COMMON
SENSE NOT NEEDED:
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT AN UNAPPRECIATED WORK
AMONG NEGLECTED PEOPLE
by
Corrie Ten Boom
no
copyright
first
published 1957
revised
edition 1968
first
American edition 1969
SBN
87508-020-0
[published
in print-media by
Christian Literature Crusade
Fort
Washington, Pennsylvania 19034]
"Comfort
the feebleminded."
I Thess. 5:14
CONTENTS
Introduction
A
waste of time?
The
old, old story
Who
is called?
The
joy of bringing them the Gospel
Confession
of guilt
Who
is normal?
Hypnosis?
The
Lord's Supper
Confession
of Sin
Prophets
and priests
Prayer
Church
discipline
Another
World War?
Pushing
away
Behold,
Thou art there
Mongoloids
The
ocean of love
Joy
in heaven
"Finally,
brethren-----!""
Introduction
Before World War II I started a work to bring the
Gospel to feeble-minded people who were not in
institutions. They were not able
to go to church: they
could not understand the sermon. But
did they not need the
Lord Jesus, just like you and I? We
learn from the Bible
that the Lord
Jesus has a great love and concern for
everyone who is in need. For He
said, "Come unto me
all..."
Everyone needs the Holy Spirit to understand spiritual
truths. I found that when we
taught the Gospel in an
uncomplicated way the Holy Spirit did not need a high I.Q.
to reveal Himself.
The feeble-minded whom I taught in the Bible class we
had every Sunday afternoon called it their church.
We
tried to make it as "churchy" as we could to please them!
In this booklet I tell something of what I learned and
experienced during the five years I carried on this small
work. It was perhaps unimportant
in the eyes of the world,
but not worthless in God's eyes. No
effort can be
valueless when it is in obedience to the command of Jesus,
"You must go out to the whole world and proclaim the gospel
to every creature" (Mark
16:15, Phillips).
I am sure that earthly values are different to
heavenly ones. I believe that the
joy among the angels of
God is as great when a subnormal person is saved as when a
V.I.P. gives his heart and life to the Lord.
Possibly
greater. One cannot tell.
A WASTE OF TIME?
Once, in a
concentration camp, I was questioned by a Nazi
officer. He asked me much about
my life, about my work in
the Underground, and about my spare time.
I told him that
I had given Bible lessons to subnormal people.
"Don't you regard that as a waste of time?" he asked.
"Surely it is much better to convert a normal person than a
subnormal one."
This was fully in accord with his Nazi way of
thinking. So I told him about
Jesus, who had always cared
for all who were weak and despised, adding that it might
well be possible that the officer and I were much less
important in the sight of the Lord Jesus than one of these
poor creatures. I was sent back
to my cell.
The next morning the officer sent for me and said that
he had slept badly. He had
thought much about what I had
said.
"You spoke about Jesus," he said, "I don't know
anything about Him. Tell me what
you know of Him."
I then spoke of the Lord Jesus as the Light of the
World who can lighten our life, if we give ourselves to Him
and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Three
days I was
questioned and three days I had the opportunity to speak
about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
A conversation about the feeble-minded had changed a
most dangerous moment for a prisoner into a testimony to
the glory of God.
THE OLD, OLD STORY
"How do you
explain the things of the Bible to the
feeble-minded?" I asked teachers at the American schools
where they really did their best to teach the Gospel.
"Oh, just as we do to normal children," they said,
"only simplified, and repeating as often as necessary."
Is an adolescent or an adult with a low I.Q. similar
to a young normal child? In the
slums sometimes we find
subnormal persons in their own surroundings.
Are their
problems the same as the problems of a child?
Yes, many have the same difficulties, but the
subnormal often have many more. They
have also many
problems of normal adults. For
instance, they are
interested in a strike.
They do not comprehend; they do not have the solution;
but at the same time they are called upon to share the
struggle for life. Who will bring
them the answer? Who
will tell them that the One who can help them is Jesus, and
Jesus alone? He knows the answer
to every situation.
