In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of where we direct our gaze. He references a story from the book of Burgum about a man who could only look downward with a milk rake in his hand. Despite being offered a celestial crown, the man remains fixated on the straw and small sticks on the floor. The speaker warns against the enemy's tactic of constantly drawing our attention to our sins, but reminds us that as Christians, we have the answer to our sin problem through confession and the forgiveness of God. The sermon also touches on the idea of abiding in Jesus, using the analogy of a vine and its branches to illustrate the importance of remaining connected to Christ in order to bear fruit.

This is Tapes to Live By, tape number 530. Corrie Timboon with the message originally delivered to the 1963 Pacific Palisades Conference, entitled, Keep Looking to Jesus. I am the true vine, Jesus says, and my father is the husband man. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he purges it. Then it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and it withers. And men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciple. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. Even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. And in Colossians 1, 9, I read this from the translation of Philips, We are asking God that you may see things, as it were, from his point of view, by being given spiritual insight and understanding. We also pray that your outward lives, which men seek, may bring credit to your Master's name, and that you may bring joy to his heart by bearing genuine Christian fruit, and that your knowledge of God may grow yet deeper. Colossians 1, 11. As you live this new life, we pray that you will be strengthened from God's boundless resources, so that you will find yourself able to pass through any experience and endure it with courage. You will even be able to thank God in the midst of pain and distress, because you are privileged to share the lot of those who are living in the light. For we must never forget that he rescued us from the power of darkness, and re-established us in the kingdom of his beloved Son, that is, in the kingdom of light. For it is by his Son alone that we have been redeemed and have had our sins forgiven. It is very important which direction we look. This afternoon, or, yes, late afternoon, when we were sitting here together, someone said, we need a sense of direction. And I thought that was so true. We need a sense of direction, because we are living in a world that is so dark, so foggy. It is so mixed up, and we need to have the sense of direction, and how very needy it is to look in the right direction. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. My mountain shall be removed. You know, before I look at the might and the power of the Spirit, I look so often on myself, and then the mountains are so solid. This morning they asked me to speak with a neighbor of a friend of mine, and there were all the things together that made it very difficult to approach this lady. She was very needy. She had a difficult husband who was in the grip of Christian science. She was terrible rich. That is so difficult, you know, because if you have very much money, you have not the money, the money has you. And I saw that mountain that I cannot, I cannot do, I can really not remove. And I looked into myself, and I didn't like to go to her. And then really the Lord spoke to me, and I looked in the right direction, and I said, Lord, I don't believe that I cannot do this. You know, there are people who, from the first moment it clicks. But there are also people where it doesn't click between you and the other person. And I was afraid it should be so. I said, Lord, I really don't think that I can do it. And the Lord said, I do not think it, I know it. But you must go, and now I can do it. And that is so often. When I come to the Lord and say, I can't do it, that is just as if the Lord smiles. And He says, I know that already a long time, but I am so glad that you know it now. And I went. And do you know when I prayed, I prayed, O Lord, give me a little bit of humor. And the Lord has tremendous much humor, also distributed to us. And when I came to her, she started to talk about religion and religion this and religion that, and I cannot do this and I cannot do that. I said, I am so glad that you know that you cannot do it. She said, yes, but we must do rather much. It is all right when you say God must do it, but we must do very much. But I can't. And then I showed her this glove. I said, this glove cannot do anything. But when my hand is in the glove, it can even play piano. And I said, you are nothing but a glove, and I am nothing but a glove. But when we ask the Lord Jesus to enter into our hearts, and He is the vine and you are the branch and you are in Him and He is in you, then you can do very much. And that glove that was with me the whole time, and I cannot do this and I must do that, and then I showed her the glove. And you know, when she went on a little bit, she made a stab of home to our college, and the young people had their slogan, and the slogan was, keep it simple. She had a very good tongue, and I believed that. And I found that often in the world, we must start our examination, and we must get our, how do you call it, his papers. He would go through Moses to be a nobody. He was a nobody, and then more and more I listened to him. And they asked me to speak, and they brought me in a ward where all the patients, I had never seen them, and I said, Lord, I cannot stay. And then they asked me, speak with the Jewish man there. And I said, no, Lord, I can't. The Lord said, you