INTRODUCTION TO CORRIE'S LETTER
Corrie Ten Boom on
the Rapture of the Church.
INTRODUCTION TO CORRIE'S LETTER
Corrie Ten Boom's letter of 1974 is shown below and in THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO. She comments on the Pre-Tribulation Rapture view which is popular today. She relays a word of warning to us in the West from the Suffering Church in China. She exhorts us to prepare ourselves spiritually in Christ, in His Holy Word, and by His Holy Spirit for the coming trials of our faith. She tells of the Chinese Church in a former time being misinformed, unwarned, and ill-prepared for he persecutions that began in 1949 under Mao Tse Tung's Red Guards. In this letter Corrie warns that Christians in the West today are in danger of falling into a similar disaster born of ecclesiastical neglect and the resultant spiritual unpreparedness. Corrie, in classic Dutch directness plainly states that those who teach a Pre-Tribulation Rapture are among the false teachers Jesus warned us about. See Mat.24:4-5).
Jesus went on to say that towards the end of this age His followers would be called upon to take the stand for Him. They would testify before kings and rulers. See Luke 21:12-19. However today's indulged Western Christians don't seem to have considered that the people Jesus was referring to might be them.
So Corrie's message here is "a word to the wise". It should be regarded by all serious Christians as crucially important information. Without this "heads-up" Christians in the West will be left unprepared. They are unwittingly being set up for a fall, even a Great Falling Away or a Great Apostasy.
This is most unfortunate. We serve a loving God who has promised to keep His covenant people from the wrath to come. But He does tell them that 'in this world you will have tribulation' which is entirely different.
Christian believers in China and elsewhere know and understand these things implicitly. They understand and accept blood covenant Christianity. These dear saints have entered into a serendipity. It is something which we in the Western Laodicean Church know little about right now. But our brothers and sisters in the Suffering Church over in places abroad are traveling up on that higher pathway, that Highway of Holiness. (Isa. 35) Theses dear saints are not trying to avoid the Way of the cross. So, why should we be angry at this message or offended by this High Calling?
The wonderful testimony of Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsy was this.
"There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."
and
"God will give us the love to be able to forgive our enemies".
Like King David Corrie testifies of the wonderful presence of God in times of trial and testing. He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. The bread and the wine of the Eternal Covenant is presented there on the table before us. A true bride is more than just a passive purchased concubine. She is vitally involved in the covenant issues of her Family, the Covenant People of the God of Israel. A true bride will not balk at the bridal witness. She will sign on with her Bridegroom and stand as witness to Him, come what may.
This is a devotional matter of the heart first and foremost. It is not just a matter of the intellect. The true Bride of the Lamb will take the cup and drink it with thr One she loves. The Bride co-signs the marriage document along with her Bridegroom. Then she goes on to seal it in the devotion to which she may be called. She does not know what her future may hold from that point on. This is the ultimate reality of the Christian faith, the high adventure, and the true romance of the high calling. This happens before she is snatched away in the harpazo to arrive at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And so she enters the mansions of glory in the New Jerusalem with her Bridegroom. Our God is faithful. And the lovingkindness He extends towards His covenant people is from everlasting to everlasting.
Here is Corrie's letter.
Her message has been entitled,
"PREPARED FOR THE COMING TRIBULATION".
We might also entitle it,
"The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.
'CORRIE TEN BOOM AND THE RAPTURE'.
- (This is from a letter Corrie wrote in 1974)
Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world.
And because of our presence here, things will change.
My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room.
We may have been the Lord's only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We too, are to be overcomers bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate.
Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I can now come to shouting "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" for I have found where it is written that Jesus said,
"He that overcometh shall inherit all things:This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.
and I will be His God,
and he shall be My son."
Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick.
"Yes, the Lord will heal me,", Betsy said with confidence.
She died the next day and I could not understand it.
They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day.
It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.
There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints are already suffering terrible persecution.
