Keep Looking to Jesus (Alternative) — Corrie Ten Boom

Abiding in Christ, the True Vine

This is taped to the by tape number 530, Corrie Tindall with the message originally delivered to the 1963 Pacific Holophase Conference entitled, Keep Looking to Jesus. I am the true vine, Jesus says, and my father is the husband's man.

Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

Abide in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abides in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branch. He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit.

For without me you can do nothing. If a man abides not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered. And men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me and my word abides in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.

Herein is my father glorified that you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples. As the father has loved me so have I loved you. Continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love.

Even as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love, the things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. And in Colossians 1, 9 where we read this from the translation of Philips, we are asking God that you may see things that occur from his point of view by being given spiritual insight and understanding.

We also pray that your outward life which men see may bring credit to your master's name and that you may bring joy to his heart by bearing genuine Christian fruit and that your knowledge of God may grow yet deeper.

Colossians 1, 11. As you live this new life we pray that you will be strengthened from God's boundless resource so that you will find yourself able to pass through any experience and endure it with courage.

You will even be able to thank God in the midst of pain and distress because you are privileged to share the lot of those who are living in the light. For we must never forget that he rescued us from the power of darkness and re-established us in the kingdom of his beloved Son.

That is, in the kingdom of light. For it is by his Son alone that we have been redeemed and have had our sins forgiven. That is very important, which direction we look. This afternoon, or late afternoon when we are sitting here together, someone said we need a sense of direction.

And I thought that was so true. We need a sense of direction because we are living in a world that is so dark, so foggy, it is so mixed up and we need to have a sense of direction and how very needy it is to look in the right direction.

Depending on God's Spirit Rather Than Human Strength

Not by might or by power, but by my Spirit sent to Lord. My mountain shall be removed. You know, before I look at the might and the power of the Spirit, I look so often on myself. And then the mountains are so short.

This morning they asked me to speak with a neighbor of a friend of mine. And there were all the things together that made it very difficult to approach this lady. She was very needy. She had a difficult husband who was in a trip in Zion.

She was terrible rich. It is so difficult, you know, because if you have very much money, you have not as much money as you. And I saw that mountain that I cannot, I cannot do. I thought I am really not removed.

And I looked into myself. And I didn't want to approach her. And then really the Lord spoke to me and I looked in the right direction. And I said, Lord, I don't believe that I cannot do this. You know, there are people who, from the first moment, it clicks.

But there are also people where it doesn't click between you and the other person. And I was afraid it should be so. I said, Lord, I really don't think that I can do it. And the Lord said, I do not think that I know it.

But you must go and know it. I can do it. And that is so awful. When I come to the Lord and say I can't do it, then it is just as if the Lord smiles. And He says, I know that already at one time, but I am so glad that you know it now.

And I went. And do you know when I prayed, I prayed, O Lord, give me a little bit of humor. And the Lord has tremendous humor, also distributed to us. And when I came to her, she started to talk about religion and religion this and religion that.

And I cannot do this and I cannot do that. I said, I regret it, you know, that you cannot do it. She said, yes, but we must do rather much. All right, when you say God must do it, but we must do very much.

But I can't. And then I showed her this glove. I said, this glove cannot do anything. But when my hand is in the glove, it can even play piano. And I said, you are nothing but a glove and I am nothing but a glove.

But when we ask the Lord Jesus to enter into our hearts and He is the vein and you are the branch and you are in Him and He is in you, then you can do very much. And this glove, that was with me the whole time.

And always when she started again to say, O Lord, I cannot do this and I must do that, then I showed her the glove, piano glove. And you know, when she went on a little bit, she made it kind of complicated and I said, I was in a high school or college and the young people had their slogan and the slogan was, keep A .I .S .S.

And they meant with that, keep it simple, stupid. And I said to her, she started to laugh and to laugh and the eyes were open. Yes, we make it all a little complicated. This is all very complicated. It is for you and me from the devil.

