Corrie Ten Boom:
"The Holy Spirit shows us many things, as it were, from God's point of view. The Holy Spirit gives you wisdom to cast your burdens on the Lord, because he gives us spiritual insight and understanding.
I was in Vietnam, and I was there not as a thermometer, but a thermostat. Do you know what I mean? The thermometer kind of goes with the heat and the cold, up and down. A thermostat brings a cold room immediately in contact with a source of heat, and so restores the temperature. I carried the load of suffering that I saw in the hospitals, in the tribes, in the front line. And the Holy Spirit showed me that I had to cast my burden on the Lord. We are not called to be burden-bearers, but cross-bearers and fruit-bearers. So I could be used as an open channel of streams of living water.
In my work to do...bring the Gospel in many places, I sometimes feel weak and old. Not adequate to speak in so many different meetings. But I trust what we heard today again and again, "You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you." The Holy Spirit gives power, and we can never expect too much from him. He points to the Cross where Jesus finished all for our redemption. And obedience and surrender is the answer.
I was comforted by a story told in New Zealand. A little boy went with his father over a bridge. It was a very small bridge, and he was scared and said "Daddy, I'm afraid. Do you see this water underneath us?" and the father said "Boy, give me your hand." Then he was not afraid any longer. But in the evening, he had to go again over the bridge, and now it was pitch-dark. Then he said "Daddy I am more scared than this morning" And then, the father took the little boy in his arms, and immediately, the boy fall asleep, and awakened in his own little bed. That is surrender to the Lord Jesus. And that is what the Holy Spirit teaches us, how that we are safe in Jesus' hands.
When I was in prison, where my sister died, and 95,000 women were killed or died, I experienced the same what Paul has written to...to the Philippians when he was in a terrible prison. The Holy Spirit had pointed him to Jesus, as He did with me.
And I can say with him what he wrote in the text: "I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege," (I am reading from the Amplified New Testament) the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and the supreme advantage of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord and of progressively, more intimately getting acquainted with him." That happened when I was in that terrible prison. That can happen with you when you let the Holy Spirit turn your eyes more and more to the Lord Jesus, even when we are perhaps entering now a time of very great darkness and suffering over the world. The world is very sick, very ill. Who is it that overcomes the world? He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. And I am sure that all of us believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That means that you and I, that we all have to overcome our world, and that is hope for our world.
The best is yet to be. Jesus is coming, and He has said "I will make everything new." And that this world, yes, this sick, ill world will be covered with the knowledge of God like the waters cover the bottom of the sea! What a joy to know from the word of God that God has no problems, only plans. There's never a panic in Heaven. And [clears throat] we have to be right with God, and we know it. That is because of the finished work of Jesus at the Cross.
And we have to be right with men also, because of Jesus' presence. "The love of God He will bring into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us." Romans 5:5. I love the Germans. There's not a country where I work with such a great joy. My greatest friends live in that, um...country. But sometimes I find people who have been cruel to me in the concentration camp.
Once, I saw a lady in the meeting, and suddenly I saw that woman was the nurse who was so cruel to my dying sister. And there came hatred and bitterness in my heart. But when I felt that there was hatred and bitterness in my heart, I knew I have not forgiven her. And I know, and you know that Jesus has said (you can read it in Matthew 5) "If you do not forgive those who have sinned against you, my heavenly father will not forgive you your sins." But I said "Oh, Lord, I cannot, I am not able!"
And suddenly I saw it. I cashed the check of Romans 5:5. I said "Thank you Lord Jesus, that you have brought into my heart, God's love through the Holy Spirit who is given to me, and thank you Father that your love in me is stronger than my bitterness and hatred." And I could go to that nurse, and I could shake hands with her, and I had the joy to be used by the Lord to bring her to a decision for the Lord Jesus. What a joy!"
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