The crucial question is: Did I encounter Gods ultimate reality? Where did the reality of God come into my life? In which parts of my life did I make a transcendend experience that formed my faith in God?

In recent times more and more people have such experiences outside of the church, but the church is the agency that should provide the possibility for such encounters and the place where these experiences should happen. More and more people encounter Gods reality in music, in art or other areas of their life. Sadly they immediately start doubting the usefulness of the church, cause they connect the failure of mankind with the church.

The church has to come out of its fantasyworld and ask itself: How is it possible, that more people are connecting with God outside of the church than inside?

If you haven’t encountered the reality of God, than sooner or later you probably will abandon your faith in God. The question is not wether you name yourself „evangelical“, „liberal“, „reformed“, „conservative“ or any other nametag, the ringing question that everyone has to answer is:

Have you encountered Christ, who is the ultimate reality of all spiritual things?

+ How to raise smart Kids
All the time teachers are asked what parents should do to get their children smart. Here in this article are all the answers. It is about the process, not about intelligence.

– Nassim Nicholas Taleb: On Neocons and their Mental Defects

Who is crushing whom in this verse? God is crushing Satan, thats clear for everyone. The thing that is not so trivial is this: How does he crush Satan? Didn’t he do it on the cross? That is the right religious answer, yes, the cross was the final blow, the ultimate demonstration of Gods manifold wisdom to the powers and principalities (Eph 3:10 + Phil 2).

But apparently there is still an actual need of crushing Satan right now, because he is kind of not dead and bothering with the christians in Rome that Paul is writing to. Now thousands of years later Satan is still active, still accusing brethren, deceiving kings of the earth and perverting our culture. There is still an actual need for some headcrushing!

The nontrivial thing about this scripture is that He is crushing Satan, but with our feet. God does not wave his magic wand and Satan is somehow crushed, he needs our feet and he wants us to be involved in this headcrushing. There is no place for escapism here, nor fatalism or some kind of superspiritual “God’s grace will somehow accomplish this without me beeing involved”. Your are still on the earth, you are not raptured yet, because God needs your feet to crush Satans head.

– A. W. Tozer, Gems from Tozer (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 1979)

– Vishal Mangalwadi

"Is the bible really a light for the nations or is it only the light to light my way into heaven?"

– Vishal Mangalwadi

– Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

– Epictetus

It is not possible to embed the video on this site, so you have to click on the following link to watch it on youtube:

+ Corruption and the Cross – Vishal Mangalwadi @ The C.S.Lewis Foundation

Adam Curtis shows in his documentary, how people cope with this fake life and how we adjust to the unreal world without realising it.

Deutsch: Wer noch nie den Namen Adam Curtis gehört hat, der hat jetzt Gelegenheit, das nachzuholen. Curtis ist ein Dokumentarfilmer, dessen Filmen hauptsächlich aus BBC-Archivmaterial bestehen, welche mit schräger Musik unterlegt sind und zu denen Adam Curtis als Erzähler seine Geschichten erzählt. Das ganze ist manchmal auch ein bisschen gaga, aber seine These, die er in seinem neuesten Werk plausibel darstellt, ist jeden Gedanken wert.

Wir leben in einer Welt, die zunehmend mehr “fake” und unecht ist. Wir fliehen uns in diese unechten Welten hinein, weil die Komplexitäten des Alltags uns zu sehr verwirren und wir uns nach einfachen Narrativen sehnen. Gleichzeitig haben wir ein Gefühl der Passivität und Gleichgültigkeit, denn wir glauben nicht wirklich, dass unsere Entscheidungen einen Einfluss haben. Meiner Meinung nach sehens- und bedenkenswert. Hier ist eine Seite, auf der man seinen neuesten Film sehen kann:

+ Watch Hypernormalisation by Adam Curtis

http://www.michaelsheiser.com/Videos/ProphecyWk2PPT/ProphecyWk2PPT.html

During my afternoon “meditations,”—which I at least attempt quite regularly now—I have found out ludicrous and terrible things about my own character. Sitting by, watching the rising thoughts to break their necks as they pop up, one learns to know the sort of thoughts that do come.