I know from experience, for I was in a concentration
camp, where there was a concentrated mass of problems and
misery--but Jesus gave the answer. In
this dark place I
discovered that demons flee at the name of Jesus; He is
Victor. That is the message the
world must know.
*
Kareltje was a little boy twelve years old.
He had
blue eyes and curly hair. He was
one of a large, poor
family, and his father was cruel to him because Kareltje
was feeble-minded. He listened as
I told the story of the
disciples giving food to five thousand people.
As the five
loaves and two fishes passed from Jesus' hand to theirs,
the bread and fish became sufficient to feed the multitude.
Suddenly Kareltje jumped up, and swinging his arms
around him, cried, "There is enough!
There is plenty,
plenty for everyone! Just take,
take as much as you like.
There is enough. There is plenty!"
I wished every child of God rejoiced as Kareltje did
about the plenty that we have, when taking all from Jesus'
hands and passing on to others.
WHO IS CALLED?
Who should bring
the Gospel to the subnormal? I
asked this
question in America of those who understood the need, and
always the answer was, "Of course, the ministers."
I do not think so. Ministers
know the language of
grown-up people. We cannot expect
them to speak the
language of the normal and subnormal at the same time.
There will be people with a special gift for speaking to
the feeble-minded. There are
special difficulties and
needs and problems in this peculiar mission.
Sometimes I
think I would prefer Kindergarten teachers.
But they must
understand that a grown-up feeble-minded person is
different from a
child of four. Once I heard a
teacher
speak to them in the same way that she would have done to
her Kindergarten pupils. The
women and men looked in my
direction and laughed as if to say, "How silly!"
Children like to hear a story. These
people like
stories too, but after half an hour's talk about Jesus'
love they will still be listening. They
are grown-ups and
they must be treated the same way as grown-ups.
The
language must be plain and clear--no dogmatic talk, no
arguments, only
the old, old story in plain language. The
best way to reach them is by love. Love
means
understanding, and this love is available (Romans 5:5).
God must lead, for without the Holy Spirit no one can bring
the message to anybody, normal or abnormal.
The human
spirit fails, except when the Holy Spirit fills.
THE JOY OF BRINGING THEM THE GOSPEL
The feeble-minded
lack common sense, but they also lack
analytical criticism, which, like a brake, can be a
hindrance to some normal people. When
they trust a teacher
(and they do that very soon) they believe everything told
them. They just accept what is
said.
Once Jake, a tramp, told me that he had seen lightning
destroy a tree just in front of him. It
was imagination,
but I did not argue. I just said,
"Jake, if the lightning
had killed you,
would you have been ready to die, ready to
come before God?"
"No," he answered.
I looked at the other boys and asked, "And which of
you boys would have been ready to die?"
Their heads went down, for feeble-minded people often
express their feelings through their attitude.
One boy
said, "None of us is ready."
"Well, boys," said I, "we must seek the solution; for
we all know that some day the moment will come when we must
die."
Then I told a story, giving them examples, which is
far better than arguing.
"Once there was a boy who had to die.
He was not at
all afraid, for he knew that Jesus loved him and had died
for him on the Cross. He loved
Jesus for that reason, and
he knew that Jesus was preparing for him one of the many
mansions in heaven. I am sorry
that you do not know what
that boy knew."
"But we do," protested one, and someone else added,
"We are all ready to die, for we all know that Jesus loves
us." The whole class was
sitting upright at that moment
and their faces beamed.
Is it so simple? I doubted
it myself for a moment,
and then the Holy Spirit said to me, "The jailer of St.Paul
received the same answer: `Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'"
How simple is the Gospel!
CONFESSION OF GUILT
I had no
experience when I started "church" for
feeble-minded adults. There they
were sitting before me.
For some weeks we had had our weekly service.
One Sunday
Joan was sitting
near to Jake. In the midst of my
message
I saw that Joan could not resist putting her arms around
the dirty neck of Jake. She held
her face close to the
unshaven cheek of the tramp. What
should I do? My
assistant saw the embarrassing situation.
