Keep Looking to Jesus — Corrie Ten Boom

This is Tapes to Live By, tape number 530. Corrie Tinboon with the message originally delivered to the 1963 Pacific Palisades Conference, entitled, Keep Looking to Jesus.

Abiding in Jesus, the True Vine

I am the true vine, Jesus says, and my father is the husband man. Every branch in me that bears not fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he purges it. Then 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 the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. If a man abide 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 abide 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 ye 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, these 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, I read this from the translation of Philips, We are asking God that you may see things, as it were, from his point of view, by being given spiritual insight and understanding. We also pray that your outward lives, which men seek, 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 resources, 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 reestablished 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. It is very important which direction we look. This afternoon, or late afternoon, when we were sitting here together, someone said, we need a sense of direction.

Looking in the Right Direction

And I felt 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 the sense of direction, and how very needy it is to look in the right direction.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. This 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 truthful.

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 the grip of Christian science.

She was terrible rich. This is so difficult, you know. If you have very much money, you have not the money, the money has you. And I thought at the mountain that I cannot do. I can really not be moved.

And I looked into myself. And I didn't like to go to 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 him, and 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 it, I know it, but you must go and know I can do it.

And that is so awful. When I come to the Lord and say I can't do it, then it's just as if the Lord smiles. And He says, I know that already a long time, but I'm 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 much humor, also this tribute 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'm so glad that you know that you cannot do it. She said, yes, but we must do rather much. It is 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 vine, and you are the branch, and you are in Him, and He is in you, then you can do very much.

And the 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, the dear glove. You know, when she went on a little bit, she made a stab of complicated, and I said, I was in a high school or a college, and the young people had their slogan, and the slogan was, Peace, P-I-E-C-E.

And they meant with that, keep it simple, stupid. And when I said that to her, she started to laugh and to laugh, and the ice was broken. Yes, we make it all a little complicated. All that is complicated is from you and me and 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 had a very good talk, and I believe that she is on the right way.

Learning Dependence Through Failure

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

And when we have failed our examination, then the Lord says, Now I can use you. I heard William MacDonald say, the Lord had to teach Moses to be a nobody. He was forty years somebody, and then God made him forty years nobody, and then the Lord could use him for forty 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 learn it, that when I say, Oh Lord, I can't do it. And the Lord says, All right, I knew it already, but now I will do it.

Serving in the Strength of the Lord

I was in Argentina, 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 a tendency to run away and to go somewhere in a corner and to cry.

And I said, Lord, I cannot stay here for anything, this 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 went up and down, and then when the legs were up, then the diaphragm pushed 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 a little bit. And I said, no, Lord, I can't. The Lord said, you can't, cannot, but I can. And so I went in the strength of the Lord and in my own inability, and even talking with that man was difficult, because I had to look at him and then to look down and then to look up.

And that was so terrible. And my heart was full of pity with that man. But he was a Jew, and I told him of the Messiah, and then I said, sometimes our life is so, that we cannot understand. And then I had with me an embroidery, 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 prison, 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 that straining encroachment.

And I said, in that time, I had experienced a peace that passes all understanding. And I've always believed, but now I know from experience that Jesus' light is stronger than the deepest darkness, and that the giants of God cannot go so deep, always deeper 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 pride, forget he sees the other.

And I, the underside, not till the loom is silent and his shuttled feet to fly, will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why. The dark threads are as needful in the skillful weaver's hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pebble he has planted.

And I said, all the time that we see the wrong side, God sees his side. And God has planned no problems with our lives. There is never a panic in him. 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 that old, old story of Jesus and his love. And that man took his paper and he wrote down these words, Thanks God, I am already seeing the beautiful side.

Oh, what a miracle that that man saw already the beautiful side of his life when you are in Switzerland. 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 friends?

They 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 joy to know that we cannot do what he cannot do.

Oh, I was, I was so, I was, This paper, this is the paper what he wrote me, Thanks God, I feel 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.

Resisting Spiritual Pride

I don't know if you, our 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 it takes 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 Jesus.

So he starts already a little bit to slow down with his temptation. But you know that I have really in America, in the beginning especially, to get used of the way of introduction of these Americans. Why?

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 power in my beak. When we speak and there is a working of the Spirit of God, that is not my beak. That is the Spirit of God who does it.

