Letter From Corrie Ten Boom Warning Against False Rapture Teaching

[Micahyah]

A Letter From Corrie Ten Boom
Don't Put Your Hope In The Rapture False Teaching

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. - Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie's letter:

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. [...]

Hallelujah!

Corrie Ten Boom
1974

Edited, due to the site's copyright rules: For the entire letter, go to The Watchman Report

 

[jeffweeder]

Very powerful testamony, thanks micahyah and God bless you

 

[Tychicum]

Oh great .. Corrie Ten Boom was a theologian ...

 

[Warrior4ChristAL]

Oh great .. Corrie Ten Boom was a theologian ...

You have to be a theologian to have a relationship with God? You have to be given some "divine revelation from heaven" to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit?

I think you need to rethink your own theology on that one.

What I think you are saying is that the only one who can possibly know God or understand God's Word is a Pharasee? I would argue that you are wrong!!

 

[Driver]

Wisdom can come in some unusual packages, and it doesn't take a PhD or DD to attain it. Perhaps those who think otherwise, the follwing verse could have been meant for them!



Isaish 56:10 His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.

 

[inhisdebt]

Thanks

 

[Veritas]

Miss Corrie is right on. I have read of these false teachings and their effect on new believers in persecuted countries. It's sad that false teachers use the false hope of escaping tribulation to gain converts. I can't imagine what a negative effect this must have had on evangelism.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Miss Corrie is right on. I have read of these false teachings and their effect on new believers in persecuted countries. It's sad that false teachers use the false hope of escaping tribulation to gain converts. I can't imagine what a negative effect this must have had on evangelism.

That is why I tell newer christians to stay away from eschatology and endtime sites and just read and study the Bible.
I just come here mainly to get the latest "guru" scoop on the entimes, shake my head, then search the Scriptures to see if what they say is true.
Entertaining views I suppose, but like a "heart", everyone has one.

http://www.christianforums.com/t313...d-hellfire-preaching-had-on-christianity.html
What effect is Endtime and Hellfire preaching had on christianity

quote poster:It has had the effect of nearly driving me from the faith. I looked around and among Christianity I saw an overwhelming theme of fear, judgement, retribution. Of submission that this world is evil and that we should only live for the next. But Christ brought a message of joy. A message of hope. And that is the message I choose to live by. The kingdom is within. The kingdom is among us.

 

[FreeinChrist]

With due respect to Corrie Ten Boom, she really misunderstands the pretrib view. We don't believe we are spared tribualations in this life. In fact, I have friends who are pretrib who have suffered in the mission field - held at gunpoint, imprisoned, shot at, robbed. Christians have been suffering persecution for 2000 years and there will always be persecution somewhere.

What we do expect is to be spared the wrath of God.

 

[FreeinChrist]

I can't imagine what a negative effect this must have had on evangelism.

Actually, pretribbers are very evangelistic as they want to reach as many as they can now, for we do not know when the rapture will come.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Actually, pretribbers are very evangelistic as they want to reach as many as they can now, for we do not know when the rapture will come.

I wonder if Peter and his followers had their "seatbelts" fasten back then The atheists and Jews get a good giggle out of it though out of the Rapture Index. How embarassing.

1 Peter 4:7 But the End of ALL things is nigh at hand; therefore be sober-minded and watchful in your prayers.

Luke 21:22 "For these are the Days of Vengeance, that ALL Things which are Written may be Fulfilled.

http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

Rapture Index 155
Net Change unch

Updated Jul 10, 2006


Rapture Index of 85 and Below: Slow prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 85 to 110: Moderate prophetic activity
Rapture Index of 110 to 145: Heavy prophetic activity
Rapture Index above 145: Fasten your seat belts

 

[knownbeforetime]

With all due respect to someone who has suffered so much for Christ, I do not appreciate being told that because I am pre-trib, I am a wimp. I always pray for strength in the face of persecution. I can see what's going on around me. Certain parties in this country (I live in the US.) are increasingly taking away our freedom to worship as we please. I have a feeling that real persecution (in my part of the world) may start before the Tribulation.

The Bible clearly says that we'll have tribulations but that we'll escape the Tribulation. (There's trouble and then there's Trouble with a capital T.)

Think about this little nugget of info. The Holocaust took out a third of the world's Jewish population. Again with all due respect to Corrie Ten Boom but the Holocaust is nothing compared to what is prophesied in Zechariah 13. "And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God." (italics mine)

If you run the numbers, the Holocaust killed off a third of the world's Jewish population while the coming Tribulation will kill off two-thirds*. And not only that but ALL gentile believers during that time will be killed. ALL meaning "great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language." (Millions? Billions?) That is, according to Revelation 7:9.

*My sources say that if this were to happen today, 10 million Jews would be killed.

I would gladly suffer a little haranguing by the state, secret, and/or thought police just to escape what I described above.

