Tribulation — Corrie Ten Boom

Tribulation, Spiritual Warfare, and the Christian's Calling

I am born to speak tribulation, about the tribulation that there is in this time, many, many tribulations that I expect will come all over the world. Given your heart to Jesus, but your family does not agree, and you have to suffer for Jesus.

And I will talk about how to be strong, for that is very necessary. You see, when I think of the world of today, and I see two armies marching on, the army of Jesus Christ, and the last army of Satan, who is preparing for the time of the Antichrist.

Armies are strong. And you, who have chosen to be a soldier for Jesus, you are in Jesus' armor, and you stand, and you walk, and you live on victory ground. Because Jesus was victor, Jesus is victor, and he will be victor.

And Timothy 2, 3 is written, put up with your share of hardship, as a loyal soldier. I want to speak to the young people also tonight. If you have never done it before, I hope you will enroll in the army of Jesus tonight.

And when you do that, I will use you. There is no vision that people perish. We need vision, especially today. Now everything is so very mixed up, and so dark, and so terrible. When you see the news on the TV, when you read the newspapers, oh you tremble, when you see how terrible people are suffering and sinning, and how dark the world is.

Citizenship in Heaven and the Call to Salvation

Now it is so necessary that you and I get the real vision. We are citizens of heaven. Our outlook goes beyond this world, to the hopeful expectation of Jesus' coming. When you are not yet a citizen of heaven, when you have never received the Lord Jesus as your Savior, I hope and I pray that tonight you will say your yes to Jesus, that make the angels rejoice.

For your soul is very precious in God's eyes. Jesus loves you, and He will have your heart. And when you make a decision for Him, He is happy and the angels are happy, and you become a child of God. You may say to God, Father, and He says to you, my child.

And I have worked in sixty-two countries in these last twenty-six years, and I have never found anyone who said, I am sorry that I have received Jesus as my Savior. Nobody is sorry when He has done that.

For that is the great beginning of the riches of the Word of God, of the Bible. It is written in the Bible, persecution is inevitable for those who are determined to live really Christian lives. When you receive the Lord Jesus, I don't promise you that it will be an easy life.

It will be a victorious life, but it can mean suffering. And I am going to tell a little bit about that tonight. You know, it is so good that we understand God's plan with this world. God is so dark, so mixed up.

I have here an embroidery that is so ugly. It is just like the world history of now. It is just like that you read the newspapers, the magazines, that you see the TV. And this is also in our lives so often, that it is so dark, so mixed up, we do not understand.

And I learned in your country a little poem, my life is like a weaving between my God and me. I do not choose the colors, he works steadily. Of times he weaves sorrow, and I in foolish pride forget. He sees the upper island and the shuttle cease to fly.

Will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why? The dark threads are as needful in the skillful weaver's hands than the threads of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned. And that is not only for you and my life, but also for the whole life of the world.

God has no problems with his world, only plans. There is never a panic in heaven, Major Thomas has said. Isn't that a joy? As much as my strength could allow me, as much as the Lord told me, behind the Iron Curtain.

And it was a joy. Only to suffer a little bit persecution. I have here in my hand a book. What a book! For the truth in the hearts of men. Every human being has two great problems, the problem of sin and of death.

Christ's Victory Over Sin and Death

In that book you can read everything about Jesus Christ, who died at the cross for the sins of the whole world. Also for your sins. He solved, he carried out punishment. And not only that, he did not remain dead, he is alive.

And he is with us. And he fills our hearts with the Holy Spirit and makes us strong in our fight. Not against flesh and blood, but against the very representatives of the headquarters of evil. He makes us more than conquerors.

And Jesus gives us everlasting life. That is the answer for our death problem. And the great joy is that in this book is written that Jesus has said, Come unto me all. Also means you there. What a joy that we have a message for the world.

Jesus said, Come unto me all. That means that you and I have a message for all. Bishop Szabo, in a congress in Berlin years ago, he had been 17 years a bishop, had been sent away and he told us, we, clergy, happy and thankful that we could bring the gospel to all Chinese.

