In continuing occupation with this great matter, the significance of the Holy Spirit, there is a fragment, familiar perhaps as any other in the New Testament, which we are going to take this evening to lead us a little farther in this matter.
It is in the first chapter of the Book of Acts, at verse 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, in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Lifting out of verses 18 and 19 these words—Ephesians 1:18-19—and I would like you to keep your finger in that place until later:
That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand.
“Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.” “That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe.”
There is a sense in which the whole Book of Acts is gathered into that one word: power. The entire narrative of events in that book, so full, comprehensive, and detailed, is just the story, the working out, 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 is the thing which 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 working of that power in Acts. Nothing less, and nothing 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 is wonderful to see, in his own case, the mighty working 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 which lead us to wonder and to worship.
We have said—you will find it in the next issue of A Witness and a Testimony—that just at that point you stand back and almost gasp with wonder. You recognize the tremendous significance of that 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 marvellous discourse with all the Jewish rulers, he takes us right back over the old dispensation history. He traces it step by step, stage by stage, defining and describing, and brings it right up to Jerusalem there and then.
With a few mighty words, he says, “That is all finished, and the new order has come in, which is altogether different—the order of the heavenly and of the spiritual, as over against the earthly and the temporal. That is finished. The temple is finished.”
Think of it: in Jerusalem, under the shadow of that temple, with all those devoted to the temple and its service, right there under its shadow he says:
Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands.
— Acts 7:48
Say that outside St. Peter’s in Rome, or even St. Paul’s in London; declare that, and see what the rulers of the church will say. “God dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” He indicated a change in dispensation, the whole character of things. He proclaimed it.
No wonder they gnashed upon him with their teeth, and they stoned Stephen, calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus. They said, in effect, “We will have none of that. We will finish that.”
As they cast their deadly stones upon the young man, seeing the heavens opened and Jesus, the Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God, they thought they had done with that. In that selfsame moment, the Holy Spirit began to work 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 gasp in wonder. You see the wonderful power and the infinite ingenuity of the Holy Spirit.
That young man, who so soon after that event came into an experience and discovery of the exceeding greatness of His power, later wrote upon it—or stated that he prayed—that the whole church might know it.
When we allow that man, that example of that power, to present to us what it meant to him, as recorded in this whole statement in 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, that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power”—then we see the connection: “Ye shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you.”
By the same Spirit, when we allow him to speak to us about this power, the first thing that meets us—oh, that we meet—is something that completely disconcerts us.
Look at it again. I have just lifted out one fragment of this whole statement. We are not dealing with Ephesians 1 and the great prayer of Paul, but just extracting this clause:
That ye may know what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
— Ephesians 1:18
Now, if he only put it the other way around, we would 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 one dares to speak of the riches of the glory of His inheritance in me—in you—then it is different. Suppose that were said to you really personally, those words addressed to you personally: “That you may know the riches of the glory of His inheritance in you.” What would you say?
You would say, “Oh, look here, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? You do not know me. If you knew me, you would not talk to me like this. You go and tell someone else that—some people, perhaps, to whom you might say it—but do not you talk to me like this.”
“You do not know my depravity, the depravity of my nature. You do not know what I know about myself—my own heart, my sinfulness. If you only knew a little, you would shut the book and go away and say, ‘No, that does not apply there: the riches of the glory of His inheritance in him, in her.’”
“You do not know all my defeat in the battle and in the work—how I have striven and failed; how, again and again, the forces of evil have gotten the mastery, and I have been a pathetic casualty in this warfare. You do not know my secret history of defeat. You could not talk like that to me if you did.”
“You do not know my penury, my poverty in spiritual life. To know only a little of such things about me would send you off in quest of someone else to talk to like that: ‘The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.’”
The apostle deals in superlatives. He says some tremendously 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 would 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 is far too high for me, altogether beyond possibility where I am concerned.”
The riches? I am so poor. I am a beggar. You are talking about riches of His inheritance in me. Glory for Him in me? I am daily ashamed of myself. My more common attitude about myself is, “Woe is me. I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” No feigned meekness—real, genuine expression of a heart that knows itself: “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” And you talk to me about the riches of the glory of His inheritance!
You see, it is overpowering; it is disconcerting; it is almost paralyzing. But he said it. He said it. It is here in Holy Writ. It is Scripture.
You have 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 us-ward who believe.
— Ephesians 1:19
That is what—the exceeding greatness of His power to that poverty, to that shame, to all that. The exceeding greatness of His power: that you may know that. That changes the picture, does it not?
We will all admit that nothing short of the exceeding greatness of His power will do it. But that is it:
Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.
— Acts 1:8
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 is what the Lord Jesus was saying. He will make you know what you do not know now.
So Paul prays that you may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward. If that exists, if that is available, if that is true, the picture changes from one of hopelessness to marvellous hope. Then it is possible.
Out of this rubbish heap, out of these ashes, riches and glory of His inheritance can come. How, I do not know; but here it is. There is the power from God to do that in you and in me.
It is not my intention to follow that through and try to show how it works out. But 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 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, because I persecuted the church.” Paul never got away from it. He never got away from it. It was something 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 was ever open in his soul. You read him again, and I repeat: he had a very poor opinion of himself. Indeed he had. “The least,” he would say. Get it? That is not pretence; that is not mock meekness and humility: “the least of all saints.”