can't, cannot, but I. In the strength of the Lord, and even talking, and I fasted. And my heart, but I, he was a Jew when I showed him. And then I had with me an embroidery, a prison where 90, where I saw my, where I was surrounded by people. I had experienced a peace that passed, and I always believed. But now I know from experience that Jesus' light is stronger than the people's darkness, and that the eyes of God cannot. And then I showed him my embroidery. And I said, my life is like a weeper. I do not choose the off-shining tiddies of sorrow, and I do not feel the looming tide of golden fish eyes. And God has blended no crown. And when he brought, and I brought him his paper, and he wrote down these words. Thanks God, I am already searing. The fat man saw already the beauty. Again, to that hospital, and I said, can I sit? Five minutes after you left, he wrote on a paper for the first time, in Jesus' name, and at that moment, oh, what a time. We cannot do it, but he cannot do it. Oh, I was, I was so, I was. This paper, it is, of course, very good that we see that we can. But I don't know when I am speaking, and I see how the Holy Spirit, when I see the people, when I see a kind of light on them, then the devil tells me, but if I keep that, then it takes the blessing away from my people. Now, the devil has done it so often, that now, just, you know, that I have, sometimes say I, and the very, and the woodpecker flew away, and he bring our, people so often, I believe that you, but when people say, then I always say no. And if you ask, Jesus has said that I was in, and that's good. But if I say it was my faith, then it is false. And, and, and provide you test. Uh, literally three A's, so the hand of, three fingers lost, compared with the priceless privilege, supreme authentic, and of, you need, not look unto, you watch that, I never prepared it, but I said this back to the manufacturer, and wrote him, when my faith doesn't work, but unto Jesus, the author, and the, I think you have all read the, and then he came, no way but downward, with a mercury, that stood also one over his head, with a celestial crown in his hand, and offered him that crown for his mercury, nor regard, nor rake, but rake, isn't it often that we certainly, and one of the tricks of the enemy, is that, uh, eyes always, uh, to our, the devil, uh, likes it, who makes us imprudent, but of course we must know. At this point, please stop your machine, and turn the tape over. The remainder of Corrie Ten Boone's message will be heard on side two. Corrie Ten Boone's Message Corrie Ten Boone's Message The father took a stone and threw it in the lake, and the boy said, oh, daddy, you have broken the moon. And then he said, boy, look up. He looked up, and the moon was not that broken. Then he looked unto our father. Then he often, uh, wished in this prayer, because the moon is broken. But then he was still there. And now, speaking about moons, we are all moons. We are no suns. Sometimes I have the idea, when I go in my own strength, when I go to a meeting as a sun, I will give my life. But when I go in my own inability, then I just move. I just reflect the sunshine of God's love. It is very important that we look unto the Lord. For we all with unveiled faith, beholden as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are transformed after, into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord's Spirit. Second Corinthians 3, verse 2. A mirror doesn't do much. It stands or hangs in the right direction, and then it does its job. And you and I have nothing to do much. We have just to look. Nothing else but to look unto the Lord, and He makes it a mirror of His job. Some time ago I was in my hometown, and I had a little accident. It was not so terrible, but I could not walk. I had hurt my leg. So a policeman helped to carry me into a car. When a policeman does something in Holland, always his little booklet comes, and he must write a report. So he said, what's your name? I said, Paul Cambon. He said, Paul Cambon? He said, I am you a member of that family that we arrested 10 years ago. I said, that's right. You know, during the war, the Dutch policemen remained in their jobs, and so they were in the service of the Germans. But they did that with the purpose to help us political prisoners, and God bless them for the good work that they have done. And this good judgment was in the police station when my old father, with his three daughters, a son, a grandson, and 50 of our friends were arrested, and we were sitting on the floor of this police station. That night, we had no bed, we had no chair, we were all sitting on the floor. Father was 84 years old. We had often warned him and said, when you always help Jewish people, you end up in prison. And that was why we were arrested. The Germans intended to kill all the Jewish people, and we helped him to escape, and we hid him in our house. And there we were, father with all his children and a grandson, and 50 friends. And after 10 years, this man said, I will never forget that night. There was an atmosphere as if there was a siege. Instead of that, most of you had to die in prison. Father died after 10 years. You are too old for prison life. And yet once in off and ahead, when you have always Jews in your house, you will end up in prison, and father always answers, is that good heaven? I am too old for prison life, but it will be an honor to me to give my life for God, and to be able to speak for the Jews. And that policeman said, before your father tries to speak, he said, children, let us pray together, and then he took his Bible and read Psalm 91. That man knew after 10 years that Psalm father had died. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. When I come in heaven, I hope to have a talk with my daddy, many talks, but the first talk will be this. Do you also like to use your fantasy a little bit, that you will do and be in heaven? You know, the reality is a trillion and more times greater than your great-grandfather, so you just go ahead. But one thing I know from the Bible, and that is that we don't know each other. In the Bible it is told that on the mountain of Transfiguration, the Lord Jesus was there, and Moses and Elijah, and the disciples. And I don't believe that Jesus has said, may I introduce you, my disciples, Moses and Elijah, oh no, but the disciples knew that Moses and that Elijah, how did they know that? Because these two have celestial bodies. We will know each other in heaven far more and better than here. Now when I come in heaven, I will ask father, daddy, do you remember that last night in the Smedestra, in Aachen, in that location, and I'm sure father will say yes. For the last time that we were together. Then I will ask, do you remember that policeman that was on duty, and it is very possible that we will say, the policeman. No, I don't remember that. You know father has not thought that evening, now I must say or do something to be a blessing for that policeman. No, father lives very relaxed. But his eyes and his whole life was turned towards Jesus. And Jesus made him a mirror of his joy so that that policeman knew after ten years that something had happened. And I'm sure when you enter the beautiful city and the saints all around you appear, that many of them will tell you it was you that invited me here. And you will say, how? When did I invite you? What happened? And you will find out that that was the time that he really looked at Jesus. So let us look at Jesus always unto him. Not unto ourselves. Jesus not unto ourselves. I'm just glad that the Bible tells us what Jesus does with us this time. And we repent of our sins. The Bible speaks about blotting out like clouds the Spartacuses from the west, throwing them over the shoulder into the depths of the sea forgotten and forgiven. And I'm sure Jesus is a sign no fishing allowed. For Jesus does with our sins. Now we have to understand an unconfessed sin is still alive. But an confessed sin is dead. Give the burial. And you don't go to a graveyard to look at the dead body. A little child broke a beautiful cup of her mother. And she brought that cup to the mother and said, Mom, I broke your beautiful cup. And the mother saw that she was sorry. She said, All right, I will forgive you. Just give me this. And she said, These pieces in the garbage can. The next day the stupid little girl saw these pieces in the garbage can and she took them and she brought them again to the mother and said, Mom, yesterday I broke your cup. But the mother said, Leave them in the garbage can. Just think of my forgiveness. I was impatient. A short time ago. Some other lady I didn't like. And I was unkind. And impatience, she had a way of doing that really that made me impatient. In the evening turned me out and reminded me. Impatience is a great thing. I said, Oh, Father, forgive me. Forgive me. Let it be. The next morning in my quiet time again I remembered that impatience. Before I knew what I did, I said, Father, yesterday I met you so and so and I was so unkind and so impatient. Will you please forgive me? Oh, thank you, Father, that you forgave me last night. I almost asked for the second time forgiveness for the same, for the same sin that sin upon God. When God said, I am faithful and just to forgive you a new sin. Of course, I had to do something else. I had to go to Mr. So-and-so and tell her that I was sorry. But I had not asked for forgiveness for the second time. I used sometimes this phrase, when you give me a cup of coffee and you put that in front of me, just imagine that I then should say to you, Oh, please, I prefer either you give me a cup of coffee or should this honor you as my host? I honor you when I drink the coffee and perhaps when I say, boy, what a good coffee, almost as good as the Dutch coffee. Now, when God says, I am faithful and just to forgive you, then He means it. And you may praise and thank for forgiveness. Oh, when we look unto the Lord, God's healing is unlimited. And we get fixedly out of focus as soon as our eyes are turned away from Jesus. Do you know what I mean? Are you a photographer? I have my camera, I must turn and move till the thing that I will take a photo of is in focus. Now, when we look away from Jesus, we get fixedly out of focus and our iniquity hinders us to look at Him. Therefore, it is so very important that we look, that we have a clean heart. For when there are simple questions in our heart, we cannot look at it. How Christians get rid of it. And you know, I read somewhere, I looked at Jesus and the dove of peace flew into my heart. I looked at the dove of peace and it flew away. We must look unto Jesus. We must look unto Him. Look unto our experiences. Too many experiences are very important, but we must look unto the Lord. Healing is something that Americans speak very often about. I feel that, I feel this, sometimes I use the illustration of what I experienced in New Zealand. I was in a place and I worked with Dr. Edwin Orr. Dr. Edwin Orr, we have a team. And he worked in a place, a darker team and I was in a tent. And he wrote, Corrie, you must come here on Monday for this revival here and I must go to another town. Now I had that week free, so I pushed the duet and gave the whole week to Dr. Orr. But I found out that it should take me about nine hours in a car to come here in time. The highways were very winding roads. Windy. Windy