Look back on the 17 years that I worked in China, I neglected two important things. I did not do was to tell every lay person that he has to be a soul winner and a teacher of the Bible. I did not teach the lay people to have Bible books and prayer books in their homes.

Now there is no clergy. There are no churches in China. There are lay people who bring the gospel. There are prayer groups and Bible study groups. But we have failed. We have not taught it. The other thing is that we have not taught the people how to be strong in times of persecution.

Now there is persecution over whole China. We have not told them how to gather, to understand that we have to bring our spiritual riches. There will be starvation. In the times of abundance, has brought on very much of the abundance for the times that there was nothing.

Equipping Lay Christians for Persecution

He said we must bring, he said to us, you have still an opportunity. Your people, these two things first, filled with the Holy Spirit, the Lord will make an open channel of streams of living water. For he has said you are the light of the world, the salt of the earth.

And he will use everyone when he belongs to Jesus. Teach them how to study the Bible and teach the Bible. And the other thing, he said, tell the people how to become strong in times of suffering. I must tell you since then, I write always down when I find a word in the Bible about riches that we have for times of suffering and persecution.

And I hope you will do that too. There comes a time that we have no Bibles. I have seen so many, many people who have no Bibles. What a joy when we smuggled the Bibles and gave them one. But then it is so good when we know by heart.

I remember when my family and I went into prison because we had saved Jewish people in Holland. We all had a chapter, no, a page of the Bible somewhere hidden. And I asked my sister Nolly, say, what have you from the Word of God?

She said Ephesians 1. I said, oh, that's good. I asked Peter from Woden, my nephew, what did you take? He said Romans 8. And we all could only hide one page of the Bible. But what a joy that we had that.

Later I had the whole Bible, but in the beginning I had nothing else than that one page. There was one thing that people could not take away from me, and that was what I had learned by heart. The songs, the hymns that I was singing was when I was four months in solitary confinement.

Every morning I started to sing, stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the cross. After I had finished, I heard about four or five cells later the echo from someone who also sang, stand up, stand up for Jesus, you soldiers of the cross.

Every text that I knew by heart, I said it aloud so the others could hear it. I will now tell you some of the texts that I have written down in this time, and I advise you, write it down and learn it by heart, everything that could help you in times of persecution.

Memorizing Scripture for Times of Suffering

We will not fear even when the earth were removed and the mountains thrown in the depths of the sea. The hairs of our head are numbered. The spirit of fear, but the spirit of power. The spirit of future.

This will be difficult, difficult times. The joy that we received. What I said yesterday. In the name of your name and signed by Jesus Christ, and you must cash your checks. There was a missionary who went to China in the time that it was still possible.

It was already dangerous. And he asked her, aren't you afraid to go? I am afraid for only one thing, and that is that I should become a grain of wheat, not willing to die. Not willing to die, then there will be no fruit.

And then you say, oh, but I dare not. I have no strength. I have no courage. I had no strength. I had no courage. Remember that once I said to my father, Daddy, I was still a little girl, Daddy, I'm so afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus.

And father said, when you go on a trip with a train, when do I give you the money for the tickets for a train? Three months before. I said, no, Dad, the day that I go to travel. And Daddy said, that's what God is going to do with you.

Today you don't need strength to suffer for Jesus, but the moment that you have the honor and the opportunity to suffer for him, he will give you all the power that you need. You play with my dolls, and I forgot all martyrdom and persecution.

I was really comforted. Some of you have read my books, and then you have seen that God gave me power to suffer and really to go through difficult persecution. And now when there are here who say, oh, but I'm so afraid, I can never be in persecution and be victorious.

No, don't look unto yourself. Look unto Jesus. You know what I said? I believe I said yesterday, look around and be distressed. Look within and be depressed. Look at Jesus and be at rest. Look at Jesus and he will give you all the boundless resources that you need in his time.

For our times are in God's hands. And I see that the Lord is busy to prepare his children for the coming difficult time. So that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and a sound mind.