But the devil tries to bring our eyes unto ourselves. People so often say to me, Corrie, I believe that your faith has carried you through the time that you were in a concentration camp. I was during the last World War a prisoner in Holland and in Germany.

In my book, A Prisoner in Gap, you can read about it. But when people say to me, was it 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 wavering.

And if you ask me the dimensions, it was even though coconut, it was a mystery. It was not the great faith. 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 that hell of Rathenburg. And that's good. For if 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 when I say it was Jesus, then the same Jesus who has carried me through, will carry you through. And in the Amplified New Testament, there is written in Philippians 3 .8, that Paul said when he was in a terrible prison, chained with his hands to the hand of a guard, night and day, and he said, I count everything as loss compared with the priceless privilege, the overwhelming victory, the preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and of 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 faith to see it. 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.

Jesus, the Author and Finisher of Faith

I had a jewelry store before the war. I was a watch repair. Sometimes I had in the store a new watch that didn't run well. I never repaired it, but I sent it back to the manufacturer and wrote him, sir, this new watch doesn't run exactly.

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 Jesus 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 pride, or I say, oh, my faith is nothing. That is the truth. It grows from the depth. But we mustn't look unto our faith, but unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.

It is very important which direction we look. I think you have all read the book of Bunyan, 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.

Looking Away From Sin to Jesus

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 just look down? And one of the tricks of the enemy is that he brings our eyes always to our sins.

The devil likes it. He makes us imprudent looking at our sins. But of course we must know our sins, but the great joy is that the Christian knows the answer to our sin problem. When we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins we confess.

He has never cleansed an excuse.

At this point please stop your machine and turn the tape over. The remainder of Corrie Ten Boone's message will be heard on side two.

Confession, Forgiveness, and Leaving Sin Behind

Do the things in the right direction, and then it does seem a little bit peculiar to you and me in heaven. You know, the reality is a trillion and more times greater than you created something. And that is that we don't know each other.

He has said, Moses and Elijah. Oh no, that's Moses and that's Elijah. How did he know that? And I will ask, Father, Daddy, do you remember that last night? I will ask, do you remember that these men not saw that evening?

No, I must say. Enter the beautiful city, and the saints all around you, and many of them will tell you it was you that invited me here. And you will say, how? When did I invite you for heaven? And you will find out that that was the time that you really looked unto Jesus.

So let us look unto Jesus, always look unto him, not unto ourselves, even not unto our sins. I am so glad that the Bible tells us what Jesus does with our sins. And we repent of our sins. The Bible speaks about glopping out like clouds as far as the east is from the west, throwing them over the shoulder into the depths of the sea, forgotten and forgiven.

And I am sure Jesus put a sign, no fishing allowed. What Jesus does with our sins. Now we have to understand, an unconfessed sin is still alive. But a confessed sin is dead. Skip the burial. And you don't go 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 forgive you.

Just give me this. And she took these pieces in the garbage can. The next day the stupid little girl saw these 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, leave them in the garbage can. Just think of my forgiveness. I was impatient time ago. There was a lady I didn't like. And I was unkind and impatient. She had a way of doing that really that made me impatient.

In the evening, suddenly I remembered it. Impatience is a great thing. I said, oh, Father, forgive me in Jesus' name that I'm impatient. The next morning, in my quiet time, again I remembered that impatience.

Before I knew what I did, I said, Father, yesterday I met Jesus so and so and I was so unkind and so impatient. Will you please forgive me? Oh, thank you, Father, that you forgave me last night. I almost asked for the second time forgiveness for the same sin that shouldn't have almost got me.

When God said, I'm faithful and just to forgive you. And He did. Of course, I had to do something else. I had to go to Mr. Ossoff and tell him that I was sorry. But I had not to ask forgiveness for the second time.

I use sometimes this phrase. 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 either you give me a cup of coffee. But should this honor you as my host?

I honor you when I drink the coffee and perhaps when I say, boy, what a good coffee, almost as good as the Dutch coffee. Now, when God says, I am faithful and just to forgive you, then He means it. And you may praise and thank for forgiveness.

Keeping Jesus in Focus

Oh, when we look unto the Lord, God's healing is unlimited. And we get victory out of focus as soon as our eyes are turned away from Jesus. Do you know what I mean? Are you a photographer? When I have my camera, I must turn and move until the thing that I don't take a photo of is in focus.

Now, when we look away from Jesus, the victory gets out of focus. And our iniquity hinders us to look at Him. Therefore, it is also very important that we look, that we have a clean heart. When there are sinful passions in our heart, we should get rid of them.