In China, the Christians were told, "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated raptured." Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,
"We have failed.I feel I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it.
We should have made the people strong for persecution,
rather than telling them Jesus would come first.
Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution,
how to stand when the tribulation comes,
to stand and not faint."
Since I have already gone through prison for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of tribulation." Then I write it down and learn it by heart.
When I was in the concentration camp, a camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.
"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;I found myself saying, "Hallelujah!
for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you;
on their part evil is spoken of,
but on your part He is glorified."
(I Peter 3:14)
In America, the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation", but in China and Africa the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred thousand Christians were martyred in Africa. Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to escape the tribulation.
Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the district were being systematically murdered.
The fourth day I was to speak in a little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking, "Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the next one?"
The room was hot and stuffy with insects that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.
"When I was a little girl, " I said, "I went to my father and said,
"Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."
"Tell me," said Father,
"When you take a train trip to Amsterdam,
when do I give you the money for the ticket?
Three weeks before?"
"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train."
"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength.
Our Father in Heaven knows when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ.
He will supply all you need just in time
"
My African friends were nodding and smiling.
Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began singing,
" In the sweet, by and by,Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed.
we shall meet on that beautiful shore."
But I must tell you something. I was so happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.
How can we get ready for the persecution?
First we need to feed on the Word of God, digest it, make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work in our lives.
Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History,
but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive
and sitting at the right hand of God.
We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is no optional command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without it.
In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage each other.
But we must not wait until the tribulation comes before starting.
The fruit of the Spirit should be the dominant force of every Christian's life.
Many are fearful of the coming tribulation, they want to run.
I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that after all my eighty years,
including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that I might have to go through the
tribulation also.
But then I read the Bible and I am glad.
When I am weak, then I shall be strong, the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not once has He ever left me, or let me down.
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him", (Job 13:15)for I know that to all who overcome,
- Corrie Ten Boom - 1974
I got this letter from the Jesus is Lord website who in turn got it from the Liberty To The Captives Website who got it from a post on the Hiding Place discussion forum. Part of the letter appears in the book "When Jesus Returns" by British evangelist and Bible teacher David Pawson. It is the highlighted section on page 199 copied from the book in the image below.
Miss Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch survivor of the Nazi
Concentration Camps. Her family had hidden Jews during the German occupation of Holland.
For this they had been captured and sent off.
Corrie was the only one to come out alive.
Corrie was just one of the many evangelical Christians sent to
concentration camps during the World War II.
Her life hung in the balance during an ordeal that went on for years.
But God was with her. Her faith was preserved in and through those terrible trials.
She lived to testify all over the world of how God kept her
in, through, and out of that time of tribulation.
Corrie and her sister Betsy made this wonderful discovery.
"There is no pit so deep
Corrie was finally released because of a typographical error.
Corrie Ten Boom has become a beloved light bearer for evangelicals around the world.
In her worldwide travels Miss Ten Boom met with many Christians abroad.
Many in the Suffering Church were enduring persecution just as she had.
She met with Church leaders of the underground church in China.
There she became aware of what had happened to the Chinese church in 1949.
At that time Mao Tse Tung was bringing China into communism.
The American missionaries had left the country.
Chinese Christians entered into a time of intense persecution.
During that period the Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine had been the accepted teaching.
But there was a problem. And it turned out to be a serious one.
This Biblically unfounded doctrine had not prepared the Chinese Church for witness under trial.
Christian believers were interrogated and brutalized under the Red Guard.
Many fell away from the faith in those times.
Other Christians found the promised
spiritual reserves.
They endured these tribulations and came through victorious.
The Chinese experience with Pre-Tribulation Rapture doctrine is a telling one.
And it has been found wanting!
The Chinese Church leaders asked Corrie to bring a word of warning to the Christians in the West.
Corrie knew her Jesus in a deep and personal way. She also knew her Bible very well.
Her life of victorious witness under persecution demonstrated and burned into her soul the truths found in its pages.
