POWER FROM THE INDWELLING SPIRIT.

• But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is- come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts, 1:8.

• Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed. I. Peter 1:8.

• Tarry ye in the City of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. Luke 24 149.

Jesus told the Sadducees that they were ignorant of two things and, therefore, their conclusions were wrong. “Ye do err,” said He, “Not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God.” There are a great many good people to-day who are in error because they do not know what the power of God is. It is not the power of nature. Jesus did not say you should receive power after you have learned to manipulate forces of nature. It is not chemical power. It is not human power, neither physical, intellectual, emotional nor will power. They already had all that power. It is not the power of organization for they were scattered abroad everywhere and went preaching the gospel in power. It is not the power of maturity, for Jesus said they should receive power not many days hence. It is not the power of theological nor ecclesiastical training, for they had no schools, and spent their time in a prayer meeting. It was not official power for they never had any position of authority either in the church or in the world.

This enduement of power comes from the incoming and indwelling of the Third Person of the adorable Trinity. The Holy Spirit is not a freak of God nor a spasm of the Divine nature, nor pocket edition of Jesus Christ. He is not a mere influence nor the inspiration of the poet or orator, but a divine personality, an almighty being who has a will, an intellect and a heart. He Himself must live in us or there is no more divine power in us than in others. He Himself must move in us or we are as helpless as Sampson when he went out and shook himself, not knowing that the Lord had left him. He Himself must speak through us or else our words will be as the babbling of fools or the crackling of thorns under a pot.

How will the Spiritual power be manifested?

1. The Spirit will give us the more abundant life. The disciples had once been dead in trespasses and sins, but by faith in Jesus the Spirit had given them the new life. But the baptism of the Spirit gave them the more abundant life. Every Christian feels the need of more life. When Pilgrim started from the City of Destruction he cried, “Life, Life, more Life.” The fad of the church of to-day is work, work, more work, but the need of the church is life, life, more life.

I went to S —. to hold a revival meeting, and the week before the Missionary Society gave a supper, the Epworth League gave a concert, and the Aid Society gave a literary entertainment, so as to get all these things out of the way before the meeting began. As a result the preacher was exhausted and sick, his wife had lost her diamond ring, the members had worked themselves nearly dead and their hope was in a rocking chair taking soothing syrup. Their peace had gone out of the door and had not been home for a week. Their faith had gone to bed and was not able to turn over. Their joy was dead and buried and they had erected a tomb stone. Their need was life, life, more life, until their hope would abound, their peace pass all understanding, and their joy would be unutterable and full of glory.

I heard Bishop Warren say that a professor in Denver University took a common squash, and put it in a steel case, and put 100 pounds on the lid. In a week the squash had lifted the 100 pounds. Then he put on 200 pounds and the squash lifted the lid. Then he put on 500 pounds and the squash lifted that also. Then he put on an anvil and a piece of railroad iron and the squash broke the vase into pieces. If God can put such power in a squash, why can He not put power in a Christian to endure all things?

A timid little woman knelt at the altar and God baptized her with the Holy Spirit. She went home and told her godless husband what she had received, and the next morning when they sat down at the table, he said for her to ask a blessing and she did so. Then when breakfast was over he said, “Where there is a Christian there ought to be family prayers,” and gave her the Bible. She read and prayed, and after prayer he told her he wanted her to go with him twenty miles in a buggy to attend to some business. She went along cheerfully and did not call him an old sardine for interfering in her plans. At noon they stopped at a hotel and he rapped on the table and said his wife was a Christian and wanted to ask a blessing and she did so. After dinner he said, “Now I’ve tested you and believe in your kind of religion and we will go back to the church, and if I can get it, that is the kind I want.” The religion that has power in it is the kind that is wanted in this world.

2. The Spirit will give the power of spiritual cleansing.

The disciples were forgiven, and their sins were washed away, but they had anger, jealousy, strife, pride. These things broke out in their life. They needed to be cleansed on the inside as well as the outside. Robinson says that near by the gate of Zion in the old Jerusalem he was horrified by the sight of an old woman whose lips were gone, whose nostrils and eyelids had been eaten off, and whose hands were full of holes. She had the leprosy. But the saddest sight of all was a little dark eyed girl with raven hair and beautiful cheeks and ringing voice holding the fingerless hand of her grandmother. She too had leprosy. No remedy could cleanse the grandmother. No remedy could cleanse the child.

