The next morning, Sunday, I spoke in a beautiful church which was filled with the most prominent people in Havana. As I entered the imposing building, I was given a copy of the parish magazine which had been handed to all the other people. In it I read an introductory article about my ministry. It said: “Corrie ten Boom is a most popular world evangelist…. She is tireless and completely selfless in her absolute dedication to the cause of the gospel.”
Oh, Lord, I thought, if only these people knew who the real Corrie ten Boom is, they would not have come out this morning to hear me.
Tell them, the Lord answered immediately.
By that time I was seated on the platform looking out over the sea of faces before me. But, Lord, if I tell them, they will reject me.
Can I bless a lie? the Lord asked me in my heart. I can only bless the truth. You do want My blessing, don’t you?
Then it was time for me to speak. The gracious minister gave a flowery introduction and asked me to come to the pulpit. Before I could give my message, however, I knew what I had to do.
Reading first from the parish paper, I then said, “Sometimes I get a headache from the heat of the halo that people put around my head. Would you like to know what Corrie ten Boom is really like?”
Then I told them what happened the evening before—how my own sleep had been more important in my eyes than the salvation of young people.
“That,” I said, “was Corrie ten Boom. What egotism! What selfishness! But the joy is that Corrie ten Boom knew what to do with her sins. When I confessed them to the Father, Jesus Christ washed them in His blood. They are now cast into the deepest sea and a sign is put up that says NO FISHING ALLOWED. Corrie ten Boom is lazy, selfish and filled with ego. But Jesus in Corrie ten Boom is just the opposite of all these things.”
Then I waited. Surely now that the congregation knew what kind of person I was, they would no longer want to hear me. Instead, I sensed them all leaning forward, eager to hear what I might say. Instead of rejecting me, they accepted me. Instead of a beautiful church with prominent members and a popular world evangelist, we were all sinners who knew that Jesus died to lift us out of the vicious circle of ego into the light of His love.
God had blessed the truth!
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Luke 19:10
16
Checkpoint Charlie
Conny and I stood in line, along with other people, outside Checkpoint Charlie, the gate for foreigners into East Berlin. Many of those in line were Dutch, and I saw they were being passed without difficulty.
Everything seemed routine: Hand your passport to a guard, walk down the line, and receive your passport back with a stamp that allowed you to spend the one day in East Berlin. I hoped it would be as easy for us when it was our turn to be checked.
Finally we were in front of the window. The guard looked at our passports, looked in a book and then turned and said something to another man behind him.
“Is there a problem?” I asked the man.
He turned and gave me a stern look. “Come with me,” he said, motioning for Conny and me to follow him into a small room to one side.
We were questioned, and then they opened my handbag. There they found two books. One of them was one of my books which had been published in East Germany. The other was a copy of Billy Graham’s Peace With God which had also been translated into German.
The officer picked up Billy Graham’s book and shouted, “What? A book by that machine gun of God!”
I laughed. “I like the name you give to Billy Graham. I will tell him what you called him the next time I see him—God’s Machine Gun. However, if I am not allowed to take the books with me into East Berlin, I will just give them to you, and you can let us go on.”
“Oh, no,” he said sternly, “it is not that easy. First, we have to write up your deposition.”
He searched me to see if I had hidden more books before he began his inquisition. I did not like his rough, crude manner and told him so.
“I really feel as if I am in the hands of the Gestapo again,” I said.
“No,” he said, abashed, “I am no Gestapo.”
“You surely have the same manners,” I said bluntly.
He softened his approach but still kept us in the inquisition room for more than three hours. A woman typist copied everything I said and wrote it into a “protocol.”
I learned that my name was on the blacklist for East Germany, which was the reason I was being so thoroughly questioned. However, I was primarily upset because we had only a few hours to visit the Christians in East Berlin, and our time was being wasted here in the guard station.
“Lord,” I complained silently, “why are You keeping us here when we need to be about Your business in East Berlin?”
Then slowly it came through my stubborn Dutch mind that God had us in the guard office for a purpose. He not only loved the Christians in East Berlin; He loved these Communist guards also—the officer and the uniformed typist.
What a sad mistake we sometimes make when we think that God only cares about Christians. Although God desires that all people become Christians, He does not love one group more than another. In fact, it was for the world that God gave His only begotten Son, and Jesus Himself said He had not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentence (see Matt. 9:13).
I remembered the words of Jesus when He said, “You will be led before kings and governors for My name’s sake. This will be a time, an opportunity, for you to bear testimony. Resolve and settle it in your minds, not to meditate and prepare beforehand how you are to answer.” (See Matt. 10:18–19.)