And, will you believe it, one out of every three is the thought of self-admiration: when everything else fails, having had its neck broken, up comes the thought “what an admirable fellow I am to have broken their necks!” I catch myself posturing before the mirror, so to speak, all day long. I pretend I am carefully thinking out what to say to the next pupil (for his good, of course) and then suddenly realize I am really thinking how frightfully clever I’m going to be and how he will admire me…

And then when you force yourself to stop it, you admire yourself for doing that. It is like fighting the hydra… There seems to be no end to it. Depth under depths of self-love and self-admiration. (quoted in The Narnian by Alan Jacobs, 133)

(found in Dr. Lalith Mendis recent article about Self-Love)

When holy character was fully matured in Our Lord, earth lost its hold on Him and He was transfigured. In all probability if Adam had transformed his innocence into holy character by obeying God‟s voice, transfiguration would have been the way out of this order of things, there would have been no death. The entering in of sin made that impossible. Adam was intended by God to partake in his own development by sacrificing the life of nature to the will of God, and in that way to transform innocence into holiness. Our Lord came on the same plane as Adam and He did all that Adam failed to do; He transformed innocence into holy character, and when He had reached the full purpose of His Manhood He was transfigured.

Oswald Chambers, Bringing Sons Unto Glory

It is important that we get this straight, for until doubts are removed, faith is impossible. God will not surprise a doubting heart with an effusion of the Holy Spirit, nor will He fill anyone who has doctrinal questions about the possibility of being filled.

In light of this, it will be seen how empty and meaningless is the average church service today. All the means are in evidence; the one ominous weakness is the absence of the Spirit’s power. … The power from on high is neither known nor desired by pastor or people. This is nothing less than tragic, and all the more so because it falls within the field of religion, where the eternal destinies of men are involved.

Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost. Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind.

If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted with the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text. … “Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God.”

For the textualism of our times is based upon the same premise as the old line rationalism, that is, the belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgment of truth. Or otherwise stated, it is confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing.Philosophical rationalism is honest enough to reject the Bible flatly. Theological rationalism rejects it while pretending to accept it and in so doing puts out its own eyes.

Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance.

It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who would today be called fundamentalists. This should prove to be disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are saved only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving fire that came at Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No. He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative.

Now the Bible teaches that there is something in God which is like emotion. … God has said certain things about Himself, and these furnish all the grounds we require. “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). This is but one verse among thousands which serve to form our rational picture of what God is like, and tell us plainly that God feels something like our love, like our joy, and what He feels makes Him act very much as we would in a similar situation; He rejoices over His loved ones with joy and singing.

Here is emotion on as high a plain as it can ever be seen, emotion flowing out of the heart of God Himself. Feeling, then, is not the degenerate son of unbelief that is often painted by some of our Bible teachers. Our ability to feel is one of the marks of our divine origin. We need not be ashamed of either tears or laughter. The Christian stoic who has crushed his feelings is only two-thirds of a man; an important third part has been repudiated. Holy feeling had an important place in the life of our Lord. “For the joy that was set before Him” He endured the cross and despised its shame. He pictured Himself crying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

The work of the Holy Spirit is, among other things, to rescue the redeemed man’s emotions, to restring his harp and open again the wells of sacred joy which have been stopped up by sin.

[pl_button type=”success” link=”http://www.blogtalkradio.com/omegamanradio/2012/03/08/episode-592-henry-gruver–how-to-prayer-walk-and-remit-sin.mp3″ target=”blank”]MP3 HÖREN[/pl_button]

God humbles Charismatics by making their children Calvinists; and Calvinists by making their children speak in tongues.

The ecclesiastical bloodhounds are already reasoning if John Piper has lost his doctrinal mind…

Übersetzung: Ein interessantes Zitat von John Piper: “Gott demütigt die Charismatiker, indem er ihre Kinder Calvinisten werden lässt und er demütigt die Calvinisten, indem er ihre Kinder Charismatiker werden lässt.

Home & Church was meant to work together closer than most realise. One is the extension of the other. You take to church what you have at home – laughter & trust or heaviness & suspicion. You bring back ethos of church to home – acquittal or indictment. So what is the charge in the atmosphere of your home church or home & church? Is it charged with condemnation, accusation, judgement, fault finding, accusing others, conducting court on relatives or believers, neighbours or work mates? Or is it full with mercy, forgiveness, ease, peace, give & take.

What will one feel when they come to your home? What will someone “smell” around you? You know everybody carries a presence – not only God. What is the presence you carry? For long as I can remember I carried a presence that puts people into defensive mode. Just the way Aldus Huxley acted like Darwin’s Bulldog I acted like God’s Bulldog for holiness! All knew. Barking & may be sometimes biting! How about you? This weekend I found a most amazing judgement moratorium settled upon me. I could not see or remember other people’s wrongs. Some kind of Jubilee blown thru my heart & mind. I feel rested.