The Bible is not complicated and the Lord is not complicated. But we need the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible in its simplicity. We have a very good talk and I believe that she is on the right way.

But how good is it to look in the right direction. And I have found that often in the world we must start our extermination. And we must get our, how do you call this paper? Diploma. But you said with the Lord that we must first go through, fail our extermination.

And when we have failed our extermination, then the Lord said, now I can use you. I heard William Macdonald say, the Lord had to teach Moses to be a nobody. He was 40 years somebody and then God made him 40 years nobody and then the Lord would use him to 40 years to be somebody.

And how often must we learn that we are nobody. And I am very now slow to learn. But more and more I learned it. That when I say, oh Lord I can do it. And the Lord said, oh I knew it already but now I will do it.

I was in Athens Gym and they asked me to speak in a hospital. And they brought me in a ward where all these patients, polio patients in iron lungs. I had never seen that before and it made me so miserable when I saw babies in iron lungs and all these people that I had just the tendency to run away and to go somewhere in a car and to cry.

And I said, Lord I cannot stay here for anything which is so difficult. And then they asked me to speak with a Jewish man there. And that man was not in an iron lung but I don't know how you say it in English.

He was in a bed that was up and down. And then when the legs were up and the diaphragm was pushed to his lungs and then he could breathe out and when the legs went down he could breathe in. He was fed through his nose.

He could not speak but the only thing was that he could write. And I said, no Lord I cannot. The Lord said, you cannot with us. And so I went in the strength of the Lord and in my own inability and even probably that man was difficult because I had to look at him and then to look down and then to look up.

And it was so difficult. And my heart was full of pity with that man. But he was a Jew when I told him of the Messiah. And then I said that sometimes our life is so that we cannot understand. And then I had with me an employee and I told him that in my life there was a time that everything was mixed up and everything was so miserable that there was almost no advice.

When I was in a concentration camp, a prisoner, a prison where 97 ,000 women were killed or died. Where I saw my own sister starve. Where I was surrounded by people who had had a strained and impoverished life.

And I said, in that time I had experienced a peace that others all understand. And I always believed. But now I know from experience that Jesus life is stronger than the pieces of a house. And that a jack of all trades cannot grow so big, always bigger than the everlasting arms that carry it.

And then I showed him my embroidery. And I said, my life is like a weaving between my God and me. I do not choose the colors. He works steadily. Of time he leaves a sorrow and I in foolish strife forget.

He sees the upper side and I the underside. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles ease to fly, will God unroll the captives and explain the reason why. The damask threads are as needfully ill for Jesus hands as the threads of gold and silver in the sacred nearest land.

And I said, all the time that we see the wrong side, God sees the right side. And God has left no problems with our lives. There is never the planet to influence. And then I told him what it meant when we asked Jesus to come into our life.

And when he brought, we brought him all our sins. And I brought him the old, old story of Israel and Israel. And that man took his paper and he wrote down these words. Thanks God I am already seeing the beautiful side.

Oh, what a man! And that man saw already the beautiful side of his life. When you are on the street in strict circumstances. And I can tell you I could just praise the Lord. And the next day I went again to that hospital and I said, can I visit my Jewish friend?

He said, no. Five minutes after you left he wrote on a paper, for the first time in my life I have praised in Jesus name. And the next moment he died. Oh, what a time to know that. We cannot live with these characters.

Resisting Pride in Ministry

Oh, I was shocked. This paper, this is the paper that he wrote me. Thanks God I am seeing already the beautiful side. It is of course very good that we see that we cannot do it. But it is the devil who always tries to bring our eyes in the wrong direction.

I don't know if you who are speakers have the same temptation as I have. When I am speaking and I see how the Holy Spirit works in the congregation, when I see the people listening, when I see that there comes a kind of light on the faces, that people understand, then the devil tells me, Corrie you do a good job today.