But over against that: the riches of the glory of His inheritance in, yes, the least of all saints. How? The exceeding greatness of His power toward us-ward. Paul is praying out of some experience of that power in such as he knew himself to be, that all the saints might know it. “That you might know,” he says.
Dear friends, there is one thing about power: you can never know it other than in experience. You can talk about power. You can have all your ideas of power. But you can never really know it except in 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 it again; you may have forgotten it. It is very apropos of what I am trying to say now.
I was at a conference, and 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 and to whom I had written. I was very glad to meet his son and to ask, like the king asked Gehazi about the works of Elisha, for firsthand 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 southern settlement. The government was very anxious that the Indian settlement should be developed and modernized, provided with all the up-to-date accessories of civilization and modern life.
They asked this man what he thought would be the best way of introducing these things to people who were ignorant, very suspicious, and unbelieving—not prepared to accept anything at its face value, wanting to be very sure of everything.
The man said, “Well, I think the only way in which you will do it would be to get one or two of the most influential and intelligent of the Indians, 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, until he found two or three men who had more influence than anyone else, seemed to have more intelligence, and were at least willing to come and have a look for themselves.
So he took them way up-country to one great city and took them into a hotel—a modern American hotel. It was night, late in the evening, getting dark quickly.
As they went into their room, the man who was conducting the Indians put his finger on the electric-light switch. On came the light, and the Indians stopped. “How did that happen? What did you do?”
“Oh,” he said, “I simply put my finger on that button there.”
“Do not believe it. Do not believe it. You mean to tell me all that is just in that little button? You have only got to touch that little thing, and all this comes on? Do not believe it.”
“Very well,” said the man. So he switched it off, stood the Indian on a table, took out the bulb, and said, “If you put your thumb up inside that socket—”
The next moment, the Indian was picking himself up from the corner of the room, very shaken and very moved. The man said, “Do you believe it now?” “Oh, yes, I believe it now. I believe it now.”
Now, there is perhaps some humour in that. But do you see the point? You do not know power except in experience.
This power is not doctrine, a theory, a subject, or a theme. It is 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 does not always work like that with us. This power does not suddenly come upon us, take hold of us, rend us, throw us about, and do that sort of thing so that we feel it.
But, 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, the horrid, harmful forces that are set against what is of Christ in this universe, then you have some knowledge of this.
It is nothing short of the miracle of the exceeding greatness of His power that you are a Christian today and that you have continued in the way thus far. Paul put it like this:
Having obtained the help that is from God, I stand unto this day.
— Acts 26:22
He might have put it the other way: “But for the help that comes from God, I would not be here today.” You know something about that. What is it that has kept you? What is it that is behind your going on, in spite of yourself? Oh, it is in spite of ourselves. Just in spite of ourselves.
Left to ourselves, what should we have done? We dare not think about it. In spite of all the forces of evil in this universe concentrated upon the smallest segment of Jesus Christ, we go on.
We do not feel it. Indeed, more often than otherwise, we feel the weakness; we feel our own unworthiness and helplessness. We wonder if ever we shall be able to continue. But there you are—that is the fact.
This power is not like the power that that Indian experienced, coming suddenly with a shock. It is a mighty, mighty working power, day by day, that keeps us on the road: “That you may know the exceeding greatness of His power.”
But there is a bridge. There is a bridge between all that which we are and that which we are not; that which makes us hear such words with consternation, amazement, even doubt. There is a bridge between that and the exceeding greatness of His power. What is it?
To us-ward who believe.
— Ephesians 1:19
What is it? “To us-ward who believe.” The two are brought together and joined by that word: believe, believe.
We have been very interested recently in that marvellous feat of engineering: the great St. Lawrence River linking the mighty ocean and the great lakes. I do not 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 had gone.
The linking of the mighty ocean and these great lakes by this canal was all effected, made real and actual, brought into operation, by the breaking down of the little gap. There is the ocean; there is the mighty lake; there is a channel between the two.
For a time, while they made the channel and the canal, they had to keep a barrier, to keep those apart while the work was going on. Then the day came to blow it up, get rid of that dam, that barrier. When it was gone, the mighty fullness at both ends met.
We may have the barrier that is keeping this fullness unexperienced, unknown, unrealized, ineffective: the barrier of unbelief. But it is “to us-ward who believe.” Who believes all that?
Listen again:
That ye may know what 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-ward who believe.
— Ephesians 1:18-19
You will dwell upon that for all eternity. All eternity is going to be required to show what that is: the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward. Vast oceans, mighty fullness, all held up because we do not believe—waiting for release.
“It is to us-ward who believe.” Say no more. We can only say, “Lord, help our unbelief. Help our unbelief.”
That is the answer of the Lord:
Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you.
— Acts 1:8
How important it is that we receive the Holy Spirit and give the Holy Spirit His place. Oh, His place is that of Lordship. Paul says:
Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
— 2 Corinthians 3:17
Release. May we be granted this opening-up, this releasing, this apprehending—not in sensation or in conscious power. There is the paradox, ever and always, in this connection.
A man could speak like this again and again, refer to the exceeding greatness of His power, “according to the power that worketh in us,” and so on; yet the same man could 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 is 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 will be nothing to say. This is the exceeding greatness of His power.