With a serious
face, she came to me and said, "I want to tell you
something. This morning I was in
a church, and I saw all
the gentlemen sitting in their pews on one side and the
ladies on the
other side. We have a real church
here, but
why do ladies and gentlemen all sit together?"
I answered
quite seriously, "I had forgotten, but indeed we are going
to have a real
church service. Come, gentlemen
and boys,
you sit on the right side, the girls and ladies on the
other side."
Everyone obeyed, and the love-sick couple were
separated, but the problem was only solved for the moment.
That week Jake and Joan went into the woods for mischief.
Fortunately the director of social work found them there
and told Jake that if he did this again he would be sent to
prison. Joan was sent to the
institute, where she was
given daily work under good leadership.
The next Sunday, when I was preaching, Joan ran to me.
Her whole face was excited. She
had been into mischief,
had been scolded for it, and was very upset.
She broke
into my sermon, and laid her arms around me and sobbed: "I
have been so naughty. I went a
walk with Jake and I will
never, never do it again."
A person often has a big ego. My
first thought was
one of irritation at losing the thread of my message
through the interruption. But
then I understood that this
demonstration was
a very plain form of public confession of
guilt.
My assistant helped me again. She
took the hands of
Joan, which I could not get loose, and said, "I'm glad,
Joan, that you told this to Miss ten Boom.
Let's go into
the corridor and ask the Lord Jesus to forgive.
Then we
can go and have a drink of water."
They left, and after a few moments I rediscovered the
thread of my sermon.
WHO IS NORMAL?
It was winter.
Holland was occupied by the Germans.
We
were sitting around the stove before the service began.
A
girl entered and said, "I hate all Germans, and my father
does too."
"That is not right," said Herman.
"Why not?" she replied.
"They are our enemies! They
have taken away our food! They
have taken my brother to
Germany! They have..." and a
list of crimes followed.
"Hate is not right," repeated Herman.
"Jesus says,
`You must love your enemies.'"
"I can't," said the girl.
"Jesus does, and He can teach you," said the boy.
That same evening I was at a dinner-party with many
normal Christians, and the conversation was about the
Germans.
"We are not only allowed to hate," said the leader of
the dinner party. "We MUST
hate."
Who is normal, and who subnormal?
HYPNOSIS?
"Your work
among the feeble-minded is nothing more than
hypnosis," people told me. "They
have no common sense, and
no criticism. They just believe
whatever you tell them."
"I believe in the Holy Spirit," I answered.
*
During the war, bombs were falling on Haarlem.
One
fell on a house, near where Jo was living.
Jo was a girl
of thirty-two, a poor creature, nervous and fearful.
The
next Sunday she came to church and told me what had
happened.
"The bomb fell and all the windows broke and there was
a terrible noise, and..."
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I was so frightened, but I just thought of one
thing."
I understood what she meant by "one thing".
"One
thing" meant prayer.
"What happened then?"
"Jesus took all my fear away!"
How many normal people thought at a moment when bombs
were falling, of praying? There
was no one there to put
this idea into Jo's mind by suggestion, or hypnosis.
No human being, yes, but Jesus was there.
THE LORD'S SUPPER
Once the father
of a backward girl spoke to me.
"Why can my daughter never partake of Communion?
Is
the Lord's Supper only meant for strong-minded people?"
"Pray about it!" I answered.
"I'll do the same."
That week I discussed the matter with a minister.
God
showed us that it was His will for them to receive the
Lord's Supper as well as Baptism. About
fifteen people I
knew who loved the Lord were baptized and received the
Lord's Supper. Never have I
received such a blessing from
the Sacraments. There was
earnestness and joy.
A boy continued to kneel and would not rise.
I took
his hand and brought him back to his chair, but he kept his
eyes closed. In this way he
wanted to preserve the
blessing and joy of that moment!
*
We in Holland have a long, imposing formulary for the
Holy Communion. Before we all
went to the Lord's Supper, I
translated the dignified words into their language.
"He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and
drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's
body."
