In continuing our occupation with this great matter
of the significance of the Holy Spirit, there
is a fragment familiar, as familiar as any
other perhaps in the New Testament, which we
are going to take this evening to lead
us a little further in this matter.
It is in the first chapter of the
book of the Acts, at verse 8, Acts
1 verse 8, 8.
Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
is come upon you.
Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
is come upon you.
I want to place alongside of that some
other, not so simple, but perhaps almost equally
well-known words, from the first chapter of
Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
Lifting out of verses 19, 18 and 19,
these words, Ephesians 1, 18, 19.
I'd like you to keep your finger in
at that place till later.
That ye may know what the exceeding greatness
of his power to us were who believe,
according to that walking of the strength of
his might which he wrought in Christ when
he raised him from the dead, made him
to sit at his right hand.
Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
is come upon you.
Ye may know what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us were who believe.
There is a sense in which the whole
book of the Acts is gathered into that
one word, power.
The entire narrative of events in that book,
it's a very full and comprehensive and detailed
one, is just the story of the walking
of that power promised by the Lord Jesus,
having come with the Holy Spirit.
We could rename the book, the book of
the power of the Holy Spirit.
That's the word that interprets it and explains
it.
I have passed you on to those words
in the letter to the Ephesians for two
reasons.
Firstly, the man who wrote those words was
one of the examples of the walking of
that power in the book of the Acts.
Nothing less or other than the exceeding greatness
of his power could account for Paul the
Apostle after Paul the persecutor.
Indeed, he is a sample and an example
of the exceeding greatness of his power.
It's just wonderful to see in his own
case the mighty walking of that power in
his arrest, apprehension as he called it, and
conversion.
It is one amongst many, perhaps outstanding amongst
many, of those examples of this great power
at work which lead us to wonder and
to worship.
We have said, and you will find it
in the next issue of the Witness and
that just at that point you stand back
and almost gasp with wonder as you recognize
the tremendous significance of the young man Stephen.
We have never yet discerned the tremendous significance
of that young man.
He was the one through whom this same
Holy Spirit introduced the meaning of the great
change in the dispensations.
In that marvelous discourse before the Jewish rulers,
he takes us right back over the old
dispensation.
The history of that people right the way
back, traces it step by step and stage
by stage defining and describing, brings it right
up to Jerusalem there and then.
And with a few mighty deft touches says,
that's all finished and a new order has
come in which is altogether different.
It's the order of the heavenly and of
the spiritual.
As over against the earthly and the temporal.
That's finished.
The temple is finished says, and think of
it in Jerusalem under the shadow of that
temple.
With all those so devoted to the temple
and its service.
Right there under its shadow he says, but
God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Say that outside St. Peter's Rome or even
St. Paul's London.
Declare that.
See what the rulers of the church were
saying.
God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
He indicated a change in dispensations, the whole
character of these.
He proclaimed it.
No wonder they gnashed upon him with their
teeth.
And they stone Stephen calling upon the name
of the Lord Jesus said, we'll have none
of that.
We'll finish that.
And as they cast their deadly stones upon
the young man.
Seeing the heavens open and Jesus, the son
of man, standing at the right hand.
They thought they had done with that.
And in that selfsame moment, the Holy Ghost
came with conviction upon another young man consenting
to his death, who was taken up very
soon afterward to carry on that great revelation
to its fullness all over the world.
I say you, you gasp in wonder.
You see the, the, the wonderful power and
the infinite ingenuity of the Holy Spirit.
That young man, the young man who so
soon after that event came into an experience,
discovery of the exceeding greatness of his power.
And here wrote upon it or said that
he prayed that the whole church might know
it.
When we allow that man, that man, that
example of that power to present to us
what it meant to him.
As recorded in this whole statement, the letter
to the Ephesians.
And note that he is attributing it to
the same Holy Spirit.
He would grant unto you a spirit of
revelation.
You may know what is the exceeding greatness
of his power.
He shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming
upon you by the same spirit.
When we, I say, allow him to speak
to us about this power, the first thing
that meets us or that we meet is
something that completely disconcerts us.
The disconcerting effect of this revelation.
Look at it again.
I just flipped out one fragment of this
whole statement.
We're not dealing with Ephesians 1 and the
great prayer poem.
But just extract this clause.
That you may know what the riches of
the glory of his inheritance in the saints.
The riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints.
Now if he had only put it the
other way around, we'd have no difficulty at
all.
The riches of the glory of our inheritance
in him.
That presents no problem at all.
We can stand up to that.
But when a man dares to speak of
the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in me, in you, supposing that was said
to you really personally.
Those words were used to you.
Addressed to you personally.
That you may know the riches of the
glory of his inheritance in you.
What would you say?
You say, oh look here, look here, what
are you talking about?
What are you talking?
You don't know me.
If you knew me you wouldn't talk to
me like that.
You go and tell someone else that.
There are some people perhaps to whom you
might tell it, but don't you talk to
me like that.
You don't know my depravity, the depravity of
my nature.
You don't know what I know about myself,
my own heart, my sinfulness.
If you only knew a little, you'd shut
the book and go away and say, no
that doesn't apply there.
