Quiet Talks on Power

by S. D. Gordon

The christian's range of vision must always take in two hill-tops—Calvary and Olivet. Calvary—sin conquered through the blood of Jesus, a matter of history. Olivet—sin conquered through the power of Jesus, a matter of experience. When the subject is spoken of, we are apt to say: "Yes, that is correct. I understand that." But do we understand it in our experience? So certainly as I must trust Jesus as my Saviour so certainly must I constantly yield my life to the control of the Spirit of Jesus if I am to find real the practical power of His salvation.

As surely as men are now urged to accept Jesus as the great step in life, so surely should they be instructed to yield themselves to the Holy Spirit's control that Jesus' plan for their lives may be carried through.

You remember in the olden time the Hebrew men were required to appear before God in the appointed place three times during the year. At the Passover, and at Pentecost, and again at the harvest home feast of Tabernacles. So it is required of every man of us who would fit his life into God's plan that he shall first of all come to the Passover feast, where Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. And then that he shall as certainly come to the great Pentecost feast, or feast of first fruits where a glorified Passover Lamb breathes down His Spirit of power into the life. And then he is sure to have a constant attendance at a first-fruits feast all his days, with a great harvest home festival at the end.

I said there were two central truths. Will you notice that the gospels put it also in this way, that Jesus came to do two things—not one thing, but two things—in working out our salvation. That the first is dependent for its practical power upon the second, and the second is the completing or carrying into effect of the power of the first. That the first—let me say it with great reverence—is valueless without the second.

What was Jesus' mission? Would you not expect His forerunner to understand it? Listen, then, to his words. When questioned specifically by the official deputation sent from the national leaders at Jerusalem, he pointed to Jesus, and declared that He had come for a two-fold purpose. Listen: "Behold the Lamb of God who beareth away the sin of the world"; and then he added, and the word comes to us with the peculiar emphasis of repetition by each of the four gospel scribes—"this is He that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit." That was spoken to them originally without doubt in a national sense. It just as surely applies to every one of us in a personal sense.

Mark also the emphasis of Jesus' own teachings regarding this second part of His mission. At the very beginning He spoke the decided words about the necessity of being born of the Spirit. And we are all impressed with that fact. But observe that several times, in the brief gospel record, He refers the disciples to the overshadowing importance of the Spirit's control in the life. And that He devotes a large part of that last long confidential talk which John records, to this special subject, pointing out the new experiences to come with the coming of the Spirit, and holding out to them as the greatest evidence of His own love the promise of power.

It adds intense emphasis to all this to note that Jesus Himself, very Son of God, was in that wonderful human life of His utterly dependent upon the Holy Spirit. At the very outset, before venturing upon a single act or word of His appointed ministry, He waits at the Jordan waters, until the promised anointing of power came. What a picture does that prayerfully waiting Jesus present to powerless men to-day! From that moment every bit and part of His life was under the control of that Holy Spirit. Impelled into the wilderness for that fierce set-to with Satan, coming back to Galilee within the power of the Spirit, He himself clearly stated more than once, that it was through this anointing that He preached, and taught, and healed, and cast out demons. The writer to the Hebrews assures us that it was through the power of the Eternal Spirit that He was enabled to go through the awful experiences of Gethsemane and Calvary. And Luke adds that it was through the same empowering Spirit that He gave commandment to the apostles for the stupendous task of world-wide evangelization. And then at the very last referring them to that life of His, He said: "As the father hath sent Me even so send I you." Let me ask if He, very God of very God, yet in His earthly life intensely human, needed that anointing, do not we? If He waited for that experience before venturing upon any service, shall not you and I?

But we must turn to the book of Acts to get fully within the grip of this truth. For it, with the epistles fitting into it, is peculiarly the Holy Spirit book, even as the Old Testament is the Jehovah book and the gospels with Revelation the Jesus book. The climax of the gospels is in the Acts. What is promised in the gospels is experienced in the Acts.

Jesus is dominant in the gospels; the Spirit of Jesus in the Acts. He is the only continuous personality from first to last. He is the common denominator of the book. The first twelve chapters group about Peter, the remaining sixteen about Paul, but distinctly above both they all group about the Holy Spirit. He is the one dominant factor throughout. The first fourth of the book is fairly aflame with His presence at the center—Jerusalem. Thence out to Samaria, and through the Cornelius door to the whole outer non-Jewish world; at Antioch the new center, and thence through the uttermost parts of the Roman empire into its heart, His is the presence recognized and obeyed. He is ceaselessly guiding, empowering, inspiring, checking, controlling clear to the abrupt end. His is the one mastering personality. And everywhere His presence is a transforming presence. Nothing short of startling is the change in Peter, in the attitude of the Jerusalem thousands, in the persecutor Saul, in the spirit of these disciples, in the unprecedented and unparalleled unselfishness shown. It is revolutionary. Ah! it was meant to be so. This book is the living illustration of what Jesus meant by His teaching regarding His successor. It becomes also an acted illustration of what the personal christian life is meant to be.

The Spirit's presence and the necessity of His control is deep-grained in the consciousness of the leaders in this book. Leaving the stirring scenes at the capital the eighth chapter takes us down to Samaria. Multitudes have been led to believe through the preaching of a man who has been chosen to look after the business matters of the church. Peter and John are sent down to aid the new movement. Note that their very first concern is to spend time in prayer that this great company may receive the Holy Spirit.