I explained the text in the following story:
"Once there was a lady who went to the Lord's Supper.
But she did not believe that Jesus had suffered on the
Cross for her, and she did not love Him at all.
What do
you think about that?"
"That is terrible," they responded.
"Yes, I think so too," said I, "and the most serious
thing is that God also thinks it is terrible, and He says:
`It is far better NOT TO GO AT ALL than to take the bread
and wine without
loving Christ. For if one does
so, I must
punish him.' If you don't
believe, don't go."
They understood.
CONFESSION OF SIN
We were together in our church room and I spoke about
the meaning of "sin".
"Do you all know what the word `sin' means?"
They told me they surely knew. It
was disobedience,
bad words, and ugly thoughts. It
was lying, killing,
beating, swearing, unbelief in Jesus Christ.
"Have you ever sinned?" I asked.
"Never," was the unexpected answer from Marie, a poor
imbecile woman.
Her whole face was radiant with pride.
I tried to
argue, but could not convince her. Then
I spoke of the
love of Christ and she told me:
"I know that Jesus loves me so, that He died on the
Cross for me. I love Jesus and
tell Him everything." Her
whole face was beaming with joy.
I knew that Marie had only some months to live.
She
had cancer. I was not afraid that
she was not ready to
appear before God's throne. Why
Jesus died on the Cross
she did not understand, but she was thankful for His
love--perhaps more thankful and glad than many good, normal
Christians, who have a sound theology but whose eyes do not
sparkle as do Marie's eyes, when one speaks of Jesus' love.
PROPHETS AND PRIESTS
Some subnormals
can understand at times more than one would
expect. For the sake of
experiment, I taught them the star
constellations. After some
practice, they were able to lay
white beans on
the table to represent Orion and the Big
Dipper. Later, I took them for a
walk in the evening and
showed them the real Orion. In
excitement, they shouted,
"Look, it is
just like our white beans."
I found that they had not understood at all what I had
meant by the white beans.
To teach them spiritual truths was far more
successful, for here we experienced the Holy Spirit working
with their spirits. Common sense
was not needed.
I had told them about the difference between priests
and prophets. I asked Marie if
she had understood it.
"Oh yes; that is very easy. Both
are messengers
between God and men. A priest
stands with his face to God.
A prophet has his back to God and his face toward men."
It was a rather good answer, but I was not sure that
she had really understood, so I asked:
"What was I today when I gave you the Bible lesson?"
"A prophet," she replied, "for you brought God's
message to us. But you were also
a priest when you prayed
together with us and asked the Lord to make our hearts
ready for His love."
PRAYER
What is prayer?
Normal people understand and know, but how
may we make the feeble-minded understand?
A class of children was sitting before me.
Their ages
ranged from sixteen to forty-seven. Children?
Yes: the
woman in the first seat had the mentality of an
eight-year-old, although she was born in 1906.
That evening when I stopped explaining, I knew that I
had failed. Nobody understood
what praying meant. The
next week the girls came to the class, quite excited. They
had heard over
the radio how our little Princess was
baptized. They had a lot of
questions to ask.
"Why did the Princess cry?"
"Does baptizing hurt?"
Some described the Princess lying on a beautiful
pillow which the Queen had embroidered, for the
feeble-minded have great imaginations.
I tried always to combine my lessons with the subject
that occupied them, so I let them tell all they knew and
then I asked:
"What do you think about Prince Bernhard?
When the
little Princess learns to talk and tries to tell her papa
about her experiences as a little child, will the Prince
take time to listen?"
"Yes, of course," they answered.
"Surely not. Would
such a great Prince listen to a
conversation about broken dolls and gathering flowers?"
"Oh yes, he will," they shouted.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because he loves his baby-Princess!"
"Yes, I believe that too," I said.
"And you know,
that is why Jesus will listen when people tell Him
everything. It is because He
loves you and me."
"Me too?" asked a poor woman, with a new light in her
eyes.