Leprosy is the Bible type of sin. We see sin on the outside. God sees it on the inside as well as on the outside. We see the bruised, marred, defiled images of God, far gone into sin, and say they need the blood of Christ to cleanse them.

God sees sin in the inward parts. He sees the uncharitable thoughts, unloving and unchaste thoughts, unforgiving, unbelievnig thoughts. Selfishness, anger, malice, hatred and other irregular passions must be taken away by the blood of Christ.

Isaac Watts was right when he sang:

“No bleeding bird nor bleeding beast,

Nor hyssop branch, nor sprinkling priest,

No running brook, nor flood, nor sea,

Can wash the dismal stain away.

Jesus, thy blood, thy blood alone Hath power sufficient to atone.

Thy blood can make us white as snow,

No Jewish priest can cleanse us so.”

“By faith that blood now sweeps away My sins as with a flood.

Nor lets one guilty remnant stay.

All praise to Jesus blood.”

Cowper was right when he sang:

“Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransomed church of God

Are saved to sin no more.”

Faber was right when he sang:

“Burn, burn, oh Love within my heart,

Burn fiercely night and day,

Till all the dross of carnal loves

Is burned and burned away.”

3. He will give us power to endure tribulation and keep us faithful. Jesus said: “I pray not Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil.” The Spirit has been given to fulfill that prayer.

I used to think that when men were old and matured they could be kept; but men are not kept by age nor maturity, only by he power of God through faith unto salvation. We are not kept by our feelings, neither are we kept by what we know, for God does not want us all to be halls of theology, but temples of the Holy Spirit. Neither are we kept by the power of our own works, but by the power of God through faith!

A wife in New York who was high tempered and quick at retort, went to Green Street Church, and got filled’ with the Holy Spirit. When she went to the door of the church she remembered how she had lived at home so she went back to the preacher and said, “How can I live this at home?” He said, “Keep saying, ‘Jesus saves me now’” and down the street she went, saying, “Jesus saves me now.” When she got to her double tenement home, her neighbor had left the wash tub in front by her door and she climbed over it saying, “Jesus saves me now.” When she opened the door, her daughter ran to meet her, with her face all covered with jelly; and she said, “Where have you been?” Her daughter jumped back, but the mother said, “Mary, Jesus saves me now,” and Mary was glad. She put too much kindling in the stove and the smoke came out in front and she said, “Jesus saves me now.” She hurried supper, and her husband sat down, asked a blessing, reached over and broke a biscuit into two pieces and said, “This is not fit to eat.” Strange that a man can ask a blessing and then growl at the first bite! But she said, “Jesus saves me now” and poured out the coffee for his cup in which there were a half dozen strangers floating and he said, “The coffee is not fit for a dog to drink,” but she said, “Jesus saves me now.” “Well, what is the matter with you?” and she said, “Jesus has come in to keep me all the time.” After supper he said, “I want that kind of religion too,” and got it that night at the altar and they became workers in the church.

4. The Holy Spirit will give as the Power to Love. Without this power no worker for God can succeed. It is the work of the Spirit to impart the love of God to every heart. You cannot work yourself up to it. You cannot manufacture it. “Do you remember how the love of God was shed abroad in your heart?” I remember it well. The place is memorable and sacred. The air was sweet and full of song. The sun kissed my cheek, the breeze caressed me. Everything seemed new and full of love. The Spirit had shed abroad the love of God in my heart and made all things new.

Bishop Taylor tells in his book on India of one Falima who has great influence over the people. In 1857, during the mutiny, she saw her husband taken by the Sepoys, dragged over the streets, kicked in the face and then a trooper with a sword took off his head. Then they burned her house. She fled to the commons with her seven children. One of them took sick and died. Nobody would help her bury it. She dug the grave and buried her own child. After the mutiny she went back to these very people and began to preach Jesus and his salvation and now they knew she loved them and they will hear the gospel from her lips when they will not listen to another voice on earth. She could go anywhere in India because the people knew that she loved them.

Do the people know that we love them? What more have we done for them than they do for each other without Christ at all? What difference has it made with your hours of sleep whether your neighbors go to heaven or hell? What difference has it made with your evenings whether some of your friends know Jesus or not?

