Post by trevorbereck on Dec 27, 2010 0:39:15 GMT -5
WE WOULD SEE JESUS
Capetown #2 2010
Ernest Robinson:
I'm sure that every one of us that is at this convention would like to leave with more strength, with more joy and with more willingness. We sang in that hymn “We would see Jesus, strength joy and willingness come with the sight.” It also says “This is all we're needing.” I would venture to say that at this convention, this is all we're needing, just to see Jesus. If we do, then the results are going to be no less than astounding.
In Matthew 16 we read what the Lord Jesus said and those are extremely important words. He asked the disciples who they thought He was and Peter made it plain that he had a clear revelation. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Then Jesus said to him “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven and on this foundation I'm going to build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So this revelation of our Lord Jesus is that important. If we never get it revealed to us by God Himself, there is no-one else can give us a clear picture. If it is not revealed to us by God Himself, then we still do not have a firm foundation upon which to build our faith. That's how important it is that we see Jesus and that it be the spirit of God showing Him to us. It's very, very important. Dale and I were talking in the room about this and we just mentioned what Jesus also said to Peter. “Now see that you don't tell it to anyone else. Don't tell others about this.” I think the reason for that is very clear. Let them also have the experience of getting it direct from God. It is so important so leave them to have that experience too so that they can also get the revelation direct from God and have a firm revelation that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it.
Before I go on to what Jesus said to Nicodemus, I would like to mention something about the tabernacle. When God gave Moses the directions how to make this tabernacle, I was noticing there in Exodus when He gave him all the measurements and everything else. Three times there God Himself said to Moses, “See that you do it according to the pattern that was shown you in the mount.” I will tell you something interesting. We have a brother who used to be in Korea and he is now in Mongolia. In fact, at the moment he is in Hong Kong, but talk about fastidious. He used to be a chemist and he is still like that, he measures everything. Even when he is cooking he measures how many grams of salt or so on, while most of us would just put a pinch in. Anyway, he decided that he was going to make a model of the tabernacle. He did, and he went to a lot of trouble and I saw it. There is another brother, maybe not as fastidious but very studious and he was in Alaska. He also made a model of the tabernacle and he also went to a lot of trouble. He even tried, as far as possible, to use the original materials. Very interesting. I was in Holland just a few months ago and I specially wanted to see the model of the tabernacle that you can find in the Bible museum in Amsterdam. Wieks took me there, and I appreciated that, and I had a good look at that model of the tabernacle there in the Bible museum in Amsterdam. That was interesting, and also here in South Africa Alice and Estelle made a model of the tabernacle, but that one I didn't see. I want to tell you about the ones that I did see. They all studied the directions that you read in Exodus very carefully yet they were all different. I even noticed in that model in Amsterdam that these students had made, that there was something that was definitely unscriptural. The reason I am telling you this is that Moses never had that problem. If you just read the instructions there in Exodus it is not easy to know how some of the things really were, for example, the cherubim. We know that they had wings and they had faces but we can't know exactly what they looked like. Moses never had that problem for the simple reason that before God gave him the instructions, He took him to the mountain and showed him a model of the completed thing and there it was. So when God told him to make this, and that it was in his mind's eye, there was no problem. I think you can understand what I am getting at now. This is the reason why it is so important for God's people to get that revelation of the Lord Jesus from God Himself. You see, God does exactly the same now with the Truth as He did with Moses. He gives His people a revelation of the Lord Jesus and after that the Bible makes sense. That is exactly why God's people are doing the same in every country. This is one of the things that, when people make their choice and travel to another country, they all say “But this is just the same. It may be a different language but it is just the same.” It’s just like you're sitting in your own country.
