious they are very soon frustrated that they have been an abomination.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And that’s all right…when they are so far, then I open the Bible and give them Word, for instance, 1 John 1:7 and 9, “When we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all the sins we confess.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>That’s not a cleanse and excuse.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then they are free, and they do it, and then they can accept the Lord.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

And, oh how we must warn these decent sinners here in America that they mustn’t go to fortune tellers.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I found also, you will see that in my little booklet, that my people are in great danger because they do not know about these things.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>‘Twas a great evangelist in Germany, a man of God, mightily used for thousands and thousands of sinners who were saved and thousands and ten thousand Christians who came by his preaching into the victorious life. . . He came once to me and he said, “Oh, Corrie, I have had such a terrible experience.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There came a lady to me and she said, ‘Oh, make me free, make me free.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I am under the power of the devil.’ “<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he said, “I saw in her eyes that she was demon-possessed, and I laid my hands on her and the same moment I fell on my back and I was out of consciousness for half an hour.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And when I came back to consciousness she was gone and she had committed suicide.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>

I said, "Pastor, will you show me in the Bible where it is written that we must lay hands on the demon-possessed?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Lay hands on the sick, and cast out the demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We must be very careful with our obedience.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now here is a man who was beloved of the Lord, who was often burdened for souls, and only by lack of knowledge this man did such a dangerous thing.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It is time to wake up to a reality.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

Now in this booklet also, I tell that there is a danger.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I don’t know if you have ever read the book of Mrs. Penn-Lewis, “War on the Saints,” and you read that book without first asking the Lord to protect you with the blood of Jesus, you come in great darkness.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>‘Tis a positive book, but there’s a danger in it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And is one-sided.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>She, uh, there is everything under the category of demon possession.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I found a mission recently, the mission field, who did the same.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And they always talk about demons, and about demon-possession.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Not only in the mission fields, so often when a mother-in-law is difficult, then they said “My mother-in-law is demon possessed!”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Be careful.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Jesus speaks about saying to someone “Raca!”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I don’t know anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I’ve never studied demonology, but in this little booklet I try to make the difference between demon obsession and demon-possession.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Demon-possession you can see.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But demon obsession you cannot always see.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There’s a gradual difference.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The answer is the same.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Cast out the demons in the name of Jesus.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we overcome by the blood of the Lamb.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But be careful that you do not make advertisement for the enemies by always talking about them.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>

I will never forget when Dr. Torrey Johnson came to Holland to start a Youth For Christ movement there.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I’ve never seen such mean articles in the newspaper when they wrote about Torrey Johnson.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Terrible things.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>So mean, so dirty, and when he came there were no halls big enough to contain the mass of people.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I can tell you when I should come back here to America and I should like to have very big meetings I should ask some of you, you be so kind to write against me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you cannot be too mean!<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>These people have made the best advertisement for Torrey Johnson, and now the Youth For Christ movement is in the hands of young people who were saved in the first meetings of Torrey Johnson.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> . . </span>But don’t talk too much about demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

It is in “The Screwtape Letters” that this man with his mighty sense of humor says, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devil:<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>one is to disbelieve in their existence.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And that’s very much many people do not believe that demons exist.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And devils and pastors, people who stand in the midst of the whole army of demons, and they do not believe.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>You see that they exist.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What a terrific victory for the devil.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>One is to disbelieve in their existence.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The other is to believe and to feel an unhealthy interest in them.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I can tell you that what I tell you today I cannot give everywhere.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I can tell you when I have given this talk, then people come to me and thrust out the most thrilling book stories.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But it’s an unhealthy curiosity, and their life is tell about demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then they go and they tell what has happened with that and that woman, what they have seen about, ah it’s hysterical.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

They themselves are equally pleased by both errors.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And they hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Demons exist. And demons are in the world.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I believe there are more now than in every time before.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you have a tremendous task.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you have nothing to fear.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>
<blockquote>Demons exist. And demons are in the world.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I believe there are more now than in every time before.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you have a tremendous task.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you have nothing to fear.</blockquote>
<span class="Apple-converted-space">But</span>, be sure, that you do not give the devil a foothold.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What do I mean?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I was in South Africa, and I got a telephone from a girl, a lady who said, “Corrie, can you come here, here is a girl, demon-possessed and we don’t know what to do.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now, my first reaction is always to say "No."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>When you ask me to go to a sick and lay hands on the sick, then I say with great joy, "Oh yes, I do it."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And it gives me a great joy to lay hands on the sick.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But when you ask me, “Come and cast out the demons” then I say, "Can’t he do it?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What is it?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Am I afraid for demons?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The fear for demons comes from the demons themselves.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we have nothing to fear from demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Nothing.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>We stand there victorious beside legions of angels, and a mighty high Priest is at our side.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Is it because it is so terrible to see the demonstration of the power of the enemy in the life of a human being?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Perhaps it is that.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I don’t know what you have for experience, but after I have been used to cast out demons I am physically so tired.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I have not that when I lay hands on the sick.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And if I can avoid it, I do it.

