Bible Gem 2323 – Cared For and Protected from the Dragon

This means that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently, obeying his commands and maintaining their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!”

Revelation 14:12-13

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days.

Revelation 12:6

But she was given two wings like those of a great eagle so she could fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness. There she would be cared for and protected from the dragon for a time, times, and half a time.

Revelation 12:14

And he came on a place and stayed the night there, for the sun had gone. And he took stones of the place and placed them at his head; and he lay down in that place. [LITV]

Genesis 28:11

I left you at the end of the previous Gem with these three questions:

• What was it that enabled Corrie Ten Boom and Immaculee Ilibagiza to survive?
• What are the keys to the survival of these two women?
• What is the reality of Ha Makom, The Place?

In this Gem I will address the first two questions related to the survival of the two women. Which two women? Corrie Ten Boom and Immaculee Ilibagiza. These two real life stories for me epitomise the point of God’s protection over His saints, His children. Have you picked up on the dual application in both stories and the way in which these two women span the gamut of persecuted witnesses, whether they are martyred or not? Your entry into the Life of the Age to Come is not contingent on whether you are protected from death or become a martyr. All we are called to do is to be faithful witnesses and be willing to die, while being faithful to the end.

A number of you have asked me to clarify whether only the martyrs are guaranteed eternal life. Are the martyrs the only ones to be sealed as belonging to God or are the non-martyrs included as well? You be the judge! Don’t forget the martyrs I have used as examples in this series of Gems on Revelation and included in the God Stories. Don’t overlook the examples we looked at in detail, found in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews – The Examples of Faith. These examples all come from the Word of God. They all serve as answers to your questions.

Corrie and Immaculee represent two women who survived their holocaust, but were found on opposite sides of the divide. One comes from the side of the oppressed and persecuted (Immaculee), considered worthless and cast aside. While the other (Corrie) chose to protect the oppressed and dehumanised as a response to God’s command to love, even her enemies. One was protected by God by one of the killers, the other chose to put themselves in danger in order to do what was right. Aside from the fact that these two women found “The Place” in the midst of terrible tribulation, they also both demonstrate the keys which bring all potential martyrs through the worst imaginable times. As I re-read both of these accounts within a short time, I realised why God had me reading these books again. Both of these women experienced “the hiding place” only to find “The Place” as a result of their experiences. [This comment will be explained in the following Gem.]

The Ten Booms were challenged by the LORD to put themselves in danger to protect God’s people. Dutch Christians living in Holland at the time of the Nazi invasion chose to care for and protect Jews. Immaculee’s family were strong Christians, highly regarded by all races around them in Rwanda. Hutu and Tutsis came to Leonard and Rose (Immaculee’s dad and mum) for advice in handling their children and other life issues. Hutu and Tutsi greatly respected them and regarded them as friends. They would ask Leonard to smack their children for them. Why? Because this Christian gentleman had a way of explaining to the children why they needed to be disciplined. Their parents then sent them to Leonard to smack them on behalf of the parents. He would not smack a child before each child needing a smacking, realised why they needed it. He had a way of explaining that they were being smacked for their own benefit. When each child reached that point and asked to be smacked, he would then smack them.

When the Rwandan President’s plane was shot down and he died, all Tutsi realised they would soon face death. The racial divide had been getting more entrenched in the small nation to the point where genocide was inevitable. Ten thousand Tutsi came to Leonard to seek advice as to what to do the day after the President died. Hutu had already started killing Tutsis in their thousands.

Leonard’s response: “Let us use the time we have to repent. Let us pray for God to forgive our sins. If we are to die, let us die with our hearts clean. We will ask God to defend us against evil. We will ask God for help but we will also defend ourselves. Find a spear, arm yourselves but don’t kill anyone! We won’t be like them – we will not kill – but we won’t sit around and be slaughtered like sheep. Let us be strong and pray.” He then led his people in a prayer of repentance.

Leonard died the next day along with Rose, hacked to death. Rose and Damascene were hacked into little pieces by frenzied killers. Vianney, the youngest son was protected as he was studying in another country. Immaculee, the only daughter, was offered protection by a Hutu pastor, a friend of the family, at great risk to his own life and family. Six women and two girls hid in the pastor’s inner bathroom for three months (91 days). The space was only 3ft by 4ft with a toilet and shower. They could use the former and flush it when the toilet on the other side of the wall was used. But there was no using the shower. They had to be squashed together and silent.

As the Nazi invasion led to the large scale arrest of Jews in Dutch cities, the Ten Booms set up their house as a Hiding Place for Jews and then arranged to smuggle them out of Holland to safety at their own peril. They had been hiding Jews from the time the Germans first attacked Holland on May 10th 1940. For four years they provided “the hiding place” and the way to escape. The Ten Boom family were all arrested on February 28th 1944.

After their arrest the Ten Booms were separated from one another and the children didn’t see their parents again. Betsie and Corrie were transported in railroad carriages to Scheveningen, a Federal Penitentiary which was commandeered by the Germans as a prison for sympathisers. They had judged that Corrie was the leader of The Hiding Place. The carriages were designed for cattle which could hold 40 people per carriage, but 80 were crammed in there for days before they got to their destination. The parents died in March due to the harsh conditions. Their sister Nollie was released because the Germans couldn’t find evidence she had been an active participant. Nollie had been given a small full Bible, which she passed to Corrie, who tore it into separate books and handed them around to different women.