The life and witness of Corrie Ten Boom is a rare example of a true saint.
Here we see an otherwise ordinary modern Christian who embraced
blood covenant devotion in the midst of great trials to emerge as an overcomer.
Corrie's conviction that the pre-tribulation rapture eschatology was a false doctrine did not come by accident.
Her life experience and a plain reading of the Holy Scriptures had led her
to uphold the traditional Pre-millennialist view of a
Post Tribulation Resurrection-Rapture.
This is the view that was held by the
early Church fathers and by the saints down through 2,000 years.
The letter Miss Boom wrote in 1974 has been entitled "Prepared for the Coming Tribulation".
Bible believing Christians in the west are wise to pay close attention here.
In such a situation our faith will surely be put to the test.
So Corrie's message is a timely warning to the comfortable western church.
The
end time drama will not be all darkness, gloom and hopelessness as we have been told.
Joel saw the Holy Spirit climaxing in a true and genuine
end time revival. (Joel 2:28-32)
The Tribulation saints will tested and
exiled. And yet even in the Valley of Achor, (valley of tribulation and trial"),
they will find themselves being mysteriously drawn in a great serendipity into the divine romance.
So this message to the western church is exceedingly important.
Corrie Ten Boom has presented it with the straightforward and honest candor our Dutch brethren are known for.
This is extremely rare in the merchant church that controls the
information these days.
Carnal Christians may be offended by this word of exhortation.
that the Presence of God is not there with us".
For this slip-up to occur in the highly efficient Gestapo was surely a miracle.
The definitive book that tells her story is called, 'The Hiding Place'.
It is available on
this video.
Here is her story on
Wikipedia.
She is a shining example of a Western Evangelical Christian who was tested under fire.
She was proven and refined in the crucible of history. And she came through as gold.
In this capacity Corrie Ten Boom has earned the right to be heard.
She is eminently qualified to present this special word of warning to the Western Church.
(See the wonderful video
'China Cry' by tested and proven Chinese overcomer Mrs. Nora Lam.)
You will look for that doctrine in China today, and you will not find it.
It is extinct, ...... as dead as the Dodo bird.
It seems that this shameful
escapist doctrine has been tried in the crucible of history.
Responsible evangelicals realize that our present religious freedom will not remain forever.
And so we now bring Miss Corrie Ten Boom's critically important message to the Western Church.
It is a message we can ill afford to ignore.
In this letter she expressed a plea.
She exhorts Christian believers to
prepare themselves in Christ.
The present
political cover we have taken for granted will not be with us forever.
And one
autumn day we may wake up to a different world, even a
New World Order.
On that day the
trumpets will be sounding on an epic day of celebration and alarm.
If we are not forewarned and forearmed we might not be prepared for the trials.
Christians not rooted and established in the faith could be offended, and many probably will be.
Our Apostle Paul prophesied a
great apostasy, a great 'falling away' from the faith. (2Thes.2:3)
The complacency and materialism we see today are the characteristics of the lukewarm
Laodicean Church.
Jesus said that He would spew that church out of His mouth. (Revelation 3:16)
And yet this is the very church He is inviting to sit down and sup with Him!
The God of Israel, through His prophet Hosea, has made this declaration concerning His true bride,
"I will give her her vineyards from there,
John saw this glorious company arrayed in white robes and standing before the throne.
They were victorious after all! John saw them emerge as overcomers in
blood covenant devotion to the Lamb. (Rev. 7:9-17 & 15:2-4)
And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope;
She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt."
(Hos 2:15)
Miss Boom's message of warning and encouragement is set forth below.
Many just don't want to hear such messages and denounce them "negative"..
But the woman of wisdom is still crying out in the streets. (Prov.1)
Unfortunately, most of those who pass by are just not listening.
But the true saints will pay attention and discern the spirits here.
These are the
wise virgins, out finding the oil of the Holy Spirit.
They are preparing their lamps against the
coming night.
And they, at least, deserve to know the truth.
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