Hiding Place

Corrie Ten Boom, the larger than life, young woman who from her Dutch home, helped so many Jews to escape Germany's Holocaust, and before her death at age 91, had traveled America proclaiming the good news of Christ's redemption. Her book The Hiding Place, tells of her experiences during WW II. One can experience the museum in her honor in her home town of Haarlem, Holland. She said in her post war experience with other victims of Nazi brutality, “it was those who were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives.”

We have all heard the expression, “you must walk in another Indian's moccasins in order to forgive and to understand another person's opinion and actions.” It has never ceased to amaze me how much baggage some people carry around. Most of the time, unnecessary intolerance, judgmental equations, promiscuous pessimism, will lead to fear which is a soul killer. Solomon tells us “that without vision people perish.” Proverbs 29:18 I can tell you as a totally blind person for most of my life, that you can walk without vision on a smooth, firm surface that you can trust, a firm foundation. But a shaky, rough surface will lead to a certain fall.

Recently, a group of older men came to the table where I was eating. One said, this is my friend, an Agnostic. The man said, “Don't try to scare me.” If I were faithless in these troubling times, I would be very scared. As Ms. Ten Boom said, forgiveness, not only of me by God, but by me of others is the most vital foundation I know anything about. It will keep you going when nothing else will.

Much is said in these days of political correctness about fairness. In his 10 rules for business success, the #1 Rule of Bill Gates, is “There is no such thing as fairness.” No one ever said life was fair. Life is a hectic interlude in an otherwise peaceful, nonexistence. On radio talk shows and many other times, I have heard ne'er do wells talk at length about one man making so much more money than other men. Many think it is unfair for one nation to have nuclear weapons and another nation not to have them. In this time of health care debates, why should the congress and the billionaires get better health care than the poorest citizen? Christ himself said, the poor, you will have with you always. Matthew 26:11

As long as there is a difference in DNA, as long as there is a difference in human behavior, there will be inequality. The one verse of scripture which should scare all of us is Psalm 98:9.Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.

For both the saved and the unsaved, faith is a verb; and faith is action based on belief sustained by confidence. If I am in my house, and believe I am having a heart attack, I must act on my belief and call for help, having the confidence that help will come and probably save my life. But, I must act. I have the confidence to believe that those of addictive behavior whether drug addiction, food addiction, sex addiction, things addiction, would all come into submission, if we really found the hiding place for our souls' recluse and aspiration that God has provided in His answer book. When you turn your life over to God, when Christ who is your life, regulates and resolves your very existence, you have a hiding place.

The rebellious preacher of old, Jonah, believed he could escape God's place for his life. There are 66 books in the Bible, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament, 1189 Chapters and 788,252 words in God's word. Five hundred and forty times we find the word love. Five hundred and sixty times we find the word grace. And four times in the book of Jonah we find the word appointed. God appointed a big fish to swallow Jonah. He appointed a fast growing plant to shade Jonah. He appointed a worm to kill the plant. He appointed a hot wind, sweeping across present day Iraq, where ancient Nineveh was located, to really punish Jonah in his doubts and rebellion. I truly believe that God will appoint a solution for the culture of death to eugenics, euthanasia and most of all abortion which is now gripping our nation.

For many years, I visited the great 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. When Princeton University was a small, struggling college, this church would give a new suit of clothes to each graduating preacher. Would those ancient people of this church ever believe that today's prestigious Princeton University would have a bioethicist, Dr. Peter Singer, who advocates the post birth abortion of any disabled child. Here is a direct quote from him; "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.”

Cling to the promise that God is in control. It was no accident that on a clear day, a clear sky a tornado moved down the highway in Minneapolis, Minnesota, bothering nothing else, but went directly to the convention center where the Lutherans were to take a vote on homosexual preachers. The tornado tore up the roof of the convention center, the tents in the yard of the Lutheran church across the highway, took off the steeple of the Lutheran church and then disappeared. The stupid Lutherans went right on with their vote, never thinking God had a message for them and voted to put homosexual preachers in the pulpit. It is no accident that Dr. Tiller who had killed 60,000 babies in his abortion mill-clinic, the holocaust of Kansas, was killed. It is no accident that 87 year old, Dr. Noah Hutchins, President of Southwest Radio Ministry, author of 100 books, very ill, was miraculously delivered from his illness.

The truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not. It is no accident that you know the truth, that you will read a commentary such as this. We cannot understand the doubts and fears of most young people. Living gives us an ability to face life. We become more tolerant. That is why grandparents get along so well with their grandchildren.

A young preacher, early twenties, fresh out of the seminary, filled with knowledge and worries of today's problems, told me he recently preached a “barn burner” in a local church. After the service, an old man approached him, with tears streaming down his face and said, “I thought you would tell us how much Jesus loves us.” Remember, Jesus loves us more than we love Him. In Him we have our hiding place.