And I know if I take that, that will perhaps not take the blessing from the people, but if I take that then I take the blessing away from myself. And I miss the blessing. Now, the devil has done it so often that now just I say shut up in the name of Christ.

So he starts already a little bit to slow down with his temptation, but you know that I have really in America, in the big gym and especially to get use of the way of institution of these Americans. I sometimes say, I sometimes get a headache by the heat of the halo that the people make around my head.

And I was very happy when I heard the story of the woodpecker. The woodpecker was sticking with his beak against the stem of a tree. And the very same moment the lightning struck that tree and destroyed it.

And the woodpecker flew away and he said to other birds, I have never known there was so much flower in my beak. When we speak and there is a working of the spirit of God, that is of my beak, that is the spirit of God who does it.

Looking to Jesus Rather Than Personal Faith

But the devil tries to bring our eyes unto ourselves. People so often say to me, Corrie, I believe that you will face you through the time that you work in a concentration camp. I was during the last world war, a prisoner in Holland and in Germany.

If I book a prisoner camp, you can read about it. But when people say to me, it was your faith that has helped you through, then I always say no. It was not my faith. If you ask me how my faith was in that time, then I would say it was very weak, it was very weightless.

And if you ask me the dimensions, it was even a book, it was a mystery. It was not my faith. Do you know how I came through? Not through my faith, but through Jesus. Jesus has carried me through that terrible time that I was in the hell of Rome.

When I say it was my faith, then it is possible that there is someone who says, I go through a very difficult time, but I have not your faith. But then I say, it was Jesus, the same Jesus who has carried me through, who has carried you through.

And to provide you a testament, there is written in Philippians 3 .8 that Paul said when he was in a terrible prison, changed with his hands to the hands of a God, night and day. And he said, I found everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege of overwhelming victory, the preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme appendage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and are progressively more deeply and ultimately acquainted with him.

That was the experience of Paul, that was my experience, and that is your experience, that is Jesus, who carries us through. And yes, we need, but even the Bible says about our faith, not look unto your faith, but look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.

I had a jewelry store before the war. I had a watch repaired. Sometimes I had in the store a new watch that did not run well. I never repaired it, but I sent it back to the manufacturer and wrote him, sir, this new watch does not run effectively.

After he had repaired it, it went absolutely right. When my faith doesn't work, I don't try to repair it. I send it back to the manufacturer, Jesus, the author, the finisher of my faith, and when he repairs it, then it works.

When I look at my faith, there are two possibilities, that I say I have a very strong and good faith, spiritual faith, or I say all my faith is nothing. That is the truth, isn't it? It grows from the depth, but we must not look unto our faith, but unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.

Refusing to Fixate on Sin and Failure

It is very important which direction we look. I think you have all read the book of Brangham, and there he tells there was a man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck rake in his hand. There stood also one over his head with a celestial crown in his hand, and offered him that crown for his muck rake.

But the man did neither look up, nor regard, but raked to himself the straw, the small sticks, and the dust of the floor. Isn't it often that we judge people? And one of the tricks of the enemy is that he blinks our eyes always unto our sins.

The devil likes it to make us imprecise, not to confess our sins. But of course we must know our sins, but we must, the great joy is that Christ, he knows, he answers for our sins. When we confess our sins, Christ is faithful and just to forgive us, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins we confess.

Let us now cleanse the next few. At this point, please stop your machine and turn the tape over. The remainder of Corrie Kimball's message will be heard on side two. Let us not look unto our sins, but unto Jesus.

There stood a man with his little son before a lake. It was so quiet a weather that you could see in the lake the moon. And then the boy said, oh look daddy, there is the moon in the lake. And then the father took a stone and threw it in the lake.

And the boy said, oh daddy, you have broken the moon. And then he said, boy, look up, you have broken the moon. Then we looked unto our son. Then we opened our lips to him and said, oh the moon is broken.