Whatever the charge of the atmos (ethos) is, it will facilitate conduction of like kind. These days I am hoping our home church will carry the charge of mercy. Atmos is electrified with mercy. Altar is no more fire breathing – Sinai or Carmel style. We first say – down with Baal. Then we say down with Catholics. Then we say down with Anglicans & other older Protestants. Later we say down with Old wineskin Pentecostals who obstruct the new thing. It is a kind of bloody purge – of course not with the physical guillotine that Robespierre used on Danton & other multitudes of French nobility, but with the verbal guillotine of Pentecostal prophecy & prayer. You know I am a seven star Pentecostal. It is the unholy glossalalia that has caused so much damage. Fiery words in prophecy, witchcraft prayers, spiritual warfare missiles – pastor against believer, believer against believer, old revival against new revival, Toddley vs Oddley and so on.
Of course fire never leaves the altar. Lev 6:11. The same fire that scorches can produce the much needed warmth in bitterly cold seasons. Let church be the warm fire place everybody loves when the world enters nuclear winter. Everybody has pleasant memories about warm fire places or BBQ night. Remember the golden altar of incense – sweet fragrance on warm coals. Let’s be like that.

Yes let the church altar be the place for the sparrow & swallow to keep her young. Ps 84:1-3. Let Baca (weeping) turn to Berechah (praise). Let Marah (bitterness) turn to Naomi (Pleasant). Let streams arise in the Negev. And laughter fill our mouth. Ps 126. When God revered the captivity of Zion – O God the whole world is waiting for this. Dream again – happiness of God. John Piper’s famous theme – Christian Hedonism. I am having a jolly good time with God & God’s people – who are God’s delight. Excellent ones. Ps 16:6-11. All my boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. In His presence s the fullness of Joy and at His right hands our pleasures for evermore.

The Jews used to have a doctrine of “Two Powers” or “Two Jahwes” in Heaven, this doctrine explained all the appearances of “The Angel of the Lord“, the “memra“, the “Word of the Lord appearing“, the personification of “Wisdom” and other manifestations of the one and only God. That is one of the reasons, John picked up on the “logos” beeing Jesus – that was not greek influence, but building on the pentateuch/torah foundation. When the jewish Rabbis later realized, that the christians using this as a proof for Jesus, they decided, the doctrine of the second Jahwe or of the “two powers” is heresy and against the “Sh’ma“…

+ Dr. M. Heiser – The Unexpected Word (Pdf)

For further study on this subject and especially the subject of the Divine Council go to this website:

+ The Divine Council

“For years we’ve said wake up and strengthen what remains, Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. Carl Moeller told The Christian Post in an exclusive interview. We would think of the American church as a napping church and that we would elbow it and it would wake up and rouse itself and do something.

In my mind today, the picture I have is a church in a diabetic coma that has gorged itself on the sweets of affluence, materialism, and the idolatry of worshipping the materialistic world. That diabetic coma is now life threatening. We as a church are at the point of death – not the church in the Middle East. We are the ones who can no longer rouse ourselves to even pray for an hour on behalf of things that God would have us pray for.”

He also prophesies a coming persecution to the USA and explains that the task of the Church is not to entertain the people, ubt to prepare them for the spiritual battle that is raging around us.

+ see the whole article @ Christian Post

To believe in only one God Almighty, the Creator of the universe, and His son Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised again the third day from the dead, received in the heavens, sitting now at the riht hand of the Father, destined to come to judge the living and the dead through the resurrection of the flesh

This statement that Tertullian made, only one generation after the apostles, contains only 63 words. This is a very simple statement. The Westminster Confession of Faith, promulgated by the Puritans in the seventeenth century contains 12079 words.

Somehow the essentials of faith kept growing through the centuries. (Found in “Will the Theologians please sit down” from David Bercot).
This “Doctrianity” is spreading like a disease. This comes through eating from the forbidden tree.

‘During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain.
The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it and will be characterized by a restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit
‘The second move of the holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches.
‘In the duration of each of these moves, the people involved will say, “This is a great revival.” But the Lord says, “No, neither is the great revival but both are steps towards it.”
‘When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidenced in the churches something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the Word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit.
‘When the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, indeed the world has even seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and the Welsh revivals of former years. The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to the mainland of Europe, and from there will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.’