But I know that if I do not do it, and if you do not do it, who are in the world must cast out demons, tell me?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There’s no other in the whole world who can do it!<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But a Christian.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The Spirit-filled Christians.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And you can’t do it and I can’t do it, we are nobody…..gloves.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>You see how very important it is to be filled with Holy Spirit in this time?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

So, I said, "Yes, I come."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I took this woman after that and I said to my friend, "Say, listen, will you please come with your car and bring me back to that address?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There’s a woman demon-possessed, and they have asked me if I would come to cast out the demon."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And my friend said, “Corrie, you know that I’m always available for you with my car, but today I cannot do it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It is impossible.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>The whole day I must bake pies and cakes and for the church meeting tomorrow.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I laid down the receiver of that telephone and there were 3 ministers in that room where the telephone was, and I turned to the ministers and I said, "There are too many pies and too many demons in your churches."

<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>What did I mean?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I don’t know.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And this was in South Africa, in all these British countries, these ladies’ meetings are just demonstrations of how they can bake pies and almost a danger.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>After I had been some weeks there, they’re fattening Ms. Corrie ten Boom, and I must go on a diet.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But I have nothing against it.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I like them.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But there is a time that we must not bake pies, but cast out demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And if all the ladies used time that they use in their teaching just to go to that neighbor that has an eternity to lost or to gain, and bring the gospel, then I think that it should be good. Now there’s a time, perhaps, for baking pies, and I know in America it doesn’t take much time, for you have all in one can.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There are too many demons in our churches.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>What do you do with a demon-possessed or obsessed person?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Now, be honest!<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>You send him to a psychiatrist.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And he can give shock, and demons are not at all shocked.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>There is a danger.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It’s time to wake up to a reality.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

One of the ministers said, “I will bring you to that lady.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I was there and there was absolute defeat.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I couldn’t do anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And at last, the demons attacked me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>A demon said, “You are possessed by the idiotic idea that Jesus is fixer.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I had to leave absolutely defeated.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I went on my knees.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Lord, what is happened?"<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And the Lord showed me there was in my being a foothold for the devil.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Don’t go to bed angry.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Don’t give the devil that kind of foothold.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>That is somewhere in the translation of Phillips.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>You know, when there is a foothold for the devil, you are in a strategic, very weak moment.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

What was the foothold?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>My attitude was ‘holier than thou.’<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I had told these ministers in a very witty and straight way what I thought about the demons and pies.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Do you see?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>‘Holier than thou’ is a smoke in God’s nose.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I die at this.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It’s a terrible thing.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It was pride.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Spiritual pride.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Don’t fight with demons when there is pride in your heart.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Don’t give the enemy that kind of foothold.
<blockquote>What was the foothold?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>My attitude was ‘holier than thou.’<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I had told these ministers in a very witty and straight way what I thought about the demons and pies.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Do you see?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>‘Holier than thou’ is a smoke in God’s nose.</blockquote>
Now, if you’ll know more about my experiences, read that little booklet, “Defeated Enemies.”<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I will not stop here.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But I will tell you that there are more angels in the world than demons.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And often we speak far more about demons than about angels.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I’m so glad for the angels.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Boy, they are great friends of mine.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And how they have helped me, and they help me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

In my book, “A Prisoner And Yet” you can read that I came in the prison and we all had to be searched.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we stood on a line and everyone was searched and they took away everything that we have hidden.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And scared I was.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I had a little Bible.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It was special printed for the underground workers in Holland.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Had the whole Old and New Testament, was very small.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I had it under my dress on my back.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And other things that I needed.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I saw that they did not believe anything.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>They took away everything that was hidden.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And I was so scared that I said, "Oh, God, send now your angels, and that they surround me."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Again, I thought, "Yes, angels."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But after all, angels are spirits.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And spirits are transparent, you can look through them, and these people may not see me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "God let your angels not be transparent today."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>

