We Need This Film....And We Need To Revisit This Book....The Hiding Place

                                                                                   

             At the beginning of August I wrote five straight posts on a new film that only had a two day showing! A screenplay was written on the classic book The Hiding Place....the play was performed on a stage in Nashville....they filmed the play and turned it into a movie of the same title. I was blown away by it.....and had great hopes for it being available to the American public....but why only two days....and why have I heard nothing about it since? There may still be big plans. That has been my prayer!  What I'll do here is just give a sample from the five posts.

The following is the first paragraph from the first post....The Silence Before The Thunderbolt

             "There's no way to give a warning on this.....but I kind of wish that I had one all the same. The film only has a two day showing....two days ago.....Thursday....and today. So it's too late now....but if it does come back....I would give this warning.....prepare to be shredded....in your innermost Christian being. It is that powerful! It is a two and a half hour film.....of a play....staged in front of an audience.....in Nashville."

                  The following was from the second post....The Most Beautiful....Bleakness....as  I described the bleak settings as....beautiful....

                  "The father....Casper Ten Boom....standing up to say grace over a modest meal....with Jewish people that he was hiding from the Nazis around the table....yes that was a grand vista. The faith amidst the persecution....and the prayers....and the pleadings....and the cries....and the tears....were raindrops....the sun [Son] causing them to almost twinkle. The deaths were as lightning white chariots led by magnificent steads....as they carried the souls to the city of streets paved with gold. And the ending....a miracle where Corrie is 'mistakenly' freed....as Joseph was released from the prison....or Jeremiah pulled from the pit....or Peter walking out of the jail with everyone asleep....freed to wander the whole world and tell of her family's faith in Jesus Christ and the Word of God!...freed to move me....forty years ago....with simple devotional books....the last thing one would expect me to be reading!"

The following from the third post...."And Behold I Am With You Always, To The End Of The Age."

                 "We terribly need the message from this stage play/film The Hiding Place....and we need it now! We need to see Casper Ten Boom's dissatisfaction with the preaching in his country. We need to see him stand up from the table to thank God for the food in front of him! We need to see the thankfulness over the simple delicacy of marmalade....or a cup of tea....or potted flowers....for the day is coming when we will yearn for a taste of butter....or a piece of fruit! We need to see the treasure of that small Bible on a chain around Corrie's neck. We need to see God's glory manifested in people like the Ten Booms. We need warned of what is ahead....and we need to know that Christ will be with us through it all." 

The following is from the fourth post...."Who Or What Is It That....Lights Your Fire?"

                 "We need this film folks. We need to see what we may be about to go through. We need to....as Jeremiah wrote...."Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls." (Jeremiah 6:16)  The Hiding Place....can help. This family....the Ten Booms....could have lived out their life....ignoring the war all around them....and simply come out in the light at the end of the war....to resume that life.  The war that is all around us is spiritual....not political. It is the attack on the gospel and not the culture that should consume us. It is the Word and not Wordle that we should wake up to....and it is Isaiah and Jeremiah and Daniel and Paul and Peter and John that should fill our minds before we sleep....not Fox cable. It's the Psalms that should light a fire of devotion in us....not talk radio.

And this was the fifth post...."God Is Love....God Is Just....The Lord Is Returning. The post is about the 1971 book....The Hiding Place....written by Elizabeth and John Sherrill from first hand accounts of Corrie Ten Boom

                "Just about everyone my age read this book back in the 1980s. We're more into talk radio and Fox news today. This is the fifth post in a week on The Hiding Place....the first four on the new stage-filmed movie of the same name...this post is on the book. Please let me offer some advice if you do go out tomorrow and buy the book....(time is short folks....make every day count)....do not read this for the historical content alone. That in itself will humble you....but as you read....consider this family and their Christian faith....and the glorious God that they serve....for that is where the real nourishment is! I wanted to add at least one anecdote from the book. Here is the setting....May of 1940....the Dutch prime minister was giving a major address to the nation. War was raging....but not in Holland...."there was nothing to fear....Holland would remain neutral"....promised the nation's leader. "Sonorous and soothing" were two words used by Corrie Ten Boom to describe what they heard on the radio....but then Casper....who was the most mild-mannered and humble Christian you could ever imagine.....with fire in his eyes that Corrie had never seen before....jumped up and turned off the radio....calmed down....and told his family this...."It is wrong to give people hope when there is no hope. It is wrong to base faith upon wishes. There will be war. The Germans will attack and we will fall." Five hours after the prime minister's speech....the bombs were falling close enough that the Ten Boom family could hear explosions and see the red sky! Our pulpits today preach the same....soothing message."

Note: I thought that I should add this from the fifth post to explain the title....

                      "I often write that there are no Christian bookstores today....because they are so very few....but there are some here and there if you are willing to drive for a few hours. I was in one Saturday....a very small Christian bookstore that I get to visit maybe two times a year....and I have never gone in without buying something to help out the owner. So I went in yesterday....and found this to buy....a wooden block with a Christian message on it....GOD IS LOVE....and as I put it down to pay for it....I told the owner that one cannot buy.....GOD IS LOVE....without this block also....GOD IS JUST....and for good measure I put a third block down for purchase....THE LORD IS RETURNING."