I don't know if I should tell you about another interesting brother we've got in Korea when they asked him about this being the same everywhere. His name is Paul Boyd; he's over 80 now and he was in Ireland some years ago for a convention. Then between the meetings somebody asked him. “We have heard that this is the same everywhere. Now you come from the end of the earth. That place in Korea where the customs are so completely different, is it really the same there?” Well he didn't answer that till he was in the meeting and he had a turn to speak and he said “You know, people are asking me if this Truth is exactly the same in every country, even in Korea, so far away and so different. Now folks, I want to give you full assurance that it is exactly the same. In Korea they do just like you do here in Ireland. The first people that come into convention sit on the end of the rows and others cannot get past. It is exactly the same.” Well even to that it is the same, and I have noticed it here in South Africa, too. God's planning is so perfect that He first gives people that picture of Jesus and after that, what is in the Bible makes sense, because we've seen it.
Now I want to come back to when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus. You'd remember very well that He told him this “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” You can read about that in Numbers 21. The reason was that at the time God was very displeased and His heart was stirred up and He sent poisonous snakes to bite them and many, many people died. So then they called to Moses “Please save us from this.” So God instructed him to make that brazen serpent and put it up on a pole and He said that every one that looks at this serpent is going to be spared. That poison will have no effect. To me, that is full of meaning, and when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus He was making it clear that that was just symbolic. You know that the Old Testament is just a shadow of the New and that was actually speaking about Jesus. That is so nice and you know very well, that from the very first book in the Bible to the last, the false preacher is always depicted as a poisonous serpent...from the beginning to the end. That poison is extremely dangerous and it's not easy to escape. So much so that Paul said that the ministers of Satan would be coming as the ministers of light. Just imagine; they look so plausible, so good and so holy that they can look like and seem like angels of light. That's how dangerous it is. Even more so, because even Jesus said that this poison is so dangerous that if it were possible, even the elect would be deceived. Now this is exactly the same as it was in the days of Moses. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and it is only those who have been given that vision of Jesus by the spirit of God that are not affected by that poison. These days, it is a very sad thing, in some places there is poison being spread amongst God's people by people that are bitter and so on. You know about that. It is sad to see those that are affected but we can tell you this, that those who are looking unto Jesus and have been given that vision of Jesus by the spirit of God Himself, they are not affected by that poison. Jesus said “If it were possible” but it is not possible because they have seen Jesus.
I remember many years ago, Uncle Jurgens telling us that when he was in America he saw something interesting. He saw a big statue of George Washington that was tremendous, and I am not sure where it was. I was asking Dale and he doesn't know but anyway, this was special because it stood on a tremendous pedestal and on the one side of this pedestal was engraved the whole of the American Constitution. It was engraved finely and if you stood close, you could read the whole Constitution of America, but this was done so artistically that if you stood back far enough, you couldn't read a single word and it looked like a photograph of George Washington. Interesting. I remember him telling us, and it is not my thought, it is his, I remember him telling us that is just like the Bible. You read everything, all these verses, the Old Testament, the Prophets and the Law but if we could only see this thing in perspective, it is just a picture of our Lord Jesus. There is one place that I would have given anything to have been and that was on that road to Emmaus that day when Jesus opened their minds and their hearts to understand the things written in the Old Testament concerning Him. I would have loved to have heard all that. I'm sure they were also amazed “That also is speaking about Jesus”. I wish I could have been there. I would like to be a little more awake in reading the Old Testament because there is a lot more there than we have ever realised, showing us more about our Lord Jesus. Zacchaeus, we know that he wanted to see Jesus, and he was small, so he thought the best thing would be to get as high as he could and he climbed into that tree. I am not wanting to over spiritualise anything but I do know that there are a number of people who have tried to climb the tree of knowledge thinking that they would be able to see Jesus better. They don't realise that in doing that they are making it more impossible to see Jesus, because it is hidden from the wise and the prudent. It is hidden from them and revealed unto babes. Anyway, I want to tell you of one man like that and many of you here would have known the man. His name was Piet Taljaard. He was desperately looking for the Truth. He tried every religion he could think of but eventually he was so frustrated. He wanted to get to know God so he decided he would go to a Seminary, maybe there he could find God. He went to a seminary and he studied there for not more than a few weeks and then he went to the Dean and said to him “Is this all that you can give me?” He was told “If you are going to become a preacher this is what you're going to have to learn.” So he said “Everything you have given me so far is for my head and you've given me nothing for my heart.” Then he walked out of there and he went to his daughter Annetjie and he said “I am convinced that the Truth is not in South Africa. Let's take a trip to Israel and maybe we will still find somebody there serving God like the disciples did. Maybe there will be someone there so let's go and see.” So they made plans to go but something happened before they went. His job was selling life insurance. He was walking in the streets of Germiston and he saw a man there doing some soldering so he walked in and greeted him and asked if he was interested in life insurance. The man straightened up and said “Yes I am very interested in life insurance.” That was encouraging to Piet. “I have an excellent policy.” The man said “Maybe, but I've got a much better policy than what you've got.” “Well you'd better tell me about it and maybe I should sell that one instead.” The man said “Oh no, you can't sell it. That policy you're trying to sell me is not going to help you when you die. It will just help those that are left, but I've got one that's going to help me.” Then Piet realised this is something else, so they got talking and that was the beginning of his salvation. When he went to the seminary he realised that “you don't need to look for people who live in the lands of the Bible but to look for people who are living the Bible. We don't need people who can tell you about Theology, you're looking for people who know God.”