Later Betsie and Corrie were transferred to Vught, a prison camp for political prisoners working against the German Reich. They were subject to cruelty, torture and inhumane conditions during the rest of 1944 while being threatened with death. Betsie encouraged Corrie, “We must tell people what we learned here. We must tell them there is no pit so deep that He [God] is not deeper still. They will listen to us Corrie because we have been here. We will be released very soon Corrie, by the first of the year. We will be out of prison by the first of the year.“

Betsie encouraged her younger sister Corrie to live victoriously. She had an irrepressible spirit which always saw God’s goodness all around them, despite deplorable conditions. Their last barracks in Ravensbruck, inside Germany, had been designed for the mass interment of 400 prisoners in communal areas with limited food and toileting facilities. Yet each barracks was crammed with 1,400 prisoners. The women were forced into heavy labour, carrying rocks from 4.30 am to 5.00 pm.

Betsie continually saw God’s blessing in everything around them. She praised God for the bed bugs, the lice and the fleas. She encouraged Corrie to give thanks in everything. Corrie said, “How can I give thanks for the flea infested beds we have?” Betsie and Corrie changed the atmosphere of the barracks. Corrie soon realised that the guards were not coming around at night and supervising them and she realised why. The guards didn’t like the flea infestation in Barracks 28. That meant the women were able to lead singing and readings of the Word of God with hushed voices in small groups.

At first Corrie had the four Gospels in four little booklets which she managed to keep hidden. Then she prayed and asked God whether she should share them with other women. No one wanted them because if you were caught with the Bible you were put on ‘kalte kost’, bread and water rations and other punishments. She managed to give her four gospels away. They also managed to keep hidden the torn portions of the Word of God and give them out to others. They devoured the Word of God as much as they were able.

For Immaculee in her Hiding Place in the inner bathroom she had spent hours inwardly meditating on the Scriptures she had memorised. But she felt she wanted a sign from God that He was indeed watching over them. She had asked Pastor Murinzi for a Bible. But nothing came. After a number of weeks the Pastor had added several other women to their bathroom and had told others to leave because it was getting more dangerous. Suddenly he appeared one night to gave Immaculee the Bible she’d asked for. Now like Corrie, Immaculee, armed with the Word of God was far better equipped to keep her mind under control.

When you are forced to be squashed in with others around you it is hard to maintain your peace and your concentration. Without the Word of God you are seriously restricted. It all depends on how much of the Word of God you have hidden in your heart in the preceding years. Both families, had done a good job of instilling in their children the Truth of the Word of God. Both Immaculee and Corrie had a wealth of Scripture stored in their hearts either as verses memorised or in songs they could remember.

I fear for the believers of this current generation who are dependant on devices and modern technology for their access to the Word of God. I am sure you have got the idea from what I have shared with you already. The enemy of your souls, the dragon, satan abhors the Word of God. The Nazis and the Hutu, crazed killers, did all they could to prevent Christians from having access to God’s Word. If you can demand captives stay silent and don’t talk you can control their minds. If you keep them isolated in solitary confinement you have won a major part of the battle to control them. You can keep them oppressed and depressed, believing that they are second class citizens who are not worthy. The Hutu had called the Tutsi “cockroaches”. When you label people as less than human for long enough, you begin to believe your own propaganda. This process enabled German and Hutu indoctrination to the point of the majority of citizens being willing to kill Jews and Tutsi respectively. By dehumanizing an ethnic group of people long enough, you can convince those with the inclination to commit murder.

Those held captive, anticipating death, or hiding in expectation of death inevitably coming to them, have to have a means of wanting to live. What sustains you to believe in your own dignity as a human when others are telling you, ‘you deserve to die’? When you hear it often enough, you begin to believe the propaganda too. Especially when there seems no way to escape, you lose the will to live. When your spirit is broken you stop resisting. You must hang on to your dignity as a human being when the government or your conquerors are telling you the you deserve to die. Either you acquiesce or you become angry and bitter toward your oppressors. The way your fellow prisoners or those cowering waiting for the inevitable behave is what colours your expectation. The attitude of those around at that stage of your captivity is what determines your mindset as to whether you accept your fate or you rise up against it.

To be able to do that you have to have a self-belief as to who you are and more importantly Whose you are. Both Corrie Ten Boom and Immaculee Ilibagiza found that place in the midst of their captivity. Despite the punishment of their captivity and the vitriolic words hurled at them they resisted. How do you do that when you are surrounded with evil intent to wipe you and your family off the face of the earth? How do you not succumb to that physical and emotional abuse being hurled at you? How do you maintain your human dignity when your captors are screaming at you and telling you, you are guilty and you are going to die like the other members of your family who have died before you?

Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsi were in that place in midst of Nazi death camps. Immaculee and her fellow Tutsi women trapped in a small bathroom for the duration of the Rwandan genocide, while crazed Hutu killers searched the pastor’s house calling her name and telling her she was going to join her family in death. How do you maintain your own sanity and prevent yourself from giving up and descending into despair? The mental torture is almost worse than the physical torture.

How do you find The Place?

Both women asked the question Corrie asked when told of her father’s death by a young German guard whose response was, “You brought this on yourself by breaking the laws.”

I whispered as the door slammed and her footsteps died away, “Dear Jesus, how foolish of me to have called for human help when You are here.”

I pulled the cot from the wall and below the calendar scratched another date:

March 9, 1944 Father Released.

Corrie Ten Boom The Hiding Place p.170

Don’t miss the next Gem: Bible Gem 2324 – Finding The Makom in Tribulation.

Just as unbelievers can know about Jesus without knowing Him, many believers know Jesus but have never experienced His Presence.

Ian

There is a thin veil of separation between us and the presence of God. God could appear to us at any moment.

Ian

We cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s missing is awareness.

David Brenner

The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God.

Emmett Fox