You can pray very unorthodox when you are in great need.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But God did it!<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>How I don’t know.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But the woman who was standing before me was searched.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And then my sister stood behind me and they did not see me.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And there was joy in my heart!<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Oh God, if you are such a hearer of prayers I believe I can even stand a concentration camp."<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It was an hour later I was called again.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>All of us.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And we had to stand in the street, and everywhere was searched for a second time by different women.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>But I was not afraid.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>I said, "Father, use your untransparent angels just some moments around me," and He did.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>And so I came with my Bible in that prison.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Strange story?<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>No.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>It’s written in the Bible angels are ministering spirits sent to this planet for your and my help!<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Oh my.<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>Sometimes, we must pray for open eyes.
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<span class="dict-def-source-name">The Holy Spirit Gives Power by Corrie Ten Boom</span>
 <span class="dict-def-source-meta">2023-01-03</span>
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<p>God’s boundless resources are what we find when we obey the commandment, ‘Be filled with the Spirit.’ This is not a suggestion; the Bible has no suggestions, only commandments, and this is the most happy commandment of the whole Bible. When the Lord told us to witness and make disciples over the whole world, he promised, ‘You will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.’</p>
<p>To me, a little story of a bird—a woodpecker—has helped in understanding this. A woodpecker pecked the trunk of a tree, like they do. At that very moment lightning struck the tree and destroyed it, and the woodpecker flew away saying, ‘I didn’t know that there was so much power in my beak.’ I ask you, do you have the Holy Spirit, or does the Holy Spirit have you?</p>
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<p>I ask you, do you have the Holy Spirit, or does the Holy Spirit have you?</p>
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<p>When I was a little girl, I remember that I talked with my father and I said, ‘Daddy, I will never be strong enough to be a real witness and a martyr for Jesus.’ And father said, ‘When you go to travel, when do I give you the train ticket, or the money for it—three weeks before?’ I said, ‘No, daddy, the day that I go to travel.’ And father said, ‘That is what God does. You don’t need to have the power to suffer for Jesus at this moment, but the moment that you will have the great honour to be a martyr for Jesus, the Lord will give you everything.’ And I’ve experienced that we have not a ‘spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind’, and the Holy Spirit is there always to do the job, to make us ready.</p>
<p>We live in a time where we can expect the good Lord Jesus to come very soon. Many of the signs of the time are very clear, and it’s very important that we are ready for Jesus’ coming. Peter writes, ‘Because you have a hope like this before you, I urge you to make certain that such a day would find you at peace with God and with men, clear and blameless in his sight.’ Sometimes I tremble when I think that is necessary—to be right with God and right with men.</p>
<p>In Russia once, I was greatly comforted by a story. A Russian said, ‘There was a big apartment house; many people lived there and they all put their junk in the basement. But there in the basement also was a beautiful harp. It was broken and nobody could repair it. Once there came a tramp who said, “May I sleep this night in your house? There is such a terrible snowstorm.” And they said, “We have no guest rooms, but you can sleep in the basement.” After some hours they suddenly heard beautiful music coming from the basement, and the owner of the harp came down and said, “How could you repair that harp?” And the man said, “I have made this harp, and when you have made something, you can also repair it.”‘</p>
<p>Who has made you? Wasn’t it God? Wasn’t it that nothing has been made without Jesus? Do you think he is able to make you good, blameless, and right with God and men so that you will be ready for Jesus’ coming? He is able and he will do it, for it is written that Paul prayed, ‘May the God of peace make you holy through and through. May you be kept in spirit, soul, and body in spotless integrity until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ ls that possible? A spotless integrity—you and I? Yes! For the rest of the text is, ‘He who calls you is utterly faithful and he will finish what he has set out to do.’</p>
<p>The Holy Spirit shows us many things, as it were, from God’s point of view. The Holy Spirit gives you wisdom to cast your burdens on the Lord because he gives us spiritual insight and understanding.</p>
<p>I was in Vietnam and I was there not as thermometer but as thermostat. Do you know what I mean? A thermometer goes with the heat and the cold, up and down. A thermostat, however, brings a cold room immediately in contact with the source of heat and so restores the temperature. I carried the load of suffering that I saw in the hospital, in the tribes, in the front lines, and the Holy Spirit showed me that l had to cast my burden on the Lord. We are not called to be burden-bearers but cross-bearers and fruit-bearers, so we can be used as open channels for streams of living water.</p>
<p>In my work to bring the gospel in many places, I sometimes feel weak and old, not adequate to speak in so many different meetings, but I trust what we heard today, again and again, ‘You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.’ The Holy Spirit gives power and we can never expect too much from him. He points to the cross, where Jesus finished all for our redemption, and obedience and surrender is the answer.</p>