The Holy Spirit's Power and Love

To be filled with a spirit is not only that we have joy, or even that we have vision, but it is that we have the power, a spirit that is the great joy that I have not to try to be powerful, for I am not at all.

What I said yesterday, that the Spirit gives us love, love even for enemies. I could not do that. I could not give love for enemies. I could only hate them. But the Spirit in me gave me God's love. Romans 5 ,000, Hallelujah!

The love of God is set abroad into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. That is very important. Be filled with the Holy Spirit, because then you are filled with God's love. And you have the Spirit, not of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind.

The Courage of Persecuted Christian Children

Some weeks ago I got a letter from a missionary from Africa. And he wrote, Do you still remember, Corrie, how we worked in the boys' school? And I knew it. Ah, I experienced so much that many things I forget very quickly, but I will never forget that boys' school.

These boys were really so ready to give their lives as soldiers of Jesus. And he wrote, I have been killed. And he wrote about one boy. And that boy said, Oh, before you kill me, let me sing a song. And he sang, Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come.

And then he was shot. See, that happened some weeks ago. In that time that you had such a good breakfast, and you had such a joyful meeting here, and you had all the great blessings of a free country, that same time that boy there sang, Out of my bondage, Jesus, I come.

And he was shot. The body of Christ is suffering. Some people say 70 of the body of Christ is suffering, terrible persecution. We are one body of Christ. Do not be indifferent, but pray for the people behind the iron and the bamboo curtain.

And you must feel the pain that a part of the body of Christ is suffering so terribly. I was so glad that I could go to them and that I could really comfort many of them. I am so glad that I have written books.

Trusting God's Providence in Ministry

It is such a joy that we have to be ready, but our times are in God's hands. Some time ago I had a plan to go to Siberia, and I was very happy. I got ill, and the doctor said, You may not go to Siberia.

There is a great tension to be in these countries. And he was afraid that my heart was not strong enough. And I said, Lord, if that is your will, then I stay at home, but I am so sorry that exactly Siberia has such a warm spot in my heart.

But it was in God's hands, and do you know what happened? Some weeks later I got a letter from a pastor in Russia, and he wrote, Corrie, I just have been in Siberia, and do you know that all your books are smuggled into Siberia, and they are translating it, and you have touched more people with your books than you ever could have touched by coming.

I said, Thank you, Lord. You see, that is the joy when you see the pattern of God's plan. It is all so beautiful. And once we will see God's pattern, but now we must trust that our times are in God's hands.

But we must be willing to be used, even when it is difficult. A man from Sweden visited in Siberia. In spite of 53 years of persecution, the Christians in Siberia are living in victory. They take advantage of every good opportunity to proclaim the good gospel, the good news.

We were ashamed when we thought of our freedom and how often it is misused. We compared our Christian work in Sweden with the commandment that the Lord has given us to go out with the gospel. When we heard them pray, they did not pray at all for freedom or for release from difficulties, but only for power to endure to the end and power to walk the narrow way.

And for all the Russian people and all the children who are grown up and brought up in atheism, who have no opportunity to find the way to God, our Lord is able. And we heard many young people who had a motto, we have only one leader, and he is Jesus Christ.

That is the word that you can hear from the mouth of many young people in these countries, and that means that they cannot study and often they cannot get a job. It means suffering, great suffering. But the boundless resources of the Bible are available.

Preparing for the End Battle

But we must learn how to act on the word of God. We already learned it. I see that there is coming a terrific end battle between Jesus and the Antichrist. And Jesus will conquer. Every knee will bow for Jesus Christ.

But at the end battle, you and I will have to stand in the front line. And that will mean suffering. And we may not be afraid, for in that end battle we will experience that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind.

And when you have a difficult time at this time, when you have persecution, for many of us have a little bit, but it can be very dangerous, very difficult, I mean, when your family doesn't agree with you, with your follow-up Jesus, when you have in your school that the other boys and girls laugh because you are a follower of that Jesus, that means a little bit of persecution.