We've now come to a very important part of this, of those Greeks wanting to see Jesus. What we need to know now is what we need to be able to do to see Jesus. They came to the disciples and they said “We would see Jesus.” That's where that hymn comes from, isn't it? We would see Jesus and Jesus gave an answer that one might think didn't have anything to do with that, but it had everything to do with it. He spoke about death. “Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and die, it remains alone.” He spoke about death and I think we can safely say that the Lord Jesus is never going to reveal Himself to anybody if He sees that they are not going to be willing to die. You read about some people that saw what He was doing and they believed. They believed and yet Jesus did not entrust Himself to them because He knew what was in men's hearts. He didn't need anybody to tell Him what was in men's hearts. You see, He knew that these people are not going to be willing to die; He knew that and there was no point in entrusting Himself to them, revealing Himself to them. So this is something that we are going to have to do if we are wanting to get a clearer vision of Jesus. That is willingness to die. Paul said “I die daily.” Something has been an amazement to me during this year, after I met a certain person. Maybe we did die, but we have to be willing for that death daily, and if we don't continue to die, we are going to lose that vision. I came across somebody this year and I could hardly believe what I saw, because I knew what a clear vision they had at one time. I could hardly believe how blind they are now. Blind as a bat. Honestly, it's frightening, and yet it can happen and it can happen to us too. We think we can see it so clearly now but if we do not continue to die we are going to lose it. We can lose that vision and we are also going to get confused. In the Song of Solomon, the 5th chapter and the 16th verse. I like what it says in the Afrikaans. The English says there - and this is speaking about Christ, the bridegroom of our soul - it says here that He is altogether lovely. The Afrikaans says “Hy is die lieflikheid self”. He is the personification of beauty and loveliness. I like that. Do you know what that tells us? It is impossible to see Him and not love Him. You could say that the most loveable person in all the world is over there in Greenland. You've never met them, you don't know them and you are not going to feel an ounce of love for them but if you meet them and get to live with them, the more time you spend with them, the more you will love them. You can't help it. It is so that it is impossible to get a clear vision of Jesus by the spirit of God and not to love Him. It is just as simple as that, that if we don't have the right love for Him it simply means that we don't know Him and we've never seen Him. This took my mind to the five foolish virgins. I don't know if you've ever noticed that when they saw the bridegroom, when He came in and they saw Him, there was not one who didn't quickly want to go out and buy the oil. I have no idea why they did not pay the price beforehand. They were with the others and must have been there when the others were buying the oil. Maybe they thought “Our lamps are alright and there is no need to pay that much, surely this much is enough.” We don't know what they thought, but one thing we do know is that when they saw the bridegroom, there was no price too great to pay now. It could be in the middle of the night but it doesn't matter, we are going to have to get it somehow. One thing we can be quite sure of, it doesn't matter who it is, on that side, when we have got the first glimpse of the bridegroom and we see what that is: “My heart is won, mine eyes have seen Thy beauty. Death cannot separate us, I will follow Thee.” When we've seen the bridegroom, there is not one person on all the earth that wouldn't be willing to pay ANY price, go to any effort and make any sacrifice to be with Him. It is a wonderful thing to see that while there is still opportunity, this side of the grave, to see it then. Everybody will see it on the other side. Blessed is the person that sees it while there is still opportunity.
