Quiet Talks on Power

by S. D. Gordon

Each of these talks, you have noticed, has led up to the one idea of surrender. That word surrender stands for one side only of a transaction—our side. As in all transactions, there is another side—His side to whom the surrender is made. To-night we want to take a step in advance and talk about the part which Jesus has in this surrender-transaction. All truth goes in pairs. The partnership word with surrender is mastery. Surrender on my part is followed by mastery on His part. There are two personalities in this transaction. You are one: an important one, but only one. To-night we shall try to get a better acquaintance with the other One. The One who assumes control of the surrendered life, who is to be our personal guide and friend.

Will you recall again the Master's good-bye Olivet message, and notice just what it means? Listen to the very words: "Ye shall receive power." Let me ask you—what is power? Will some one give a simple definition of that word? There are four words, four of the commonest, most familiar in our language, for which I have not been able to find a definition. If some one here can help me I will be grateful. They are the words life, light, love, and power. What do they mean? I can find plenty of statements about them, descriptions of what each of these is like, but no definitions.

What is life? Recently I looked into the statement regarding life made by three of the most famous English scientists of the nineteenth century, whose names are household words. I read them carefully. The wisdom and keenness of observation they show are amazing. But when I had studied and read them repeatedly I found myself asking—what is life? They have described rarely the functions and characteristics of life, but have not told what it is. They do not seem to know. Do you?

What is light? Will some one tell me? The corpuscular theory, which the famous Newton advocated, is long since abandoned. The later wave theory is pretty generally accepted, and yet they can not all agree upon that. These people say that light is a part of the kind of energy called radiant energy. Now, we all know what light is! The sun of course is not light, only a light-holder and distributer. According to the oldest record we have of the creation, light existed before these light-holders, the sun and moon and stars.

What is love? Well, you all know, I hope. Pity the poor man who does not know by experience what love is. But you cannot tell what it is. "Oh!" you say, "it is emotion." Yes, so is hate, its very opposite. "Well, love is affection." Yes. What is affection? "Well, it is a pleasurable feeling, or regard, which may be very intense, and which leads us to unlimited sacrifice if need be. It is a devotion that grips the soul tremendously." That is true; yet that is only telling what love is like. No simple, plain definition of love, or light or life has ever been formed yet by man so far as I can learn.

What is power? You may say it is force. And what is force? "Well, force is a form of energy." What is energy? "Well," you reply, "it is a strong inward movement whose strength is very impressive." Some one says "power is ability." And ability? "Well, that is the innate power to do something." And so we get to use our word in the attempted definition itself, which is simply talking in a circle. We can find good descriptive words, but no defining words.

Now mark a singular fact. In the writings of John, in this old book I have here, you will find a few statements regarding these things which combine wondrous simplicity of language with marvelous, yes, unfathomable, depth of meaning. First, about life: in chapter one, verse four, of the gospel:—"in Him was life," being an evident allusion to the remarkable Genesis statement: "the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Then, about love: in chapter four, verse seven, of his first epistle:—"love is of God"; coupled with the twice spoken words "God is love" in the same chapter. About light: in chapter one, verse five, of the same epistle, "God is light."

I know some of you, perhaps some skilled theologian here, is saying to himself, "Those are statements of moral truths." And I understand that that is the common conception. But I want to state here my own profound conviction, based on the Spirit-breathed words of John, that some day, when we shall know about all these deep things, we shall be finding that there is a basis not only of moral truth, but of far more than moral truth underlying those profoundly simple statements.

And I believe in that day we shall find that life—all life—is, in some actual, marvelous way, the outbreathing of God's own being. And that light is the inherent radiance of His person and face, and that the universal passion of love is the throbbing pulse-beat of His own great heart.

Now why take time to speak about these things to-night when we are talking about power? I will tell you why. Because they give the intensest practical significance to a similar statement about that word power with which we are greatly concerned just now.