Up in Northern Minnesota there is a man by the name of Smith who was a class leader and a policeman. Going out from prayer meeting one night he heard men fighting in a saloon. When he went into the saloon he saw the proprietor, and Brown, a rough, desperate character, in a deadly conflict. He seized Brown by the nape of the neck to take him away, when Brown struck him in the breast with a bowie knife and cut him into the bone for six inches. He fainted and was taken to a doctor’s office where the wound was dressed. Brown was arrested and put in the lockup. When Smith was well enough he brought Brown into the Criminal Court and the Judge said: “What is against this man?” And Smith said: “Plain drunk.” The Judge said: “Did he not try to kill you?” And Smith said, “Nothing against him but a plain drunk,” and the Judge was angry for he wanted to send Brown to the Penitentiary. And he said: “Fine him $20 or twenty days in the lockup.” And Smith took him to jail for he had no money. On the way he said: “Smith, I am so glad you only charged me with a plain drunk and not that I tried to kill you.” “Well,” said Smith, “You were drunk, or you would not have struck me with your knife, were you not?” “Yes,” said Brown, “and when I get out of here I’ll never drink any more.” “Then,” said Smith, “Take this twenty dollar bill, pay your fine, go home and live a sober man,” and he gave him the money. Brown sat down on a curb stone and cried like a child. He could hardly walk to the court house to pay his fine. He said, “Nobody ever loved me this way before.” He went home and told his wife and three daughters. They all cried for joy, and sent for Smith to tell them how he happened to love them so. And he told them about Jesus and his love. They repented of their sins, gave themselves to Christ and joined the Methodist Church. He is now a conductor on the Canadian Pacific R. R. and I saw a letter to Smith, saying: “You saved me and all my family. We owe everything to you.” And love did it all.

5. He will fill us with power to testify. Mr. Moody said at the meeting at the World’s 'Fair that the greatest mistake of the churches in these days is that they don’t wait on God for the endowment to testify. So many, many Christians never talk of salvation to their friends or their families. They are like Nicodemus, silent Christians, night Christians who never testify.

In the fourth chapter of John we have another kind. A woman came to Jesus and He said, “If you drink the water that I give you it shall be a well of water springing up to everlasting life,,, and she took it and started off at once testifying as a missionary to her own people and a great multitude of them believed.

Have you that well of water in you, springing up and flowing out into everlasting life? I heard of a man in Minnesota who said he had a well, but it had two faults. It was not a very good well. It dried up in the summer and froze solid in the winter. Is that your kind of a well? Do you dry up in the summer and freeze solid in the winter?

Then we have in the seventh chapter of John another passage: Jesus says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” “He that believeth on me out of his innermost parts shall flow rivers of water.” I used to read that, river of water, but it is rivers of water. Life and health and peace and salvation shall flow out of him in every direction! This is not fiction. It was true of Wesley. What rivers of water, what multitudes of people have been saved! What schools, what churches, what missionary societies! So it was with Mr. Spurgeon, Institutes and Asylums and Orphanages and printing houses and evangelists and churches. Oh, for a generation of Christians out of whom rivers of water shall flow for the salvation of the world!

6. The Spirit will fill us with the Power of Evangelizing and Saving the World. The question, “How to reach the masses,” has had many answers by man and many things have been declared absolutely essential in these times. I don’t believe in these additions, these “sine quae nons” of man. Since God made man in Eden there has not been a muscle or a bone added. Since God launched the worlds into space they have run without delays and without friction. The gospel of the Son of God does not need a preface or an appendix to make it go. It has the power in its own soul for self propagation. If a lucifer match should come to me with the question of how it should light the gas jets, I would say, “Light yourself, and then when all ablaze hold yourself up to the gas jet; there will be no trouble.” When a church wants to know what to do, I say, “This is the way to spread the gospel; get lighted yourselves and then touch the world.” Jesus says, “Ye are the light of the world,” but if the fire in us is wrapped up in an old profession of religion or of mere church membership, the light in us will become darkness. It is very common to say we don’t have the life we ought to have. We are cold and dead. Preachers say it, stewards say it, members say it, we all say it, and then we ask why are the people not converted? Why does the world not come to Jesus?

The answer is this: the reason the people are not saved is because we are not on fire. We do not blaze and burn for God. Men of the world burn for money and blaze for honor or pleasure, and so the church is to be a flame of fire for God.

“Oh, that in me the sacred fire

Might now begin to glow.

Burn up the dross of base desire

And make the mountains flow.

Oh that it now from heaven might fall

And all my sin consume.

Come, Holy Ghost, for thee I call,

Spirit of burning come.”