And you know, I read somewhere, I looked at Jesus 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. Look unto our experiences.

Too many experiences are very important, but we must look unto the Lord. This is something that Americans speak very often about. I feel that, I feel this, sometimes I use the illustration of what I experienced in New Zealand.

Trusting God's Word Above Feelings

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 darker field, and I was in camp. And he wrote, Corrie, you must come here on Monday for there is a revival here and I must go to another town.

Now, I had that week free. So, I put the two together and did the whole week in a darker field. But I found out that it should take me about nine hours in a car to come there in time. The highways were very winding roads, winding, winding roads, with many curves.

So, I thought I must have a talk with my heavenly Father. I said, Father, I cannot go much faster. 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 there came a man to me and said, say, is that true that you must be on Monday in a darker field and Sunday you sleep here? I said, that's right. How are you going to go? I said, by plane.

He said, there is no airline to a darker 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 to make a great miracle, you must hand God your impossibilities.

And God knows that I cannot go by car. Revived people need a strong message. And then I must physically be relaxed. He said, now that's very interesting. You know, I work in a top dressage firm. Ever heard of top dressage?

I haven't. I thought it was the icing on the cake. But that is not it. It is what you call crop 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 must be in a darker field on Monday, then he can use one of my airplanes. I said, thank you, Father. He said, but my boss is concerned about the pilots. He is a back flight. 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 this small airplane, I had seen in my life there was not much room for God is at home. I was sitting very close to the pilot. And in my hand 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 dies? I have five little children. When I saw my wife die, I said, that can't be a God of love. And I thrown away all religion.

Then I told him, my wife, why has God allowed that my old father dies alone in a prison when in the same building all his children were in a grand prison. And fifty of our friends were there and he did not allow us to go to the dying old man.

So I had begged to my sister to suffer in three prisons before he died. One week before I was set free. I 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 this time is not worthy to be compared with the present Lord. And those who love God, all things work for the best.

And 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 that these things are true. He said, by the way, I must interrupt our conversation.

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

And if you will control me, 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 plane is straight. So don't be afraid when you feel that you go to one side.

As I said, man, that's the best illustration you can give me. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are received. My warrant is the word of God. None else is worth believing. This is my instrument.

When I pilot my life, the plane of my life on this book, then I am saved in the hands of Jesus. I am glad that I can tell you that He came to us Jews. Yes, let us look unto Jesus. In that plane, New Zealand, you have sometimes very primitive bridges.

Sometimes before we went with the car over the bridge, we just left the car and examined the bridge. If it was strong enough to carry the car. We didn't examine our faith in the bridge. We examined the bridge.

We see that it is not that we must look unto our faith in Jesus. We must look unto Jesus. It is He who carries us. And our faith is also in His hands. And you know, when we go with our hands in Jesus' hands and we look unto Him, then we are so relaxed.

Resting in Jesus Rather Than Balancing in Fear

Though some Christians are always so between hope and fear balanced. They are like a tiger of walkers. Going from the past to the future over a road. Balancing between hope and fear. In one hand, a sect with an indigested past.

In the other hand, a sect with an anticipated 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's what Jesus did. When we look unto Him, that's a damn good. Therefore look unto Him. Always unto Him. Look around and be distressed. Look within and be depressed. Look at Him and be at rest.

I don't do that. God knows the fruitless efforts. The wasted hours. The stimming. The regrets. I leave them all with Him. He blocks the records and mercifully forgives. And then, for them. I don't look forward.

God sees all the future. The road that short or long will lead me home. And He will face with me in every trial. And bear for me the burdens that may come. I don't look around me. When you fierce assailant.

So wild is the cure of earth's restless seeds. 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 breath.

Nothing I seek save failures and shortcomings. And weak endeavors. Crumbling into dust. But I look up. Into the face of Jesus. For there my heart can rest. My fears are still. And there is joy. And love.

And life for darkness. And birth of peace. And every hope fulfilled. Hallelujah. Jesus was filled. Is filled. And Jesus will be filled. And the best is yet to be. This world will be filled with the knowledge of God.

Like the waters cover the bottom of the sea. And these days when the things in the newspapers embarrass and scare us. These are the days of what Jesus said. Look up. Your liberation is near. We are citizens of heaven.

Our hope to go beyond this world.