Suddenly my attitude toward the officer changed. Instead of an enemy, I saw him as one of those for whom Christ died. Now I answered every question, testifying of my faith in Jesus. It became almost a kind of game.
I asked the officer, “Do you ever read the Bible?”
“No, I am a Marxist,” he said stubbornly.
“The Bible was written especially for Marxists,” I said. “It says that God so greatly loved the Marxists that He gave His only begotten Son so that any Marxist who believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Both the officer and the woman typist were listening with serious faces. I went ahead to talk about the two problems of the human race—sin and death—and stated that the Bible gives us the answer to these problems by telling us about Jesus.
“Why don’t you keep my books and read them?” I said. “I will be glad to autograph my book for you, and the book by Billy Graham will answer many of your questions.”
“Must I read it?” the officer said.
“It will not do you any harm,” I laughed.
The officer laughed too, but then, catching himself, became very serious and businesslike again.
“I see, Fraulein, that you are carrying chocolate with you? What is your reason?”
“I am taking it for the minister’s children in East Berlin. Don’t you bring chocolate with you when you visit a family with children?”
“No, I take flowers with me,” he said seriously.
“Flowers are nice for parents, but children prefer chocolate. Besides, I often preach about chocolate.”
“What crazy people we have here today,” the officer said. “You carry books by a man who talks like a machine gun and then tell me you preach about chocolate. Tell me, what kind of sermon do you get from a chocolate bar, old woman?”
“Several years ago,” I answered, “I spoke to a group of Germans who prided themselves as intellectuals. They would not receive me because they felt that they were more profound in their theology than I. So my last time with them I brought them all some Dutch chocolate. Since chocolate was very rare after the war, they eagerly accepted my gift. Later, when I stood to speak to them, I told them, ‘No one has said anything to me about the chocolate.’
“They disagreed, saying that they had all thanked me for it.
; “ ‘I did not mean that,’ I said. ‘I mean no one questioned me about it. No one asked whether it had been manufactured in Holland or Germany; what quantities it contained of cocoa, sugar, milk or vitamins. Instead of analyzing it, you just ate it.’
“Then I picked up my Bible and said, ‘It is the same with this Book. If you try to analyze it as a book of science or even a book of theology, you cannot be nourished by it. Like chocolate, it is to be eaten and enjoyed, not picked apart bit by bit.’”
I stopped talking and noticed once again that the officer and the typist were deeply interested in what I was saying. Then the officer straightened up, cleared his throat and said to the typist, “Please type Fraulein ten Boom’s protocol, and we will let her pass.” With that he stood and left the room, never looking back.
I sat quietly while the typist finished typing her report. Moments later the officer was back. He pulled the paper from the typewriter and read aloud. “When in prison Corrie ten Boom received from God the commission to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ over the whole world. Her church has taught her to bring chocolate when she visits families with children.”
The officer nodded and excused himself, saying he had to read it to his superior officer before I could be approved for entrance into East Berlin. While he was gone, I talked with the typist, urging her to accept Jesus as her Lord. She listened intently, reading through some of the pages in my book. However, when the officer returned, she straightened up and returned to her typewriter.
I handed Billy Graham’s book to the officer. “Sir, be sure and take this book by God’s Machine Gun home with you. It will change your life.”
He tried to look severe, but behind his eyes I could sense both hunger and thirst. Without saying a word he took the book and slipped it into his briefcase. He handed my book to the typist and motioned her to put it in her purse. Then he opened the door and pointed in the direction of East Berlin. “I am sorry to have detained you so long, Fraulein,” he said. “But what we have been doing here is even more important than your visit to your friends.”
I shook his hand, and Conny and I entered the Communist city, wondering if the officer actually realized the truth of his last statement. What we had to do in East Berlin was important, but even more important was bringing the good news of Jesus to those who walk in darkness.
If you are reproached for being Christ’s followers, that is a great privilege, for you can be sure that God’s Spirit of glory is resting upon you.
1 Peter 4:14, PHILLIPS
17
Facing Death
Watchman Nee once said, “When my feet were whipped, my hands suffered pain.”
Christians all over the world are bound together as the body of Christ. Many Americans, in particular, do not realize it, but a part of that body is suffering the most terrible persecution and tribulation in the history of mankind. If we are members of that same body—and we are—then we must suffer with them, pray for them, and where it is possible, help them.
I remember hearing of a missionary, a single woman, who turned her back on all her possessions at home and went to China. “Are you not afraid?” a friend asked as she prepared to board the ship. “I am afraid of only one thing,” she said, “that I should become a grain of wheat not willing to die.”
How much more like Christ that is than the churches who gather at Thanksgiving to sing: “Let thy congregation escape tribulation!”
