I am going to speak about tribulation tonight,
about the tribulation that there is in this
time for the children of God in many,
many countries, and the tribulation that I expect
will come all over the world.
But also there is tribulation for you, several
of you who have 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, then I see two armies marching
on, the army of Jesus Christ and the
army of Satan, who is preparing for the
time of the Antichrist.
Both 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.
2 Timothy 2, 3 is written, Put up
with your share of hardship as a loyal
soldier in Christ's arms.
And I am going 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, then the Lord
will use you.
We all need vision.
When there is no vision, the people perish.
And 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.
And 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.
And 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, 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, for 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.
There 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.
The world 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, and I the underside.
Not till the loom is silent 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?
And I have worked as much as my
strength could allow me, as much as the
Lord told me behind the Iron Curtain.
I worked in Cuba, and it was a
joy.
But I had really to suffer a little
bit persecution.
Oh, people, I have here in my hand
a book.
What a book!
It almost bursts of good news.
In this book is the answer for the
two paramount problems in the hearts of men.
Every human being has two great problems, the
problem of sin and of death.
And here is the answer.
For in this book you can read everything
about Jesus Christ, who died at the cross
for the sins of the whole world, also
for your sins.
And when he died at the cross, he
solved our sin problem, for he carried our
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.
And all, that also means you there.
That good, what a joy, that we have
a message for the world.
Oh, Jesus said, Come unto me all.
That means that you and I have a
message for all.
I once met Bishop Szabo in a congress
in Berlin years ago.
He had been 17 years a bishop in
China.
And there he had been sent away, and
he told us, We, clergy, are so happy
and thankful that we could bring the gospel
to our fellow Chinese people.
We have brought the gospel, but when I
look back on the 17 years that I
worked in China, I neglected two important things.
The first thing 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 groups and prayer groups 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
told the people how to be strong in
times of persecution.
Now there is persecution over whole China for
all the Christians.
We have not told them how to gather
power, how to understand that we have to
bring our spiritual riches for times that there
will be starvation.
Like Joseph.
Joseph, in the times of abundance, has brought
on very much of the abundance in the
barns for the times that there was nothing.
And he said, we must bring our...
He said to us, you have still an
opportunity.
And teach your people these two things.
First, that every Christian 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
all these 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.
For it is possible that there comes a
time that we have no Bibles.
I have seen so many, many people who
had 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, she, what
have you from the word of God?
She said, Ephesians 1.
I said, oh, that's good.
I asked Peter van Gooden, 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.
And 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 that 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.
We will not fear even when the earth
will be moved and the mountains thrown in
the depths of the sea.
The hairs of our head are numbered.
God has not given us a spirit of
fear, but a spirit of power, of love,
and my opinion, whatever we may have to
go through now is nothing compared with the
magnificent future.
God has, can you understand what such texts
can help you when times will be difficult?
And you who have now a difficult time,
find your strength in the boundless resources of
the Bible for it is a joy that
there is so much good news.
What I said yesterday, this is a book
full of texts written on 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,
are you afraid to go?
She said, I am afraid for only one
thing, and that is that I should become
a grain of wheat not willing to die.
Are you that?
Are you a grain of wheat 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.
Oh, mother, I had no strength, I had
no courage.
I remember that once I said to my
father, Debbie, I was still a little girl,
Debbie, I am so afraid that I will
never be strong enough to be a martyr
for Jesus.
And father said, Corrie, listen, when you go
on a trip with a train, when do
I give you the money for the tickets
for your train?
Three months before?
I said, no, dad, the day that I
go to travel.
And Debbie 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.
Now, I just went to 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 am 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.
Don't forget that God has not given us
a spirit of fear, but a spirit of
power, of love, and a sound mind.
To be filled with a spirit is not
only that we have joy, or that we
have vision, but it is that we have
the power, a spirit of power and of
courage.
And that is the great joy that I
have not to try to be powerful, or
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, 5, 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.
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, all these boys 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, sorrow and night, 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.
And we are one body of Christ, and
we must 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.
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
that I could go, but then 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 wrong 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 wrote after a visit
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.
Pray for them 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
as 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.
But we must learn how to act on
the word of God.
You must now already learn 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 you,
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 of 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 sinning,
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.
This world 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 there will come a big army on
horseback from the north, an army on horseback,
and this time armies come with tanks and
not with horses.
So Ezekiel 37 went on a hook.
I didn't throw it away, but I had
that hook.
What did I read in the newspapers?
That Russia had bought 70% of all
the horses of the world for his army.
Ezekiel 37 went from the hook.
Just to the same.
But you do not understand it.
God's word is true.
And what we do not understand it, 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, 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.
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 hero, Paul, 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.
You know, 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.
It was a tract in the Russian language.
I was sorry.
Lord, I claimed the soul of that woman
for eternity.
Then I was afraid.
I had never claimed a soul.
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?
And then I heard myself saying this prayer,
Lord, I claim whole Russia for you.
I said, Lord, oh, have you ever been
frightened because of your own prayer?
Oh, I stood, I trembled.
I said, Lord, did you give me that
prayer?
Oh, Lord, 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 of Jesus.
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 expect much of his love, his
faithfulness, his power.
That was Betsy, a weak woman, so weak
that she after some months died in prison
because prison life was too hard.
But Betsy had a vision.
She saw Jesus.
She was acquainted with him who has all
the power and 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 travelled 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 1.7, you
have been eager to receive his gifts during
this time of waiting for his final appearance.
And I believe that is 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.
And he knew, now 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?
That they be eager to receive his gifts
during this time of waiting for his final
appearance.
I have seen suffering.
But I have also seen that it is
true what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13.
Love, God's love, still stands also when all
else has fallen.
Never forget that.
God's love still stands also when all else
has fallen.
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 born
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 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.
And 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, demands 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.
Will your anchor hold 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 our souls, connecting us with God
himself behind the secret curtains of heaven where
Christ has gone already to plead for us
from his position as our high priest.
Who needs an 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 depth and a strong bottom.
And the Christian's position in the world is
unstable now like never before.
But the anchor reaches in the 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?
We have an anchor that keeps the soul
steadfast and sure while the billows roll, fastened
to the rock which cannot move, grounded firm
and deep in the Savior's love.
And may the love, the mercy and power
of Jesus Christ be multiplied to you during
these days of titanic spiritual warfare.
The Lord wins and is able to hold
you up and cause you to triumph in
all situations that you may face.
Hallelujah.
Jesus is victor.