The sun didn't burn. It is still there. And now speaking about moons, we are all moons. We are no sun. Sometimes I have the idea that I go in my own strength, that I go to a meeting at the sun. I will give my life, but when I go in my own vulnerability, then I am just a moon.

I just reflect the sunshine. It is very important that we look unto the Lord. For we all will burn there and stay, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord has transformed us into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord of heaven.

2 Corinthians 3 .18. A mirror doesn't do much. It bends or hangs in the right direction, and then it does its job. And you and I have not to do much. We have just to look unto the Lord, and He makes the mirror of His glory.

Faithfulness Amid Suffering and Persecution

Sometime ago I was in my hometown, and I had a little accident. It was not so terrible, but I could not walk. I had hurt my hip. So a policeman helped to carry me into a car. When a policeman does something in Holland, always he brings a booklet with him, and he must write a report.

So he said, what's your name? I just called him home. He said, are you a member of that family that we arrested ten years ago? I said, that's right. You know, during the war, the Dutch policemen remained in their jobs, and so they were in the service of the Germans.

But they came back with the purpose to help us to lift our position, and got blessing for the good work that we have done. And this good section was in the police station when my old father, with his three daughters, a son, a grandson, and fifty of our friends were arrested, and we were sitting on the floors of this police station.

That night, we had no bed, we had no chair, we were all sitting on the floor. My father was eighty-four years old. We had often warned him, and said, when you always help Jewish people, you end up in prison.

And that was why we were arrested. The Germans intended to kill all the Jewish people, and we helped them to escape, and we made it our home. And there we were. Found that with all the children in the classroom, a ten-year-old big man said, I will never forget that night.

There was an atmosphere of liberation, instead of what most of you had to die in prison. Father died after ten days. We were too old for prison life. And we had warned him often, and said, when you are always snoozing your house, you will end up in prison.

And father always answered, if that should happen, I am too old for prison life. It will be an honor for me to switch my life for God. And that policeman said, before your father tried to sleep, he said, we are going to let us pray together, and then he took his Bible and read Psalm 91.

That meant, after ten years, we found father again. He died well in the secret place in which I shall abide under the shadow of your name. When I come in heaven, I hope to have a talk with my daddy. Many talks.

But the first talk will be this. Do you also like to use your fantasy a little bit, like you do when you see in heaven? You know, the reality is a trillion and more times greater than your great son, Jesus.

But one thing I know from the Bible, and that is that we are knowledgable. In the Bible it is told, that on the mountain of Transfiguration, the Lord Jesus was there, and Moses and Elijah, and the disciples.

And I don't believe that Jesus had said, may I introduce you to my disciples, Moses and Elijah, oh no. But the disciples knew that Moses and Elijah, how did they know that? Because these two had celestial bodies.

We will know each other in heaven far more and better than here. Now, when I come in heaven, I will ask father, daddy, do you remember that last night in the slave's trance, your father was faithful to them?

Then I will ask, do you remember that religious man that was on duty? And it is very possible that he was faithful. I don't remember that. You know, father has not thought that he will now either say or do something to be a blessing for that religious man.

No, father is very relaxed. But his eyes and his whole life are turned towards Jesus. And Jesus made him a mirror of his joy. So, that that religious man knew after ten years, that something had happened.

And I am sure that when you enter the beautiful city, and the saints all around you will appear, that many of them will tell you what you have invited me here. And you will say, how? And then I will tell you what happened.

And you will find out that that was the time that he really looked at the people. So, let us look at the people always unto him, not unto ourselves. I am just glad that the Bible tells us what Jesus does without sickness.

And really, the Bible speaks about blotting out like a cloud the stars in the east from the west, throwing them over the shoulder into the depths of the sea for cotton. And I am sure that Jesus Christ, no fishing allowed.