roads go with many curves. So I thought I must have a talk with my heavenly Father. I said, Father, I cannot go myself. Nine hours in a car makes me tired. I have been a long time young. I said, Lord, I think you must give me an F. That evening there came a man to me and said, say, is it true that you must meet on Monday in Dagafield and Sunday you sleep here? I said, that's right. How are you going to go? I said, by plane. He said, but there is no airline to Dagafield. I said, I know it, but I heard a can-chew maker say, our problems are meant by God as the raw material to build His miracles. And do we need a great miracle? You must hand God your impossibilities. And God knows that I cannot go by car. Revised people need a strong message. And then I was physically relaxed. He said, now that's very interesting. You know, I work in a stock director's firm. Ever heard of stock directors? I hadn't. I thought it was the icing of the cake. But that is not it. It is what you call crop dusting. They throw from small airplanes the fertilizer over these vast fields in New Zealand. And he said, my boss is a Christian and he says it's quite a moment to be in Dagafield on Monday when he can use one of my airplanes. I said, thank you, Father. He said, but my boss is concerned about a pilot. He's a back flight. And now he prays that you will be used by the Lord to bring the pilot back to the Lord. So I knew what I had to do when I came in the smallest airplane I have seen in my life. There was not much room for God is at home. I was sitting very close to the pilot. In my hand I had a book. And that was good for I had no room to get it from my bed. And very soon we had a good talk together. And I even, he said, why has God allowed that my wife die? I have three little children. When I saw my wife die, I said, that can't be a part of love. And I thrown away all religion. Then I told him, my wife, why has God allowed that my old father died alone in a prison when in the same building all his children were abandoned and three of our friends, but the enemy did not allow us to go to the dying old man. So I had bet to my sister to suffer in three prisons before he died. One week before I was set free. I said, but in this book we see things as it were from God's point of view. And I also showed him my embroidery. And then I showed him several texts where you see it from God's point of view For instance, the suffering of this time is not worth it to be compared with the present Lord. And those who love God, all things work for the best. So the good thing was, that man had to read what I put before his nose so he couldn't run away. At last he said, oh, that's all very nice in that book, but I don't feel that these things are true. He said, by the way, I must interrupt our conversation. We are now flying into that cloud. Now the first five, and perhaps ten minutes, you will have the feeling that the plane goes to one side. But don't be scared. I promise you that I will keep the little plane absolutely straight. And if you will control me, look at this instrument. When the needle goes to the right, to the one, and that needle to the left, to the one, then you know that the plane is straight. So don't be afraid when you feel that you go to one side. I said, man, you can give me feelings come and feelings go and feelings are the season. My warrant is the word of God. Learn altruism. It's worth believing. This is my instrument. When I pilot my life, the plane of my life, on this book, then I am saved in the hands of Jesus. I am glad that I can tell you that he came to a Jew, yes, to Jesus. Yes. Let us look unto Jesus. In that plane, you see, you have sometimes very primitive bridges. Sometimes, before we went with the car over the bridge, we just left the car and examined the bridge if it was strong enough to carry the car. We didn't examine our faith in the bridge. We examined the bridge. You see, it is not that we must look unto our faith in Jesus. We must look unto Jesus. It is he who carries us. And our faith is also in his hands. And you know, when we go with our hands in Jesus' hands and we look unto him, then we are so relaxed. Though some Christians are always so yes, between hope and fear balanced. They are like a tiger or a walker going from the past to the future over a rope. Balancing between hope and fear. In one hand, the indigested past. In the other hand, the anticipated future. Balancing between hope and fear. But when we look at Jesus, we are just like an escalator walker. You stand on an escalator and you go higher and higher. You stand so relaxed. And that's what Jesus did. When we look unto him, that's a damn for us. Therefore, look unto him. Always unto him. Look around and be distressed. Look within and look at him with effort. The wasted hours, the stimmings, the regrets, I leave them all with him. He blocks the records and mercifully forgives. And then, I don't look forward. God sees all the future. The road that short or long will lead me home. And he will face with me in every trial and bear for me the burdens that may come. I don't look around me. When you see it, as they do, so wild is the joy of earth with woe and evil proclaiming the hope of comfort and of peace. I don't look in. For then am I most wretched. Myself have not on this earth nothing I seek. These failures and shortcomings and weak endeavors crumbling into dust. But I look up into the face of and can rest. And there is joy and love and purpose. Peace will be filled. This world will be filled with the knowledge of God. When the things in the newspapers embarrass these are the days of what Jesus said, Look up your liberation into the presence of people in your life.