Then I also thought of the rich man and Lazarus. You read about the rich man when he landed in a lost eternity, now his eyes were open and he could see Abraham and he could see that fellowship and he said “Please send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and to cool my tongue. I am in anguish in this flame.” You know that when you put your finger in water you are not going to get more than a drop, but even for that much, he was absolutely craving for that. For a person whose throat was on fire, what was it that he could have been craving for with such a terrible craving? Now on the other side his eyes were opened and he knew exactly what Jesus meant when He spoke to that woman at the well and He said “The water that I give you will become in you a well of living water welling up unto eternal life.” Now he knew what that was. Now he could see what it was that Paul spoke about when he said that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard and it has never entered the heart of man. It is impossible to imagine what God has prepared for those that love Him. Now he saw it and he was craving even one drop and there is nobody on the other side that would not crave it with a terrible craving. Now he got the vision of what Paul spoke about, when he said about a husband and wife, a man shall leave his parents and cleave unto his wife and they shall be one and then he said “I will show you a great mystery, I'm speaking of Christ and the church.” So you see, even the very best marriage is only a very poor imitation of some wonderful mystery that God is preparing on the other side. It is a deeper and more fulfilling love than anything on the face of the earth and when we see it on that side and miss it, that in itself will be hell. So this is all we're needing: we would see Jesus. So we hope that at this convention we would be in that condition that the sprit of God would be able to work and show us a clearer vision of Jesus and when we go out of here and we have really seen that, then nothing will be able to stop us because the gates of hell cannot prevail against that.
Capetown #2 2010
Ernest Robinson:
I'm sure that every one of us that is at this convention would like to leave with more strength, with more joy and with more willingness. We sang in that hymn “We would see Jesus, strength joy and willingness come with the sight.” It also says “This is all we're needing.” I would venture to say that at this convention, this is all we're needing, just to see Jesus. If we do, then the results are going to be no less than astounding.
In Matthew 16 we read what the Lord Jesus said and those are extremely important words. He asked the disciples who they thought He was and Peter made it plain that he had a clear revelation. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Then Jesus said to him “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood did not reveal this unto you, but my Father which is in heaven and on this foundation I'm going to build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So this revelation of our Lord Jesus is that important. If we never get it revealed to us by God Himself, there is no-one else can give us a clear picture. If it is not revealed to us by God Himself, then we still do not have a firm foundation upon which to build our faith. That's how important it is that we see Jesus and that it be the spirit of God showing Him to us. It's very, very important. Dale and I were talking in the room about this and we just mentioned what Jesus also said to Peter. “Now see that you don't tell it to anyone else. Don't tell others about this.” I think the reason for that is very clear. Let them also have the experience of getting it direct from God. It is so important so leave them to have that experience too so that they can also get the revelation direct from God and have a firm revelation that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against it.