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<p>The Holy Spirit gives power and we can never expect too much from him.</p>
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<p>I was comforted by a story told in New Zealand. A little boy went with his father over a bridge. It was a very small bridge and he was scared, and he said, ‘Daddy, I’m afraid. Do you see this water underneath us?’ And the father said, ‘Boy, give me your hand.’ Then he was not afraid any longer. But in the evening he had to go again over the bridge and now it was pitch dark. He said, ‘Daddy, I’m more scared than this morning.’ And then the father took the little boy in his arms and immediately the boy fell asleep, and awakened later in his own little bed. That is surrender to the Lord Jesus, and that is how the Holy Spirit teaches us that we are safe in Jesus’ hands.</p>
<p>When I was in prison where my sister and 95,000 other women died, I experienced what Paul wrote to the Philippians when he also was in a terrible prison. The Holy Spirit had pointed Paul to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit also did the same for me. And I can say with Paul what he wrote in the text, ‘I count everything as lost compared with the priceless privilege’ (I read it from the Amplified New Testament), ‘the overwhelming preciousness, the unsurpassable worth, and the supreme advantage of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord, and of progressively, more intimately, getting acquainted with him.’ That happened when I was in that terrible prison. That can happen with you also, when you let the Holy Spirit turn your eyes more and more to the Lord Jesus even when we are perhaps entering a time of very great darkness and suffering over the world.</p>
<p>The world is very sick, very ill. Who is it that overcomes the world? He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. I am sure that all of us believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That means that you and I, that we all have to overcome the world—and that is hope for the world. The best is yet to be. Jesus is coming and he has said, ‘I will make everything new’, and that this world, yes, this sick, ill world will be covered with the knowledge of God like the waters cover the bottom of the sea. What a joy to know from the Word of God that God has no problems, only plans. There’s never panic in heaven, and we have to be right with God and we know it. That is because of the finished work of Jesus at the cross. And we have to be right with men also because of Jesus’ presence. The love of God, he will bring into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us (Rom 5:5).</p>
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<p>There’s never panic in heaven, and we have to be right with God and we know it. That is because of the finished work of Jesus at the cross. And we have to be right with men also because of Jesus’ presence.</p>
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<p>I love the Germans. There is not a country like it where I work with such great joy. My greatest friends live in that country, but sometimes I find people who have been cruel to me in the concentration camp. Once I saw a lady in the meeting and suddenly I thought, ‘That woman was the nurse who was so cruel to my dying sister,’ and there came hatred and bitterness in my heart; but when I felt that there was hatred and bitterness in my heart, I knew I had not forgiven her. And I know and you know that Jesus has said (you can read it in Matthew 5), ‘If you do not forgive those who have sinned against you, my heavenly Father will not forgive you your sins.’ But I said, ‘Oh Lord, I cannot, I am not able.’</p>
<p>And suddenly I saw it. I cashed the check of Romans 5:5. I said, ‘Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have brought into my heart God’s love through the Holy Spirit who is given to me, and thank you, Father, that your love in me is stronger than my bitterness and hatred.’ I could go to that nurse and I could shake hands with her, and I had the joy to be used by the Lord to bring her to this decision for the Lord Jesus. What a joy.</p>
<p>John Bunyan made a very good little poem:</p>
<p>Run, John, run, the law commands,<br />But gives us neither feet nor hands.<br />Far better news the gospel brings,<br />It bids us fly and gives us wings.</p>
<p>Isn’t that good? I like that. When the Lord says, ‘Love your enemies,’ he gives you the love that he demands from you. There is an ocean of God’s love and that love is available for you, and that can make us love our enemies and then we’ll really become mashed potatoes. Hallelujah!</p>
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<p>When the Lord says, ‘Love your enemies,’ he gives you the love that he demands from you. There is an ocean of God’s love and that love is available for you, and that can make us love our enemies</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the most cruel things I have suffered was when in the concentration camp, we had to stand naked. They stripped us of all our clothing and I said to Betsie, my sister, ‘I cannot bear this. This is so terrible.’ But it was suddenly as if I saw Jesus at the cross. It was the Holy Spirit who turned my eyes to Jesus, and the Bible tells that he hung there naked, they stripped him of all his garments and he hung there for me. By my suffering I could understand a fraction of the suffering of Jesus and it made me so happy, so thankful, that I could bear my suffering.</p>
<p>Love so amazing, so divine,<br />Demands my life, my soul, my all.</p>
<p>The Holy Spirit will turn your eyes to Jesus, whatever happens, and then we are ready, we are even willing, and we are able to suffer. Amy Carmichael has written, ‘We have a scarred captain. Should not we have scars? Under his mighty banners, we are going to the wars. Lest we forget, Lord, when we meet, show us your hands and feet.’</p>
<p>And may the love, mercy, and power of Jesus Christ be multiplied to you during this time of titanic spiritual warfare. The Lord wins and is able to hold us up and cause us to triumph in all situations that we may have to face. Hallelujah!</p>
<p>Jesus <em>was</em> victor, he<em> is</em> victor, and he <em>will be</em> victor. Amen.</p>

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