The Best Is Yet to Be

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. PHILIPPIANS 3:20

Casper ten Boom had a saying that his daughter recorded in her first book, in 1945. The best, he used to say, was yet to come. He said it often, and he meant it about heaven. When he died in prison ten days after his arrest, a niece wrote to Betsie telling her not to grieve: for Grandfather, the best had now come. Corrie carried her father’s conviction for the rest of her life, and in her later years it grew into a confident, urgent teaching about the return of Christ. This chapter gathers that teaching, together with the counsel she gave for facing hard times before the end.

Citizens of heaven

In How to Forgive and Tribulation, both now in the Ochorus library, Corrie returns again and again to Paul’s words to the Philippians. Christians are citizens of heaven. Their outlook goes beyond this world, to the coming of Jesus Christ. That outlook, she insisted, is what allows a Christian to be realistic about the world without despair.

She told of a pastor who admitted that when he read a sad book he always turned to the last page first, to see how it ended. She urged her hearers to do the same with the news. Read the last page. Jesus is coming, and He makes all things new.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. REVELATION 21:4–5

She loved the prophets’ vision of a world filled with the knowledge of God, and she quoted it constantly.

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. HABAKKUK 2:14

The train ticket

Her most beloved teaching about hard times comes from her childhood, and she tells it in both How to Forgive and Tribulation. As a little girl she told her father she was afraid she would never be strong enough to suffer for Jesus. He asked her when, if she was going on a train journey, he gave her the ticket. Weeks before? No, she said, on the day she travelled. That, he told her, is what God does. He does not give us today the strength for a trial that has not yet come. When the time comes, He gives us all we need. She says she was comforted and went back to her dolls.

Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be. DEUTERONOMY 33:25

It is one of the wisest things she ever passed on. Much of our fear is the attempt to feel, today, the strength for a suffering we only imagine. God does not give it, because we do not yet need it. The Christian who is afraid of some future trial should not conclude that he will fail. He should conclude that the ticket has not yet been handed out.

Ready for tribulation

Corrie was deeply aware of the suffering church, and she believed that hard times were coming for believers everywhere. In Tribulation she tells her hearers that persecution is not a strange thing reserved for other countries, and that they should prepare for it now — by learning Scripture by heart, by learning to pray, and by being filled with the Spirit. She rejected the comfortable assumption that Christians will always be spared.

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. 2 TIMOTHY 3:12

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. JOHN 16:33

In the same address she says plainly that she did not accept the teaching that Christians will be taken out of the world before any tribulation comes; she read the Lord’s words as a call to pray for strength to stand. Christians hold different views on the order of the last things, and readers will weigh hers accordingly. But a caution is needed about one document in particular. A letter warning against the pre-tribulation rapture, said to date from 1974, circulates widely under her name and is quoted in several books. As the Ochorus biography notes, its origin has never been verified, and it should not be quoted as hers. What can be said with confidence is what she said in her recorded addresses: be ready, whatever comes.

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. LUKE 21:36

A caution about newspapers

She sometimes drew on the news to illustrate prophecy, and in Tribulation she tells of a passage in Ezekiel she had hung on a hook, so to speak, because she could not see how it would be fulfilled, until she read something in the paper that seemed to explain it. She was careful to say she did not understand all the prophecies and did not need to. That humility is the right lesson. The history of the church is littered with confident identifications of prophecy with the headlines of the day, and most of them have been wrong. We are told to be ready, not to be clever.

Ready now

For Corrie, readiness was chiefly moral and spiritual. In How to Forgive she quotes Peter: because we look for such things, we should be diligent to be found at peace, spotless and blameless. And she asked her hearers directly whether they were right with God and right with others, if Jesus should come that very morning. That, rather than a timetable, was the point.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. 2 PETER 3:14

She had long before told her fellow prisoners that for those who belong to Christ, death is not a pit but a tunnel into the light. She watched her father and her sister go through it. On 15 April 1983, on her ninety-first birthday, she followed them.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 THESSALONIANS 4:16–17

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name one future trial you fear. Tell God you do not yet have the strength for it, and thank Him that He will give the ticket on the day.

2. Read Revelation 21 and 22 slowly. Let the last page shape how you read today’s news.

3. Ask yourself Corrie’s question: if Jesus came this morning, would you be at peace with God and with others? Put right one thing today.

4. Before sharing any quotation about the end times attributed to a famous Christian, check its source.

5. Prepare for hard times as she urged: learn one passage of Scripture, keep one hour of prayer, and ask to be filled with the Spirit.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You are coming again, and You will make all things new. Let me live today as a citizen of heaven.

I am afraid of trials I cannot yet bear. Thank You that You give the strength on the day, and not before.

Make me ready — at peace with You and with others, clean and blameless in Your sight.

Keep Your suffering people strong until You come. The best is yet to be. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.