Before I go on to what Jesus said to Nicodemus, I would like to mention something about the tabernacle. When God gave Moses the directions how to make this tabernacle, I was noticing there in Exodus when He gave him all the measurements and everything else. Three times there God Himself said to Moses, “See that you do it according to the pattern that was shown you in the mount.” I will tell you something interesting. We have a brother who used to be in Korea and he is now in Mongolia. In fact, at the moment he is in Hong Kong, but talk about fastidious. He used to be a chemist and he is still like that, he measures everything. Even when he is cooking he measures how many grams of salt or so on, while most of us would just put a pinch in. Anyway, he decided that he was going to make a model of the tabernacle. He did, and he went to a lot of trouble and I saw it. There is another brother, maybe not as fastidious but very studious and he was in Alaska. He also made a model of the tabernacle and he also went to a lot of trouble. He even tried, as far as possible, to use the original materials. Very interesting. I was in Holland just a few months ago and I specially wanted to see the model of the tabernacle that you can find in the Bible museum in Amsterdam. Wieks took me there, and I appreciated that, and I had a good look at that model of the tabernacle there in the Bible museum in Amsterdam. That was interesting, and also here in South Africa Alice and Estelle made a model of the tabernacle, but that one I didn't see. I want to tell you about the ones that I did see. They all studied the directions that you read in Exodus very carefully yet they were all different. I even noticed in that model in Amsterdam that these students had made, that there was something that was definitely unscriptural. The reason I am telling you this is that Moses never had that problem. If you just read the instructions there in Exodus it is not easy to know how some of the things really were, for example, the cherubim. We know that they had wings and they had faces but we can't know exactly what they looked like. Moses never had that problem for the simple reason that before God gave him the instructions, He took him to the mountain and showed him a model of the completed thing and there it was. So when God told him to make this, and that it was in his mind's eye, there was no problem. I think you can understand what I am getting at now. This is the reason why it is so important for God's people to get that revelation of the Lord Jesus from God Himself. You see, God does exactly the same now with the Truth as He did with Moses. He gives His people a revelation of the Lord Jesus and after that the Bible makes sense. That is exactly why God's people are doing the same in every country. This is one of the things that, when people make their choice and travel to another country, they all say “But this is just the same. It may be a different language but it is just the same.” It’s just like you're sitting in your own country.
I don't know if I should tell you about another interesting brother we've got in Korea when they asked him about this being the same everywhere. His name is Paul Boyd; he's over 80 now and he was in Ireland some years ago for a convention. Then between the meetings somebody asked him. “We have heard that this is the same everywhere. Now you come from the end of the earth. That place in Korea where the customs are so completely different, is it really the same there?” Well he didn't answer that till he was in the meeting and he had a turn to speak and he said “You know, people are asking me if this Truth is exactly the same in every country, even in Korea, so far away and so different. Now folks, I want to give you full assurance that it is exactly the same. In Korea they do just like you do here in Ireland. The first people that come into convention sit on the end of the rows and others cannot get past. It is exactly the same.” Well even to that it is the same, and I have noticed it here in South Africa, too. God's planning is so perfect that He first gives people that picture of Jesus and after that, what is in the Bible makes sense, because we've seen it.
Now I want to come back to when Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus. You'd remember very well that He told him this “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” You can read about that in Numbers 21. The reason was that at the time God was very displeased and His heart was stirred up and He sent poisonous snakes to bite them and many, many people died. So then they called to Moses “Please save us from this.” So God instructed him to make that brazen serpent and put it up on a pole and He said that every one that looks at this serpent is going to be spared. That poison will have no effect. To me, that is full of meaning, and when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus He was making it clear that that was just symbolic. You know that the Old Testament is just a shadow of the New and that was actually speaking about Jesus. That is so nice and you know very well, that from the very first book in the Bible to the last, the false preacher is always depicted as a poisonous serpent...from the beginning to the end. That poison is extremely dangerous and it's not easy to escape. So much so that Paul said that the ministers of Satan would be coming as the ministers of light. Just imagine; they look so plausible, so good and so holy that they can look like and seem like angels of light. That's how dangerous it is. Even more so, because even Jesus said that this poison is so dangerous that if it were possible, even the elect would be deceived. Now this is exactly the same as it was in the days of Moses. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, and it is only those who have been given that vision of Jesus by the spirit of God that are not affected by that poison. These days, it is a very sad thing, in some places there is poison being spread amongst God's people by people that are bitter and so on. You know about that. It is sad to see those that are affected but we can tell you this, that those who are looking unto Jesus and have been given that vision of Jesus by the spirit of God Himself, they are not affected by that poison. Jesus said “If it were possible” but it is not possible because they have seen Jesus.