Several years ago I was in Africa in a little country where an enemy had taken over the government. There was great oppression against the Christians by the new government. The first night I was there, some of the native Christians were commanded to come to the police station to be registered. When they arrived, they were arrested, and during the night, they were secretly executed.
The next day the same thing happened with other Christians. The third day it was the same. By that time the entire district realized that the Christians were being systematically murdered. It was the intent of the new government to eradicate them all—men, women and children—much as Hitler tried to eradicate all the Jews.
I was to speak in a little church on Sunday morning. The people came, but I could see fear and tension written on every face. All during the service, they looked at each other, their eyes asking the same questions: “Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one to be killed? Will I be the next one?”
I looked out on that congregation of black and white faces. The room was hot and stuffy. Moths and other insects came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked light bulbs hanging over the bare, wooden benches upon which the natives sat. They were all looking at me, expecting, hoping that I could bring them a word from God for this tragic hour.
I opened my Bible and read:
And now, dear friends of mine, I beg you not to be unduly alarmed at the fiery ordeals which come to test your faith, as though this were some abnormal experience. You should be glad, because it means you are called to share Christ’s sufferings. One day, when he shows himself in full splendor to men, you will be filled with the most tremendous joy. If you are reproached for being Christ’s followers, that is a great privilege, for you can be sure that God’s Spirit of glory is resting upon you. (1 Pet. 4:12, PHILLIPS)
I closed the Book and began to talk simply, as an aunt would talk to her nieces and nephews. “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,’ Father said, ‘when you take a train trip from Haarlem 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 wise Father in heaven knows when you are going to need things too. Today you do not need the strength to be a martyr; but as soon as you are called upon for the honor of facing death for Jesus, He will supply the strength you need—just in time.’”
I looked out at my African friends. Many of them had already lost loved ones to the firing squad or the headsman’s axe. I knew that others would surely die that week. They were listening intently.
“I took great comfort in my father’s advice,” I said. “Later I had to suffer for Jesus in a concentration camp. He indeed gave me all the courage and power I needed.”
My African friend’s were nodding seriously. They too believed God would supply all their needs, even the power to face death bravely.
“Tell us more, Tante Corrie,” one grizzled old black man said. It was as though they were storing up all the truth they could so they could draw on it in the day of trial.
I told them of an incident that had taken place in the concentration camp at Ravensbruck. “A group of my fellow prisoners had approached me, asking me to tell them some Bible stories. In the concentration camp the guards called the Bible das Lugenbuch—the book of lies. Cruel death punishment had been promised for any prisoner who was found possessing a Bible or talking about the Lord. However, I went to my little cot, found my Bible and returned to the group of prisoners.
“Suddenly I was aware of a figure behind me. One of the prisoners formed the words with her lips, ‘Hide your Bible. It’s Lony.’ I knew Lony well. She was one of the most cruel of all the aufseherinen (the women guards). However, I knew that I had to obey God who had guided me so clearly to bring a Bible message to the prisoners that morning. Lony remained motionless behind me while I finished my teaching. Then I said, ‘Let’s now sing a hymn of praise.’
“I could see the worried, anxious looks on the faces of the prisoners. Before it had been only me speaking. Now they too were going to have to use their mouths to sing. But I felt God wanted us to be bold even in the face of the enemy. So—we sang.
“When the hymn was finished, I heard a voice behind me. ‘Another song like that one,’ she said. It was Lony. She had enjoy
ed the singing and wanted to hear more. The prisoners took heart and we sang again—and again.
“Afterward I went to her and spoke to her about the Lord Jesus Christ. Strangely, her behavior began to change until, in a crude sort of way, she became a friend.”
I finished my story and stood silently while the words took their effect on my African friends. “Let me tell you what I learned from that experience,” I told them. “I knew that every word I said could mean death. Yet never before had I felt such peace and joy in my heart as while I was giving the Bible message in the presence of mine enemy. God gave me the grace and power I needed—the money for the train ticket arrived just the moment I was to step on the train.”
The faces before me broke into broad grins. Gone were the wrinkles of fear and anxiety. Once again their eyes were flashing with joy, and their hearts were filled with peace. I closed the service by reading a poem of Amy Carmichael:
We follow a scarred Captain,
Should we not have scars?
Under His faultless orders
We follow to the wars.
Lest we forget, Lord, when we meet,
Show us Thy hands and feet.
The meeting was over and the Africans stood to leave. Then softly, in the back of the room, someone began singing an old gospel song:
There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar.
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling place there.
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore,
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.
I don’t know how many were killed that week, but someone told me that more than half of those who had attended that service met a martyr’s death—and thus received a martyr’s crown. But I know that God’s Spirit of glory had been resting upon them (see 1 Pet. 4:14).