And, yes, the rapture index is embarassing, especially to a statistician (or even someone like me who knows about the scientific method). It's embarassing because the only way to measure the likeliness of an event occuring is to study how it happened the last time it happened. Of course, the rapture hasn't happened yet so we have no way of knowing the conditions upon which this event would occur.

And considering that it's been over 145 for I don't know how long (years?)... well... we'll leave it at embarassing...

My sources for numbers:
The Jewish Population of the World (2005)
World Jewish Population (1882-2000) (Compare the numbers between 1939 and 1948...)
​

 

[Driver]

Isn't the teaching of a pre-trib rapture a poor witness to those being presecuted? Don't they look on pretribbers as having their heads in the sand waiting for the rapture and not coming to their assistance and not wanting to seek justice in this temporal world? (not wanting to rearrange the furniture on a sinking ship, as one dispensationalist has put it).

Arne't the doomsday preditions of pretribbers self-fulfilling and therefore part of the problem we have in the world today? Can a good tree bring forth evil fruit?

 

[FreeinChrist]

I wonder if Peter and his followers had their "seatbelts" fasten back then The atheists and Jews get a good giggle out of it though out of the Rapture Index. How embarassing.

I find this remark of yours offensive.
I fully expect persecution in this life. AND as I have already written, I have friends in the mission field ( like _____istan, Syria, Kosovo, Liberia,etc) who have suffered to bring the gospel to the lost. We don't expect to be spared persecution - we expect to be spared the wrath of God.

 

[FreeinChrist]

Isn't the teaching of a pre-trib rapture a poor witness to those being presecuted? Don't they look on pretribbers as having their heads in the sand waiting for the rapture and not coming to their assistance and not wanting to seek justice in this temporal world? (not wanting to rearrange the furniture on a sinking ship, as one dispensationalist has put it).

Arne't the doomsday preditions of pretribbers self-fulfilling and therefore part of the problem we have in the world today? Can a good tree bring forth evil fruit?

No. It isn't. IF you read what we are writing, we aren't denying in the least that we will suffer persecution in this life as followers of Jesus. It has been going on for 2000 years. What we expect to be spared is THE Tribulation, the wrath of God.

 

[knownbeforetime]

Furthermore, it saddens me that someone who has suffered so much became so prideful as to define her theology through what she sees instead of the clear teaching of scripture.

The remarks in her letter are offensive to those who have suffered persecution while expecting to escape the Tribulation.

Yes, it is wrong to go around telling believers that they'll escape tribulation. THAT is unscriptural. What is NOT unscriptural is that we'll escape THE Tribulation.

Don't try to teach me doctrine when you can't tell the difference between a lower-case t and a capital T.

 

[Driver]

Is this like Ann Coulter's attack of the widows of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center victims?

Does Ann Coulter really want to know the truth of what happened that day, as badly as those widows?
Or would knowing the truth upset Ann Coulter's political philosophy?

 

[FreeinChrist]

Is this like Ann Coulter's attack of the widows of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center victims?

Does Ann Coulter really want to know the truth of what happened that day, as badly as those widows?
Or would knowing the truth upset Ann Coulter's political philosophy?

I don't see your point.
Ann Coulter is a postmillennialist. She isn't premil or pretrib at all.

 

[nolidad]

driver replies:

Isn't the teaching of a pre-trib rapture a poor witness to those being presecuted? Don't they look on pretribbers as having their heads in the sand waiting for the rapture and not coming to their assistance and not wanting to seek justice in this temporal world? (not wanting to rearrange the furniture on a sinking ship, as one dispensationalist has put it).

No it isn't!! You are confusing the tribulation we as the church must undergo if we walk as children of the light with the biblical Great Tribulation (or any of its many names). You are trying to mix two theoilogies here which cannot be mixed for they speak of speerate issues. Also it appears you do not know what the bible declares are the 2 rerasons for the Day of the Lord (Daniels 70 week or the great trib) For if you knew the reasons yo uwould know why the bible shows the church does not undergo the wrath opf God and of the Lamb (Rev. 6) For our wrath was endured by Jesus and we are not destined for this wraTH BUT TO OBTAIN DELIVERANCE THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST!!!

The pre trib position is the most biblical based onteh evidence of the scri-ptures alone. Corrie ten Booms diatribe calling me a false teacher notwithstranding.

 

[Driver]

I don't see your point.
Ann Coulter is a postmillennialist. She isn't premil or pretrib at all.

I don't know her eschatalogy (is she a theologian?), but Ann Coulter, a political pundit and neo-con, is very pro-war, pro-Israel and anti-Muslim and I wouldn't be surpised that many of her comments are supported by televangeslists such as Falwell and Hagee who are dispensational pretribbers. Their zeal for their ideologies, whether it be dispensationalism, postmillennialism,or political Zionism, outweighs their seeking for the truth in matters such as 9/11. The 9/11 widows simply want the truth and for justice to be done.