I remember many years ago, Uncle Jurgens telling us that when he was in America he saw something interesting. He saw a big statue of George Washington that was tremendous, and I am not sure where it was. I was asking Dale and he doesn't know but anyway, this was special because it stood on a tremendous pedestal and on the one side of this pedestal was engraved the whole of the American Constitution. It was engraved finely and if you stood close, you could read the whole Constitution of America, but this was done so artistically that if you stood back far enough, you couldn't read a single word and it looked like a photograph of George Washington. Interesting. I remember him telling us, and it is not my thought, it is his, I remember him telling us that is just like the Bible. You read everything, all these verses, the Old Testament, the Prophets and the Law but if we could only see this thing in perspective, it is just a picture of our Lord Jesus. There is one place that I would have given anything to have been and that was on that road to Emmaus that day when Jesus opened their minds and their hearts to understand the things written in the Old Testament concerning Him. I would have loved to have heard all that. I'm sure they were also amazed “That also is speaking about Jesus”. I wish I could have been there. I would like to be a little more awake in reading the Old Testament because there is a lot more there than we have ever realised, showing us more about our Lord Jesus. Zacchaeus, we know that he wanted to see Jesus, and he was small, so he thought the best thing would be to get as high as he could and he climbed into that tree. I am not wanting to over spiritualise anything but I do know that there are a number of people who have tried to climb the tree of knowledge thinking that they would be able to see Jesus better. They don't realise that in doing that they are making it more impossible to see Jesus, because it is hidden from the wise and the prudent. It is hidden from them and revealed unto babes. Anyway, I want to tell you of one man like that and many of you here would have known the man. His name was Piet Taljaard. He was desperately looking for the Truth. He tried every religion he could think of but eventually he was so frustrated. He wanted to get to know God so he decided he would go to a Seminary, maybe there he could find God. He went to a seminary and he studied there for not more than a few weeks and then he went to the Dean and said to him “Is this all that you can give me?” He was told “If you are going to become a preacher this is what you're going to have to learn.” So he said “Everything you have given me so far is for my head and you've given me nothing for my heart.” Then he walked out of there and he went to his daughter Annetjie and he said “I am convinced that the Truth is not in South Africa. Let's take a trip to Israel and maybe we will still find somebody there serving God like the disciples did. Maybe there will be someone there so let's go and see.” So they made plans to go but something happened before they went. His job was selling life insurance. He was walking in the streets of Germiston and he saw a man there doing some soldering so he walked in and greeted him and asked if he was interested in life insurance. The man straightened up and said “Yes I am very interested in life insurance.” That was encouraging to Piet. “I have an excellent policy.” The man said “Maybe, but I've got a much better policy than what you've got.” “Well you'd better tell me about it and maybe I should sell that one instead.” The man said “Oh no, you can't sell it. That policy you're trying to sell me is not going to help you when you die. It will just help those that are left, but I've got one that's going to help me.” Then Piet realised this is something else, so they got talking and that was the beginning of his salvation. When he went to the seminary he realised that “you don't need to look for people who live in the lands of the Bible but to look for people who are living the Bible. We don't need people who can tell you about Theology, you're looking for people who know God.”