"He loves you too! And
what if the little Princess
would never talk to her father? The
Prince would be very
unhappy. The same way Jesus is
unhappy when you do not
talk to Him. He is happy when you
tell Him about your
needs, your joy, your hunger, your pain, your fears.
He
will listen, just as the Prince will listen to Princess
Beatrix when she wants to tell about a new pair of shoes, a
sore little finger, a piece of chocolate, or being scared
of a big dog. Telling Jesus
everything, that's prayer."
CHURCH DISCIPLINE
Before a
dignified assembly of theologians and other
important people, I told about bringing the Gospel to
subnormal people and the possibility of giving them the
blessing of the Sacraments.
"But what about church discipline?"
they asked.
*
We had the Lord's Supper in the magnificent cathedral
of Haarlem. About a hundred
normal Christians joined us in
order to let our people know that there was a congregation
accepting them.
When communicants went to the Table,
Jantje left the pew and wanted to join them.
I stopped him
and said, "No, Jantje, you are not permitted to go;
you
.know that." Then Jantje
took his hat and left the church.
His eyes were dark with anger.
Next week I asked: "Jantje, do you know why Willem was
allowed to go to the Lord's Supper? He
had told me that he
loved Jesus! Do you love Jesus
too, Jantje?"
"No, I don't." was
his answer.
"Do you know," I asked, "why Annie was allowed to
partake? She prays every day and
tells Jesus all she needs
and all she enjoys. Do you pray,
Jantje?"
"No, I never do."
"You see, Jantje, that is why you were not allowed to
go to the Lord's Supper. But from
now on you too must pray
and love Jesus, then the next time you may join us.
Won't
you ask Jesus to come into your heart?"
Jantje did. And from that
moment he began to pray,
and when we talked about Jesus' love, his eyes sparkled
with joy.
Yes, we had church discipline, but of a special order.
ANOTHER WORLD WAR?
Although their
minds have not developed, often physically
the feeble-minded can be just as strong as normal people.
Jan and Henk were fighting before the church service.
It took rather a strong effort to separate the wrestling
men. I got Jan outside the
building. Henk was allowed to
join the church service. But I
was not surprised when
after church I found Jan outside the door, and he told me
that he had made up his mind to break a chair on the guilty
head of Henk.
I prayed for wisdom and the Lord gave it.
"Listen, boys," I said; "do you know that this is the
way the war started? Two men
quarrelled, and some took the
side of one and some the side of the other.
This grew and
grew till two countries were fighting a war.
Then other
countries joined in, and now we have a World War."
Jan and Henk looked very worried.
They knew perfectly
well what a World War meant. We
were in the very midst of
one. The faces of all the
feeble-minded people around
looked anxious.
What were they to do? One
World War was
bad enough, and now Jan and Henk had perhaps started
another.
"I wish I knew someone who could help us," I said with
a deep sigh.
Henk suddenly got an idea.
"I know someone," he
shouted. "The Lord
Jesus."
"Sure He can help us. Let
us ask Him!"
We closed our eyes, and I asked the Lord Jesus to
forgive Henk and Jan and to give them love instead of
hatred in their hearts. All went
home satisfied.
That same evening, while I was pulling the curtains to
prepare for the black-out, I saw Henk and Jan walking
before the house arm-in-arm. Both
smiled at me and seemed
to say, "All is well now. There
won't be another World
War!"
PUSHING AWAY
I had spoken to
our boys about prayer. Jake, the
tramp,
accompanied me home. (My friends
often said, "Such
dignified friends you walk around with!")
First he had
told me how he had set up in business. He
had taken the
door off his room and chopped it up into small pieces to
make firewood. He had sold the
wood, going from door to
door. This was good business in
Holland during the war.
Cost: not one cent. Profit:
enough money for many weeks.
It was not easy to persuade Jake that what he did meant
stealing.
"Jake, do you know what prayer is?" I asked.
At first he was silent.
"Do you mean like this?" Jake asked hesitatingly.
"Often I
feel something I can't push away."