Confession, Forgiveness, and God's Complete Grace

Jesus does without sickness. Now, we have to understand, an unconfessed sin is still alive. But an confessed sin is dead. Here is a story. A young girl goes to a graveyard to look at a dead body. A little child broke a beautiful cup of her mother.

And she brought that cup to the mother and said, Mom, I broke your beautiful cup. And the mother saw that she was sorry. She said, All right, I will not forgive you. Just give me a kiss and forget it.

The next day, the stupid little girl saw the pieces in the garbage can and she took them and she brought them again to the mother and said, Mom, yesterday I broke your cup. And the mother said, Lisa, in the garbage can, don't think of my profession.

The next day, I was inflated. I was a lady, I didn't count. And I was unsatisfied. Inflation, it has a way of doing that really, that makes me angry. In the evening, Sunday, I was very angry. Inflation is a great sin.

I said, Oh, Father, forgive me, please forgive me, that inflation. The next morning, in my quiet time, again I remembered that inflation. Before I knew what I did, I said, Father, yesterday I met with so and so and I was so unsatisfied and so inflated.

I said, Oh, thank you, Master, that you forgave me, my child. I almost asked for a second time forgiveness. Would that save me? No, that shouldn't have happened. When God said, I am faithful and just to forgive you, then you blame me.

Of course, I had to do something else. I had to go to Mr. Osho. That's how I was told. But I had not once forgiven for a second time. I used sometimes this trick. When you give me a cup of coffee and you put that in front of me, just imagine that I then should say to you, Oh, please, I prefer to know you give me a cup of coffee.

But you dishonor you at my fault. I honor you when I drink the coffee and perhaps when I say, Boy, what a good coffee, almost as good as the first cup. Now, when God says, I am faithful and just to forgive you, then he means it.

And you make praise and thanks for forgiving. Oh, when we look unto the Lord, God's healing is unlimited. We get fixedly out of focus as soon as our eyes are turned away from Jesus. Do you know what I mean?

I know photo well. I have my camera. I must turn and think and think till the thing that I will take a photo of is in focus. Now, when we look away from Jesus, the fixity sets out and our iniquity dims a little.

It is very important that we look, that we have a clean mind. When there are simple questions in our mind, somewhere I look and the dove of peace flew into my heart. I looked at the dove of peace and it flew away.

We must look unto Jesus. We must look unto Him. We must look unto our experience. Too many experiences are very important, but we must look unto the Lord. It is something that Americans do very often.

Trusting God's Provision for Impossible Circumstances

I feel that, I feel this, sometimes I use the illustration of what I experienced in New Zealand. I was in a place and I worked with Edwin Orr, Dr. Edwin Orr, we had a team. And he worked in a place, a data field and I worked in a tent.

And he wrote, you must come here on Monday for there is a revival here and I must go to another place. Now I had that week to do it and gave the whole week to the data field. But I found out that it should take me about nine hours in a car to come here in time.

The highways were very windy roads, windy, windy roads. So I thought I must have a talk with my heavenly Father. I thought, Father, I cannot go by car. Nine hours in a car makes me tired. I have been a long time young.

I said, Lord, I think you must give me an F. That evening they gave a man to me and said, hey, is that true that you must meet on Monday in data field and Sunday you speak here? I said, that's right. How are you going to go?

I said, by day. He said, there is no airline to data field. I said, I know it, but I heard some shoemaker say, our problems are meant by God as the raw material to build His miracles. And during the great miracle you must end God's pure impossibility.

And God knows that I cannot go by car. Revive you from me a strong message. And then I heard physically he left. He said, now that's very interesting. You know, I worked in a stockbroker before. I never heard of stockbrokers.

I hadn't. I thought it was the icing on the cake. But that is not it. It is what you call cross-dusting. They throw from small airplanes the fertilizer over these vast fields in New Zealand. And he said, my boss is a Christian.

And he said, if I at the moment be in data field on Monday, then he can use one of my airplanes. I said, thank you. He said, but my boss is concerned about the pilots. He said, that's right. And now he prays that you will be used by the Lord to bring the pilots back to the Lord.