The riches of the glory of his inheritance
in him, in her.
You don't know all my defeat in the
battle, and in the work, how I have
striven and failed.
How again, again the forces of evil have
got the mastery, and I have been a
pathetic casualty in this warfare.
You don't know of my secret history of
defeats.
You couldn't talk like that to me if
you did.
You don't know my penury, my poverty, spiritual
life.
To know only a little of such things
about me would send you off in quest
for someone else to talk to like that.
The riches of the glory of his inheritance.
In this the apostle deals in superlatives.
He says some tremendous things, immense things that
you just cannot cope with.
You cannot stand up to them.
You have to say yes, that may be
true.
If it is, it will be true of
better stuff than I am.
Better people than I.
It cannot possibly be true of me.
I cannot attain unto that.
That's far too high for me.
Altogether, beyond possibility where I'm concerned.
The riches, and I am so poor.
I'm a beggar.
You're talking about riches of his inheritance.
In me?
Glory for him?
In me?
I'm daily ashamed of myself.
My more common attitude about myself is wherefore
I have for myself no faint meekness.
Real genuine expression of a heart that knows
itself at all.
God be merciful to me, a sinner, and
you talk to me about the riches of
the glory of his inheritance.
You see, it's overpowering.
It's disconcerting.
It's almost paralyzing.
But he said it.
He said it.
It's here in holy writ.
It's scripture.
You see, you've got to go on.
That only prepares the way for something.
That only leads you to the next thing.
What is the exceeding greatness of his power
to that what?
The exceeding greatness of his power to that
poverty.
To that shame.
To all that exceeding greatness.
That you may know that.
That changes the picture, doesn't it?
We'll all admit that nothing short of the
exceeding greatness of his power will do it.
But that's it.
Ye shall receive power.
The holy spirit coming upon you.
And as we have read this evening, and
this was the purpose of that reading, the
Lord Jesus said when he, the spirit, is
come, he will guide you into all the
truth.
He will reveal the holy spirit coming upon
you, will make you know, make you know
that's what Lord Jesus was saying.
He'll make you know what you don't know
now.
He'll make you know, so Paul prays, that
you may know what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to us.
Then if that, if that exists, if that
is available, if that is true, the picture
changes from one of hopelessness to marvelous hope.
Then it's possible that out of this rubbish
heap, out of these ashes, riches, glory
of his inheritance can come.
How, I don't know.
But here it is.
There is the power sent from God to
do that in you and in me.
It's not my intention to follow that through,
try and show how it works out.
But this man, this man, this example of
it, you may think that he was a
very wonderful man before his conversion.
From some standpoints he may have been a
very fine fellow.
But you cannot read Paul intelligently after his
conversion without discovering that he had a very
poor opinion of himself.
He spoke of himself as the least of
all saints, and as one who ought never
to be called an apostle, unworthy to be
called an apostle, least of all saints, because
I persecuted him.
Paul never got away from it.
He never got away from it.
It was something that was like a thorn
in him to his death.
This that he had done, the kind of
fellow he was, and what came from him,
he never forgave himself.
He never got over it.
The wound never opened in his soul.
You read him again, and I repeat, he
had a very poor opinion of himself.
Indeed he had.
The least of all saints.
Do you hear that?
That is not pretense.
That is not just mock, meekness and humility.
The least of all saints.
Now, put over against them.
The riches of the glory of his inheritance
in, yes, the least of all saints.
How?
The exceeding greatness of his power.
Toward us, Paul is praying out of some
experience of that power, in such as he
knew himself to be, that all saints might
know him.
Know him.
That you might know his face.
And dear friends, there is one thing about
power.
That is, it is that you can never
know it other than an experience.
You can talk about power.
You can have all your ideas of power,
but you can never really know it, only
an experience in an inward way.
We have the theory of power, but that
is not knowing power.
A long time ago, when I returned from
my last visit to America, I told you
a story.
I am going to repeat that again.
You may have forgotten it.
It is very, I think, apropos of what
I am trying to say now.
I was at a conference.
One of the other speakers was the son
of a very well-known servant of God
in America, a man whose name I had
known, whom I had read much, and I
was very glad to meet his son, and
to ask, like the king asked Gehazi about
the works of Elisha, to ask for first
-hand information about this great servant of God.
He told me quite a lot of things.
Amongst them was this.
His father was very interested in the American
Indians in a certain settlement, and the government
were very anxious that that Indian settlement should
be developed and modernized and provided with all
the up-to-date accessories of civilization, modern
life, and I asked this man what he
thought would be the best way of introducing
these things to these people who were ignorant
and very suspicious and unbelieving, not prepared to
accept anything at its face value, not to
be very sure of everything.
The man said, well, I think the only
way in which to do it would be
to get one or two of the most
influential and intelligent of the Indians and bring
them out into city life here, and let
them see it.
All right, they said, will you go and
find the men.
So he went back to the Indian settlement
and stayed there a little while watching and
talking till he found a man who had
more influence than anyone else, and seemed to
have more intelligence and was at least willing
to come and have a look for himself.