We've now come to a very important part of this, of those Greeks wanting to see Jesus. What we need to know now is what we need to be able to do to see Jesus. They came to the disciples and they said “We would see Jesus.” That's where that hymn comes from, isn't it? We would see Jesus and Jesus gave an answer that one might think didn't have anything to do with that, but it had everything to do with it. He spoke about death. “Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and die, it remains alone.” He spoke about death and I think we can safely say that the Lord Jesus is never going to reveal Himself to anybody if He sees that they are not going to be willing to die. You read about some people that saw what He was doing and they believed. They believed and yet Jesus did not entrust Himself to them because He knew what was in men's hearts. He didn't need anybody to tell Him what was in men's hearts. You see, He knew that these people are not going to be willing to die; He knew that and there was no point in entrusting Himself to them, revealing Himself to them. So this is something that we are going to have to do if we are wanting to get a clearer vision of Jesus. That is willingness to die. Paul said “I die daily.” Something has been an amazement to me during this year, after I met a certain person. Maybe we did die, but we have to be willing for that death daily, and if we don't continue to die, we are going to lose that vision. I came across somebody this year and I could hardly believe what I saw, because I knew what a clear vision they had at one time. I could hardly believe how blind they are now. Blind as a bat. Honestly, it's frightening, and yet it can happen and it can happen to us too. We think we can see it so clearly now but if we do not continue to die we are going to lose it. We can lose that vision and we are also going to get confused. In the Song of Solomon, the 5th chapter and the 16th verse. I like what it says in the Afrikaans. The English says there - and this is speaking about Christ, the bridegroom of our soul - it says here that He is altogether lovely. The Afrikaans says “Hy is die lieflikheid self”. He is the personification of beauty and loveliness. I like that. Do you know what that tells us? It is impossible to see Him and not love Him. You could say that the most loveable person in all the world is over there in Greenland. You've never met them, you don't know them and you are not going to feel an ounce of love for them but if you meet them and get to live with them, the more time you spend with them, the more you will love them. You can't help it. It is so that it is impossible to get a clear vision of Jesus by the spirit of God and not to love Him. It is just as simple as that, that if we don't have the right love for Him it simply means that we don't know Him and we've never seen Him. This took my mind to the five foolish virgins. I don't know if you've ever noticed that when they saw the bridegroom, when He came in and they saw Him, there was not one who didn't quickly want to go out and buy the oil. I have no idea why they did not pay the price beforehand. They were with the others and must have been there when the others were buying the oil. Maybe they thought “Our lamps are alright and there is no need to pay that much, surely this much is enough.” We don't know what they thought, but one thing we do know is that when they saw the bridegroom, there was no price too great to pay now. It could be in the middle of the night but it doesn't matter, we are going to have to get it somehow. One thing we can be quite sure of, it doesn't matter who it is, on that side, when we have got the first glimpse of the bridegroom and we see what that is: “My heart is won, mine eyes have seen Thy beauty. Death cannot separate us, I will follow Thee.” When we've seen the bridegroom, there is not one person on all the earth that wouldn't be willing to pay ANY price, go to any effort and make any sacrifice to be with Him. It is a wonderful thing to see that while there is still opportunity, this side of the grave, to see it then. Everybody will see it on the other side. Blessed is the person that sees it while there is still opportunity.
Then I also thought of the rich man and Lazarus. You read about the rich man when he landed in a lost eternity, now his eyes were open and he could see Abraham and he could see that fellowship and he said “Please send Lazarus to dip his finger in water and to cool my tongue. I am in anguish in this flame.” You know that when you put your finger in water you are not going to get more than a drop, but even for that much, he was absolutely craving for that. For a person whose throat was on fire, what was it that he could have been craving for with such a terrible craving? Now on the other side his eyes were opened and he knew exactly what Jesus meant when He spoke to that woman at the well and He said “The water that I give you will become in you a well of living water welling up unto eternal life.” Now he knew what that was. Now he could see what it was that Paul spoke about when he said that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard and it has never entered the heart of man. It is impossible to imagine what God has prepared for those that love Him. Now he saw it and he was craving even one drop and there is nobody on the other side that would not crave it with a terrible craving. Now he got the vision of what Paul spoke about, when he said about a husband and wife, a man shall leave his parents and cleave unto his wife and they shall be one and then he said “I will show you a great mystery, I'm speaking of Christ and the church.” So you see, even the very best marriage is only a very poor imitation of some wonderful mystery that God is preparing on the other side. It is a deeper and more fulfilling love than anything on the face of the earth and when we see it on that side and miss it, that in itself will be hell. So this is all we're needing: we would see Jesus. So we hope that at this convention we would be in that condition that the sprit of God would be able to work and show us a clearer vision of Jesus and when we go out of here and we have really seen that, then nothing will be able to stop us because the gates of hell cannot prevail against that.