However, sometimes when the Spirit moves and pierces the heart of a brother, he is unwilling to comply. He still behaves and thinks according to his own insight and views and handles his children’s marriages according to his own thinking. One day, if God has mercy on him and is gracious to him, God will stretch out His hand and raise up an environment to smite him. This smiting is God’s dealing in order to deal with his insight and views, which are devoid of God. This brother may encounter trouble at work, his health may begin to deteriorate, or his daughter-in-law may cause trouble in the family. At this moment, this brother, having been inwardly pierced by God, may awaken and realize that in the matter of his children’s marriages he did not give any ground to God or let God in and that he acted altogether according to his own insights, views, preferences, and opinions. This painful realization will be God’s dealing in order to break his thinking, opinions, preferences, and ideas.
Once this brother is broken, God will be able to come in and gain ground. This person’s insight and thinking will then have God’s element. God will expand outward in him and will go a step further in the work of building. Simultaneously, he will grow more, become more mature, and become more ready. If all the saints continually allow God to build in them, grow in them, and prepare them in this way, then they would be on the way to arrive at full maturity and to become the New Jerusalem.
Matthew 25:4 shows us that the wise virgins not only carried their lamps but also prepared their vessels with oil. They were those who paid the price to buy oil and to make themselves ready. What is the meaning of paying the price to buy oil and to make ourselves ready? In the Bible oil signifies the Spirit who is God Himself. To buy oil is to pay the price to gain God. No matter what we wish to gain, we must pay a price in order to gain it. In order to make ourselves ready, we have to gain more of the Spirit and more of God. To gain more of God and more of the Spirit requires that we pay a price. For example, the brother in our previous example needed to pay the price of letting go of his insight and views in the matter of his children’s marriages. To put it more directly, his insight and views had to be broken so that God could come into his insight and views. This is to pay the price and to buy the oil. If we pay the price and let God have the ground and the freedom in us in every single matter, then we will be filled with God and possessed by God. Inwardly, we will be full of oil, full of the Holy Spirit, that is, full of God Himself. When we are filled to the uttermost, then we will be matured, and God’s building will be completed.