So he took him way up country to
one great city, took him into a hotel,
modern American hotel, and it was night, late
in the evening, getting dark quickly, and as
they went into their room, the man who
was conducting the Indian put his finger on
the electric light switch, and on came the
light, and the Indian was stopped.
How did that happen?
What did you do?
Oh, he said, I simply put my finger
on that little button there.
Don't believe it.
You mean to tell me that all that
is just in that little button?
You've only just got to touch that little
thing and all this comes on?
Don't believe it.
Very well, said the man, switch off.
He switched off, stand on that table and
he took out the bulb.
He put your thumb up inside that socket,
you enter the door.
The next moment the Indian was picking himself
up from the corner of the room.
Very shaken and very bruised.
The man said, do you believe it now?
Oh yes, I believe it now.
I believe it now.
Now that's perhaps some humor in there.
Do you see the point?
You don't know power only in experience.
This power is not a doctrine, a theory,
a subject or theme.
It's a person.
The Holy Spirit is not a topic in
the Bible or a doctrine of the church.
The Holy Spirit is a living person and
an experience.
Now the difference, of course, in the truth
or a large degree of the truth of
our experience and that of the Indians is
just this.
It doesn't always work like that with us.
This power doesn't suddenly come upon or take
hold and rend us and throw us about
and do that sort of thing so that
we feel it.
But dear friends, dear friends, if you live
long enough and some of you have lived
long enough, to know the immense forces that
are set against the Christian life, the forces
of this world, the forces of the powers
of darkness, how, and it is not an
exaggerated word, how terrific are the forces that
are set against what is of Christ in
this universe.
Few have any knowledge of that.
It is nothing short of the miracle of
the exceeding greatness of his power that you're
a Christian today and that you have continued
in the way thus far.
Paul put it like this, having received the
help which comes from God, I continue unto
this day.
He would have put it the other way,
but for the help that comes from God,
I wouldn't be here.
You know something about that?
What is it that has kept, what is
it that is behind your going on in
spite of yourself?
For it is in spite of ourselves.
It is in spite of ourselves.
Left to ourselves, what should we have done?
It won't bear thinking about.
In spite of all the forces of evil
in this universe concentrated upon the smallest fragment
of Jesus Christ.
We go on, we don't feel it.
Indeed, more often than otherwise, we feel the
weakness, feel our own unworthiness and helplessness, perhaps
wonder if ever we shall be able.
But there you are, there's the fact.
This power is not like the power that
that man meant, met, comes suddenly with a
shock.
It's a mighty, mighty working power day by
day that keeps us on the road.
That you may know the exceeding greatness.
But there's a bridge, there's a bridge between
all that which we are, and that which
we are not.
And that which makes us hear such words
with consternation, amazement, even doubt.
There's a bridge between that and the exceeding
greatness of his power.
What is it?
To us what who believe.
What is it?
To us what who believe.
Two are brought together and joined by that
word, believe, believe.
We have been very interested recently in that
marvelous feat of engineering.
The great St. Lawrence River, by which the
mighty ocean, the great lakes, I don't know
whether you all realize how great they are.
You could take out the British Isles and
drop them in and not know where they've
gone.
The linking of the mighty ocean and these
great lakes with this canal was all effected,
made real, actual, brought into operation by the
breaking down of a little gap.
There's the ocean, there's the mighty lake, there's
a channel between the two.
They've had to keep for a time, while
they made the channel and the canal, keep
just a barrier to keep those apart while
the work was going on.
And then the day came to blow it
up, get rid of that gap, that hold
up.
And when it was gone, the mighty fullness
at both ends met.
We may have the barriers that are keeping
this fullness unexperienced, unknown, unrealized, ineffective.
The barrier of unbelief, barrier of unfaith.
It's to us what, but it's to us
what who believe, who believe.
All that, listen again, that you may know
what is the hope of his calling, and
you'll dwell upon that for all eternity.
For all eternity is going to be required
to show what that is, the hope of
his calling.
What the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding
greatness of his power to us what vast
oceans, mighty fullnesses, all held up because we
don't believe.
Waiting for release, it's to us what who
believe.
To say no more, we can only say,
Lord help our unbelief, help our unbelief, but
the answer of the Lord, ye shall receive
power when the Holy Spirit is come upon
you.
How important it is that we receive the
Holy Spirit, give the Holy Spirit his place,
for his place is that of Lordship.
Paul says, the Spirit is Lord, and where
the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty, release.
Well, may we be granted this opening up
faith, this releasing faith, this apprehending faith.
It's not in sensation or in conscious power,
there's the paradox ever and always in this
connection, that a man could speak like this,
again and again referred to it, the exceeding
greatness of his power, according to the power
that worketh in us, and so on.
The same men be talking just as much
about his weakness, his weakness, his dependence, his
conscious weakness.
Paradox, no, this power works deeper than our
consciousness, deeper than our consciousness.
It's at work when we are least conscious
of it.
The Holy Spirit goes on with his work,
even when we are in the grip of
fears about ourselves.
When you and I at last are in
the Lord's presence, like him because we see
him as he is, there's nothing to say,
this is the exceeding greatness of his power,
his power.