But don't be afraid, because it is a part of the training, the training for the great end battle. And in my little booklet, Training for the End Battle, Marching Orders for the End Battle, I tell a little bit of how I was in training.

It is so different when you understand a little bit of God's plan. When the devil tries to make you sin, then there comes temptation, and there is more than ever temptation in the lives of the children of God.

I think you have experienced that. I have more temptation than I have had in years, and I believe that is because we are in training for the great end battle. And an athlete does not complain when the training is hard, he thinks of the great sports day.

And you and I can think of the great future when Jesus will come and the kingdom of God will be on this world, the world of the future, will be covered with the knowledge of God like the waters cover the bottom of the sea.

And how it will be, I don't know. So I believe in all the prophecies of the Bible. I do not always understand them. But you must not be worried about when you do not understand the prophecies, but never throw them away.

I have had, for instance, in Ezekiel 38, that they will come on horseback from the north, and this time with tanks and not with horses. Ezekiel 37 went on a hook. I didn't weigh, but I had that hook. What did I read in the newspapers of the world?

Ezekiel 37 went from the hook. And you do not understand it. God's word is true. And what we do not understand is because we can only think with the wisdom of the wise, but there are two realms, the wisdom of the wise and the wisdom of God, the foolishness of God, that is the greatest wisdom.

And we may never bring the foolishness of God down in the realm of the wisdom of the wise, for then we make such terrible things as God is dead, and a terrible theology. But the Holy Spirit, he is the spirit of power and of wisdom, and he teaches us how to lift up the wisdom of the wise into the realm of the foolishness of God, that is the highest wisdom.

But that could be a whole talk in itself. I won't go on. But, you know, what the great joy that I have experienced when in my life I had to suffer terrible persecution was that I learned to know Jesus Christ better than ever before.

Knowing Christ Through Persecution

It was a man who was in prison and his hands were chained at the hands of the guards. He did not know what the enemy was intending to do with him. His name was Paul. And he wrote to his friends. You can read it in Philippians 3, 8, and I read it from the Amplified New Testament.

That man that was in danger of life and in terrible persecution, he wrote, I count everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, the supreme advantage of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord, and of progressively, more deeply, and ultimately getting acquainted with him.

And that man has written that and the little Corinthian woman can say the same. I have enjoyed it, that I learned to know Jesus Christ better than ever before, when my sister Betsy starved before my eyes, when I was surrounded by people who had had a training in cruelty.

But I knew that Jesus was with me. And I had always believed, but now I know from experience that Jesus' light is stronger than the deepest darkness. And now the Lord gave me a message for this world because everyone has to know that.

It is so good that we are citizens of heaven, that we have the outlook beyond this world. I once was in Russia and I gave a tract to a woman in my hotel room. The tract was the way of salvation. They were with two and that girl read it and she gave it back.

She would not take it for eternity. I never claimed so. Was that good? May you do that? I said, Lord, was that a wrong prayer? Was I allowed to claim the soul of that woman? Then I hurt myself in this prayer.

I always fear for you. Had you ever been frightened because of your own prayers? Oh, I stood, I trembled, was that wrong? And suddenly I knew it. The Bible says the earth is the Lord, the world and everyone who lives there.

And I said, thank you, Lord, although Russia belongs to that. We must think great. I stood once with Betsy together in a concentration camp in Holland and with me a whole bunch of men. We stood before the bunker and we did not know what was happening.

We had hoped that it meant that we were set free. But suddenly one of these men said, is there not one here who can pray? And Betsy said, yes, I can pray. But why do you ask that? Do you think that we are in danger?

He said, we are all in danger of life. We stand here because perhaps they will all kill us this same moment. And Betsy started to pray. I will never forget it. And she prayed for these people beside her and for me, for herself.

And she claimed the salvation of Jesus Christ. Oh, it was a beautiful prayer. And after she said amen, she started to sing a song. And that song was, let us think great of Jesus. Let us think, expect much of his love, his faithfulness.