"That's it, Jake! Praying
is asking Jesus to push
away what you cannot push yourself. Jesus
can do
everything, and He loves you so much that He wants to push
away the bad things in your life."
Next day _I_ had something _I_ could not "push away".
I was down-hearted and the spirit of worry was in my heart.
Then I remembered the conversation with Jake and I asked,
"Lord Jesus,
will You push away the worry?"
And He did.
BEHOLD THOU ART THERE
Apart from
running a church for the feeble-minded, I had
clubs and classes for them. One
of the most faithful
members was a man named Roel.
Roel had a strong inferiority complex and tried to
compensate for it by boasting of all his abilities.
He was
a broad-shouldered man of twenty-eight years.
"My, the police were happy that I was so active," he
told me. "A very bad man
went into a bush with a little
girl. I told a policeman, `Go
into that bush; there is a
job for you to do.' Later he
said, `Thank you, Roel, for
having warned me just in time.'"
I knew Roel long enough to understand what that story
meant. Roel himself had committed
the crime and was found
by the police. The feeble-minded
often told of a sin that
burdened their heart but attributed it to someone else.
They were always the imaginary hero who had discovered the
crime!
"Roel," I said, "don't you know that God is angry when
you do such things?"
I spoke about God's judgment of sins that evening.
When next I had a
talk with Roel, a minister who visited
the class was
present. I could see that Roel
was afraid.
"Is God here?" he
asked.
"Sure He is."
"Then I will go home as quickly as I can."
"But He is everywhere. At
your home too."
The minister tried to explain God's omnipresence.
"Roel," he said, "the sun shines here, the sun shines
at home too. It is the same sun.
There is air here and
air at home. It is the same air.
God is everywhere at the
same time!"
Roel had always shown little respect for logical
talking, a safe attitude to cover his absolute lack of
common sense. He smiled and said,
"The sun is not God.
The air is not God. I am going
home, for God is here."
"Roel, listen," I said, "Whether you like it or not,
God IS in your home and He sees everything, even what you
did in the bushes. Roel, God is
angry with you, and there
is no escape.
The only thing is to tell Him that you are
sorry and ask His forgiveness in Jesus' name.
And then ask
Jesus to come into your heart again. He
will make you
strong and good."
And Roel did.
MONGOLOIDS
I like
Mongoloids. Often they are such
loveable people.
Why does God allow them to be born to quite healthy
parents, who neither drank nor committed those sins which
so often cause the birth of subnormal children?
I don't
know. Mongoloids are sometimes as
sweet as very little
children. Their I.Q. is
exceedingly low.
Anton was a Mongoloid. He
could neither speak nor
walk along. He was for a very
short time in my class. He
listened to my Bible stories, but when I spoke too long to
suit him, he yawned like a monkey. I
did not know how much
Anton understood really.
Once I took his hand and touched his five fingers one
after another and said, "Jesus loves Anton so much."
The
next week, immediately Anton saw me, he took my hand and
with his fingers outspread he just looked at me with a face
full of longing. "Jesus
loves Anton so much," I
repeated,
touching a finger at every word. Then
I taught him to do
it himself. After that, every
week, Anton showed me with
his fingers how much Jesus loved him. The
last time I saw
him, I told him while he touched his left fingers with his
right hand, "Jesus loves Anton so much.
How thankful I am
for that! You too, Anton?"
"Yes," said Anton, as his face lit up.
It was the only word I ever heard from Anton.
It is
the most worthwhile word that any normal or subnormal
person can speak to the Lord Jesus.
THE OCEAN OF LOVE
I shall never
forget what a minister told me about a
feeble-minded boy, Toontje by name, who attended his church
services regularly and was always seated in the first pew.
"I wonder if Toontje understands one word of what I
say," he sometimes said to his wife.
Once he preached about the abundant love of God that
passes all understanding. Suddenly
he saw a look of great
joy upon Toontje's face. The
minister almost forgot the
rest of the congregation, and spoke as if to the poor boy
alone about the ocean of God's love in Jesus Christ.