So I knew what I had to do. When I came in the smallest airplane I had seen in my life. There was not much room for for example, I was sitting very close to the pilots. In my hands I had a book. And that was good for I had no room to get it from my back.

And very soon we had a good talk together. And he said, why has God allowed that my wife died? I said, little sister, when I saw my wife die, I said, that can't be a part of love. And I throw away all religion.

Then I told him, my wife, why has God allowed that my old father died alone in a prison when in the same building all his children were abandoned. And 50 of our friends were abandoned. He did not allow us to go to the dying old man.

So I had written in my paper, to suffer in three prisons before he died. One week before I was excommunicated. He said, but in this book we see things as it were from God's point of view. And I also showed him my embroidery.

And then I showed him several texts where you see it from God's point of view. For instance, the sacrament of death is not worth to be compared with the sacrament of love. And those who love God, all things work for the best.

So the good thing was, that man had to read what I put before his nose. He couldn't run away. At last he said, oh, that's all very nice in that book, but I don't feel anything actually. He said, by the way, I must interrupt our conversation.

We are now flying into that lamp. Now the first five and perhaps ten minutes you will have the feeling that the flame goes to one side. But don't be scared. I promise you that I will keep the little flame absolutely straight.

And if you are controlling, look at this instrument. When the needle goes to the right to the one, and that needle to the left to the one, then you know that the flame is straight. So don't be afraid when you feel that you go to one side.

I said, man, that's the second thing you can give me. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are the seasons. My warmth is the word of God. None else is worth believing. This is my instrument. When I pilot my life, the flame of my life on this book, then I am straight in the hands of Jesus.

Building Faith on God's Word, Not Feelings

I am glad that I can tell you what it means to a Jew. Yes, in that plain New Zealand, you have sometimes very twisted bridges. Sometimes before we went, there was a car over the bridge. We just left the car and examined the bridge.

It was strong enough to carry the car. We didn't examine our face in the bridge. We examined the bridge. We said, it is not that we need not look unto our face in Jesus. We must look unto Jesus. It is He who carries us.

And our faith is also being strengthened. And you know, when we go with our hand in cheek and we look unto Him, then we are holy ones. There are some Christians, always so, between hope and fear balancing.

They are like a tiger of war. Going from the past to the future over a rope. Balancing between hope and fear. In one hand, the fact that they indigest the past. In the other hand, the fact that they anticipate the future.

Balancing between hope and fear. But when we look at Jesus, we are just like an escalator walker. You stand on an escalator and you go higher and higher. You stand so relaxed. And that is what Jesus did.

When we look unto Him. That is the end point. Therefore, look unto Him. Always unto Him. Look around and He will be stressed. Look within and He will be stressed. Look at Him and be at rest. I don't object.

God knows the booklet of it. The way it slipped out, the sin, the regrets. I leave them all with Him. He blocks the passage and mercifully forgives and then forgives. I don't object. God sees all the creatures.

The rope that shuts all wrong will lead you home. And He will stay with me in every trial and therefore meet the burdens that may come. I don't object. I don't look around me. When you pierce the ceiling so wild that the jewels of earth rest the seas, so dark the world, so filled with woe and evil, so vain the hope of comfort and of peace.

I don't look in. For then am I most wretched. Myself have not on which to stay my presence. Nothing I see, save failures and shortcomings and weak and damaged, crumbling into dust. But I will persevere into the face of Jesus.

For there my heart can rest. My spirit and their joy and love and light for darkness and purpose peace and every hope fulfilled. Jesus was with me. He is with me and He will be with me. This world will be filled with the knowledge of God like the washcloth on the bottom of the sea.

These days when the saints in the new places embarrass and scare us, these are the days of what Jesus said, Look up! Your liberation is the ascension of heaven. Our outpouring goes beyond this world.