A week, a whole week, some months died in prison because prison life was too hard. But Betsy had a vision, acquainted with him. She never makes a mistake. She was a citizen of heaven. Her outlook was beyond this world.

And that is what the Holy Spirit gives. That is the great joy that we can know God's plan. Once Brother Andrew wrote when he was in Moscow, I am so glad that I know that he that is in me is so strong.

It has tremendously comforted me. I traveled in all the communist countries, stood on the Red Square in Moscow. Tens of thousands of Red soldiers I saw marching with their missiles, singing and shouting, we are going to conquer the world.

I stood there alone. I could get scared. If I had not known scripture, he that is in you is stronger and greater than all the forces of the world. That's a good feeling. One man more than the whole Red Army.

It is good to know that. We have nothing to fear. For Jesus is victor. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 chapter, you have been eager to receive his gifts during this time of waiting for his final appearance.

Spiritual Gifts and the Endurance of Love

And I believe that's a message for you and me. We must be eager to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Why is it that so many people in many different churches get the gifts of the Spirit, also the gifts of tongues?

Why is that? Some years ago it was only the Pentecostal Church who knew about it, but now you hear it in all the official churches. Hallelujah. You know, I heard a little story. There was a missionary from England who was brainwashed in China.

They told him, you are a betrayer, and you have ammunition in your house. And he said, no, you are a spy, they said. He said, no, I am not. Oh, won't you tell that? All right, we have our way to make you confess.

And they did that terrible, devilish, satanic way of brainwashing this man. And there came a moment that he could not stand it any longer. You know, I must confess something that I have not done. Suddenly he started to speak in tongues.

And he was absolutely free. His subconsciousness was absolutely free the moment that he started to speak in tongues. Is that why God gives it to so many, many children of God? Let them be eager to receive his gifts during this time of waiting for his final appearance.

I have, but I have also seen. It's true what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. Love, God's love, still stands also when all else has fallen. Never forget that. Love still stands also when all else has fallen.

Following the Crucified Christ

Are you willing? Are you willing to suffer for Jesus? Emme Carmichael made a little poem. We follow a scarred captain. Shall we not have scars? When there is faultless order, we are going to the wars.

Lest we forget, Lord, when we meet. Show us your hands and feet. Jesus died for you at the cross. Are you ready to suffer for him? Do you ever realize how terrible the cross was? One of the most terrible things, the most cruel things I have experienced was when we had to stand naked.

They stripped us of all our clothing. We had to stand there for many hours. It was so, it was so cruel. And I remember the first time that it happened, I said, Betsy, I cannot bear this. I have never felt so cold, so ashamed, so miserable.

Suddenly it was as if I saw Jesus at the cross. And the Bible tells, they have taken his garments. He hanged there naked, and he hanged there for me. And by my own suffering, I understood a very little bit of the suffering of Jesus.

And it made me so thankful that I could bear my persecution. And I said, Betsy, Betsy, they have taken Jesus' garments. He hanged at the cross naked. Love so amazing, so divine, depends my life, my soul, my heart.

Look at the cross. And then you will be ready to suffer when the Lord calls you. There is a poem, where your anchor holds in the storms of life. Who needs an anchor? Hebrews 6, 18 is written, The certain hope of being saved is a strong and trustworthy anchor for connecting us with God himself behind the secret curtains of heaven where Christ has come already to plead for us from his position as our high Christian anchor.

I believe that water is an unstable element. A ship is always in that unstable element. And the anchor is fastened on the shore or on the depths. And the Christian's position in the world is unstable now like never before.

But the anchor reaches a stable environment of heaven. Will your anchor hold in the storms of life when the clouds unfold their wings of strife? When the strong tides lift and the cables strain, will your anchor drift or firm remain?

The soul, while the billows roll, fastened to the rock which cannot move, firm and deep in the same and may the love, the mercy, and power of Jesus Christ be with you during this perfect spiritual warfare.

The Lord wins and is able to hold you up and calls you to his presence.