Next morning he said to his wife, "I cannot forget
Toontje's happy face; I am sure that he has grasped
something of the joy of God's love. I
am going to visit
him this morning."
When he arrived at the home, the door was opened by
Toontje's mother. "This
morning," she told him, "we found
that Toontje had died in his sleep."
The minister saw on the face of the dead boy a look of
heavenly joy as he grasped so much of the love of God.
Do we not all need the Holy Spirit to enlarge our
hearts to contain only a little more of the joy unspeakable
and full of glory, God's abundant love in us, otherwise our
hearts would burst with happiness?
JOY IN HEAVEN
Bringing the
Gospel to subnormal people is not popular work
in the eyes of the world. To
convert a "big shot" is more
important than to change a subnormal person who cannot
organize a
mission, cannot start a drive to collect money,
cannot write books, and cannot do what splendid, gifted
Christians can.
Does heaven have the same standards as on earth?
I do
not think so.
I know that the last words of Jesus, before going to
heaven, were, "Go ye--and preach the Gospel to EVERY
creature." And I think that
the subnormal have received a
special grace to enable them to understand the Gospel.
I believe that the joy before the angels of God when a
subnormal person is converted is as great as when a "big
shot" gives his heart and life to Jesus.
It is possible
that the joy is
greater; heaven is different from earth.
One can never tell.
"FINALLY, BRETHREN----!"
My experiences in
four years' work in Haarlem brought me
into contact with only a handful of the many subnormal
people of the world. I reached
only a few of the
feeble-minded in one town in one small country.
Besides
this, there are all the psychopaths, the shell-shocked and
the insane. What difficult
problems are these that I have
not touched upon!
The woman with the seven demons was a difficult
problem? And did not Jesus
succeed?
Bringing the Gospel is not OUR work.
It is God's
work. He will use us who are
ready to obey.
God's kingdom will come. It
is great to fight in a
war knowing beforehand that your King is the Victor.
#
CORRIE TEN BOOM
PAPERBACKS
(FROM SPIRE
BOOKS:)
THE HIDING PLACE
Miss ten Boom's experiences of God's faithfulness in
German-occupied
Holland during World War II while hiding
Jews in her
family's home, and while imprisoned in a German
concentration
camp.
(FROM CHRISTIAN
LITERATURE CRUSADE:)
COMMON SENSE NOT
NEEDED
A very helpful book for those who work among mentally
retarded people.
A PRISONER AND
YET
This book is another footnote to the Acts of the
Apostles.
Miracles were the norm during the dark days in
the concentration
camp where the author's father and sister
died while they
were imprisoned there. Here Miss
ten Boom
shows how the
power and grace of God are sufficient to
surmount every
adverse circumstance.
AMAZING LOVE
Despite the horrors even of the concentration camp, it
is possible to
find victory in Christ. Corrie
ten Boom
paints vivid
word-pictures of her first-hand experiences in
camps and jails,
with actresses and students, the
sophisticated and
the illiterate.
DEFEATED ENEMIES
Christians ought to realize that the victory has
already been won
and the enemy of our souls has been
defeated in God's
timeless eternity. Out of the
depth of
her own spiritual
experiences, the author shares with her
readers how God
works.
MARCHING ORDERS
FOR THE END BATTLE
Everything is heading towards the great and final
battle which John
describes in the Book of Revelation, and
that battle has
started already. But we know:
Jesus was victor. Jesus is victor. Jesus will be
victor.
--From the Preface
NOT GOOD IF
DETACHED
Fruit grows in profusion on the branch that has known
much training and
pruning. Dependence on God,
produced by
the fires of
affliction, coupled with a daily walk with the
Lord Jesus, is
the explanation of that which seems just "to
happen."
This book reveals the secret of abiding in Him.
PLENTY FOR
EVERYONE
Well known for her prison experiences in Germany
during World War
III, this worldwide traveler relates some
very interesting
accounts of those whose lives have been
transformed by
Christ. You will enjoy this
readable book.
CHRISTIAN
LITERATURE CRUSADE
Fort Washington,
Pennsylvania 19034