‘I have seen a vision. I saw in this vision a great war that encompasses the world. I saw this war recede and then start again, actually being two wars. after this I saw much unrest and revolts that will affect many nations. I saw in some places spiritual awakenings.
‘In Russia I saw there will come a general all-encompassing national spiritual awakening spread to many European countries. Then I saw an all-out awakening, followed by the coming of Christ.’

Hudson Taylor received this vision in 1855

+ Introspection (von L’Abri)

And the symbol of the cross at the heart of the faith is an invitation to share in his sufferings ~ Art Katz

Our christianity is degenerating into a middle class culture ~ Art Katz

Here you can download the whole sermon: Art Katz Ministries

At one reunion, the visiting professor spoke for two and one-half hours proving that the resurrection of Jesus was false. He quoted scholar after scholar and book after book. He concluded that since there was no such thing as the historical resurrection, the religious tradition of the church was groundless, emotional mumbo-jumbo, because it was based on a relationship with a risen Jesus, who, in fact, never rose from the dead in any literal sense. He then asked if there were any questions.

After about 30 seconds, an old, dark skinned preacher with a head of short-cropped, woolly white hair stood up in the back.

“Professa, I got one question,” he said as all eyes turned toward him. He reached into his sack lunch and pulled out an apple and began eating it.

“Professa” .. CRUNCH, MUNCH… “my question is a simple question”… CRUNCH, CRUNCH…

“Now, I ain’t never read them books you read”…CRUNCH, MUNCH…

“and I can’t recite the Scriptures in the original Greek”…CRUNCH, MUNCH…

“I don’t know nothin’ about Niebuhr and Crossan”… CRUNCH, MUNCH… He finished the apple.

“All I wanna know is: This apple I just ate, was it bitter or sweet?”

The professor paused for a moment and answered in exemplary scholarly fashion: “I cannot possibly answer that question, for I haven’t tasted your apple.”

The white-haired preacher dropped the core of his apple into his crumpled paper bag, looked up at the professor and said calmly, “Neither have you tasted my Jesus.”

I have been asked concerning my methods. I have none. I never prepare the words I shall speak. I leave all that to Him. I am not the source of this revival. I am only one agent in what is growing to be a multitude. I am not moving men’s hearts and changing men’s lives; not I, but God worketh in me.I have found what is, in my belief, the highest kind of Christianity. ~ Evan Roberts

Und hier die deutsche Übersetzung: Ich wurde nach meinen Methoden gefragt: Ich habe keine. Ich bereite niemals die Worte vor, die ich reden soll. Ich überlasse das alles Ihm. Ich bin nicht die Quelle dieser Erweckung. Ich bin nur ein Werkzeug in etwas, was zu einer Menge heranwächst. Ich bewege nicht die Herzen und verändere keine Leben, nicht Ich, aber Gott, der in mir wirkt. Ich habe das gefunden, was in meinem Glauben die höchste Art des Christentums ist.

Tom Bloomer erzählt, wie er durch eine Predigt von Arthur Katz vom Reich der Finsternis in das Reich des Lichtes versetzt wurde.

Es gibt einige unter uns, die lehren, dass wir alle entrückt werden, bevor die große Trübsal hereinbricht. Dies sind die falschen Propheten, vor denen Jesus uns warnt, dass sie besonders in den letzten Tagen auftreten werden. […]

Jeder von uns braucht sein persönliches Pfingsten, die Taufe mit dem Heiligen Geist. Ohne werden wir in der Trübsalszeit niemals in der Lage sein, standhaft für Jesus zu stehen. ~ Corrie ten Boom, 1974

Dieser ganze Artikel über die Entrückung, Endzeit, Verfolgung der Gemeinde und darüber, wie man dieser Zeit trotz allem Gericht mit Freuden entgegensieht und durchsteht ist heutzutage aktueller denn je. Hier ist der ganze Text:

“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.

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: and I will be His God, and he shall be My son.” 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.

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. 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.”

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 are next.

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; 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)

I found myself saying, “Hallelujah! Because I am suffering, Jesus is glorified!”

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, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.”

Later that week, half the congregation of that church was executed. I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago. 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”, for I know that to all who overcome, He shall give the crown of life. Hallelujah!

Corrie ten Boom, 1974