Your ShelfYour Projects

I Saw the Lord

8%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 17, 1916

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 93, No. 41.

Read the full edition

“I Saw the Lord”

By R. D. Quinn

R. D. QUINN
Character determines vision, for without holiness “no man shall see the Lord.” “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” God promises for the last days, “Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
We need a vision. The men who speak in the name of the Lord, who labor, and toil, and do things for God, are the men who must have a bright vision of God. When Isaiah was a young man, he saw the Lord and was made pure. Isa. 6: 1, 7. Jacob at Bethel saw the Lord standing at the top of the ladder, and again at the Jabbok, and was changed from sinner, or supplanter, to a prince with God. Peter and Andrew saw the Lord, and left their fishing nets to become fishers of men. Simeon and Anna saw the Lord, and departed in peace. Saul saw the Lord on his journey to Damascus, and was changed from Saul the persecutor to Paul the servant of Jesus Christ. It was the end of his old life, and the beginning of the new; a new kind of evangelism for Paul henceforth.
Who will see the Lord?—The pure in heart. Where shall we see him?—First of all, in his Word, and then in that blessed ministry to the sick and sorrowing. Men are seeing all kinds of things in these days. It is preeminently an age of sight-seeing. Some are seeing houses and lands, gold and silver, and the world and the glory of it. Surely this is an age of materialism. Paul admonishes us to “look not at the things which are seen, . . . for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Dear reader, have you had a vision of God? If so, has it grown dim? Remember that God called Jacob back again and again to Bethel, to the vision of the mystic ladder. Christ has said, “I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” Paul was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. The Lord appeared to Solomon in Gibeon in a dream by night, and said, “Ask what I shall give thee.” The measure of a man is the measure of his vision. God knows what we are by what we see and what we ask for. Solomon’s request for a wise and understanding heart pleased the Lord, and he not only granted his desire, but gave unto him power and riches and honor, so that the glory of his reign became a wonder to all the world.
John the revelator, banished to the lonely isle of Patmos, writes, “I saw . . . the Son of man,” and then proceeds to give the most wonderful description of Christ found in the Bible. Rev. 1: 13-16. Most of us would probably have seen only those barren rocks, and our trials, and tribulations, and persecutions. But John saw everything—not only Christ, but the final deliverance of the saints. He saw the people of God standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God in their hands; he saw the good and blessed of all ages coming up in a long and glorious procession to the city of God, and you and I, if faithful, shall be among that number.
Satan, knowing that his time is short, has come down with great wrath and cunning, and is crowding the attractions of the world around God’s people to dim their heavenly vision and cause them to become “dwellers on the earth.” O for that true pilgrim spirit and heavenly eye salve that has enabled the true pilgrims in all ages to see “afar off,” and to place a true estimate upon the material things of this life! Alas that there should be so many like Demas, whom Paul said had forsaken him, having loved this present world.
Joseph in Egypt, and Daniel in Babylon, are notable examples of men who had largely to do with the affairs of this life. Surrounded as they were with the burdensome formalities of an Eastern court life, they retained to the last a bright vision of the world to come. “By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.” Heb. 11: 22. The palaces and pyramids of Egypt, with which he was familiar, had no attraction for him. The glory of Egypt had not obscured his vision.
Daniel’s vision not only took in his long and eventful career, but extended down through the ages to the setting up of God’s heavenly kingdom, when the prophet will stand in his lot and place. The old pilgrims sought a country “out of sight.” I see, is the cry and clarion call of Christian experience,—I see the meaning; I see the farther shore; I see God’s purpose; I see the light. Elisha’s brief but comprehensive desire for his servant was, “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.” The enemy is near, but God is nearer. It would have been a fearful experience for the martyred Stephen but for the invisible. What we need is a penetrating vision, sight of the heart, of the inner eyes; and this is the gift of God. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Not alone when he comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, but the pure in heart shall see him day by day in joys and sorrows, and in all life’s varied experiences that are permitted to come to us. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see.” Rev. 3: 18.
“Each holy purpose help us to fulfil, Increase our faith to feed upon thee still. Illuminate our minds, that we may see All around us holy signs of thee. And may such witness in our lives appear That all may know thou hast been with us here.” —Bourne.
South Lancaster, Mass.