THE POWER BY WHICH THINGS ARE EFFECTED
E.M.Walkinshaw
Mark 1: 7,8; Acts 1: 6-9; 2: 1-4; 2 Timothy 2: 1,2
I want to draw attention to the power by which things are effected for God. No divine end can ever be reached by human means but by the power of God alone. When coming to Corinth with the testimony of God, Paul did not come with the persuasive words of man's wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Everything, therefore, is effected for God by a divine power and, if I may repeat it, nothing is effected for God by human means. Human vessels would be used but the power is of God. I think the Lord would help us about this, dear brethren, and as He helps us about it it would keep us restful as we understand that everything is in control as being in the hands of Christ. Whatever may happen in the history of the testimony He will see the testimony through until it finds its consummation in glory; that would help us to be restful. In the verses read in Mark, John calls attention to this Person. Elsewhere he says "A man comes after me who takes a place before me, because he was before me" (John 1:30); that is, he is drawing attention to the preeminence of Jesus, One who took precedence over him because, he says, "he was before me". In this gospel, however, he says "There comes he that is mightier than I after me, the thong of whose sandals I am not fit to stoop down and unloose". What an impression of Christ! - "mightier than I". John was effective in divine power in the fulfilment of his mission, but now he had before him One that was mightier than he. It is one thing to have a purpose, it is another thing to have the power to put that purpose into effect; but God has laid hold on One that is mighty, that is Jesus, and whatever may happen beneath the firmament in the history of man or of the testimony, God has placed things in the hands of One who has the power to put everything into effect. The government of this country had a good intention in its efforts to restrain inflation but the difficulty lay in the power to put that policy into effect. That is not so with Jesus; He has His economy, and presently that economy will be brought out publicly. He will not simply have a policy or an administration but He is mighty enough to put it into effect, and nothing and no one will hinder Him. It is a great thing, dear brethren, to get an impression of Christ like that and it will help you to be steady in the testimony.
So John would relate himself to such, and we in our day can relate ourselves to One that is mightier than John, the great Servant-prophet as this gospel presents Him, who will not only make known the mind of God but will lay the moral basis for an economy of blessing and then put that economy into effect as a risen Man. How glorious Jesus is! And in this gospel, as we know, there are constant references to power, and I think it is the power of the Spirit because Jesus acted in the power of the Spirit. Of course He was who He was, over all God blessed for ever, but He accepted the limitations that manhood imposed upon Him and as here He acted in the power of the Holy Spirit. And He gave His disciples power; and I think if we need one thing above another in these days it is power as being dependent upon God so that things might be put into effect among us as we are with God. So John goes on to say, "I indeed have baptised you with water, but he shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit". How wonder full that is! One having accomplished the great work of redemption, equal to it and having accomplished it, baptises with the Holy Spirit. I think, dear brethren, it is intended that we should come into the effect of that. I wonder how far our younger people are alive to the fact that the Holy Spirit is here. We accept it as a teaching, we accept the Bible as the word of God professedly; but then I think the Lord would raise the simple challenge with us as to how far we are in the vitality of the presence of the Holy Spirit. That would apply to each of us. We have a good deal of teaching, we call it 'the good teaching' and it is, and the Lord would help us to look into it; but He would encourage us to be so with the Holy Spirit that that good teaching may not simply remain good teaching but that the spirit of it might find expression in us as we are committed to the progressive prophetic line that the Lord has followed in the last one hundred and fifty years. Has everything been haphazard, dear brethren? Is it that one man arose who was distinguished and he helped certain persons who came out from the churches and chapels and the like? And is it that another man became distinguished subsequent to that and helped the brethren and encouraged them to go on, and after that another and those contemporary with them? I think not. It has been the progressive movement of the One that was mightier than John; He initiated the recovery and He is maintaining it, hence all is not lost. Our part, dear brethren, is to relate ourselves to Him in His movements and know what His strength and His power are, and to understand that without Him we can do nothing. But, as Paul said elsewhere, "I have strength for all things in him that gives me power", Phil 4: 13. So, weak as the day is publicly, we have Christ and we can rely upon Him. There is the "Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ"; that I suppose would link with Peter's ministry. He speaks a good deal of Jesus Christ, that order of Man that stood here for God, that went through rather like the acacia wood, enduring in the presence of the greatest opposition; but then Mark says "Son of God", that is like Paul's ministry - another world and another Man in another world, the Son of God. I would like to appeal to the younger men and younger women to commit themselves personally to Jesus Christ, Son of God, and you will be surprised what He will do for you in the way of personal experience which will become a wonderful contribution to God's assembly here on the earth. So the first passage brings before us Jesus in His uniqueness, the mightier than John, the baptiser with the Holy Spirit.
Now in the second passage the work of redemption has been accomplished, Jesus has died and rose again. I wonder how far we are in the faith of that, that Jesus is a risen Man. One has often reflected on this truth of Himself as risen; Christians generally accept it. If you speak to a Christian believer he will say that Jesus is risen, and accept that as the truth. Then surely I must ask myself the question, If Jesus is risen, where is He? And if I ask, Where is He? I could rightly ask, What is He doing? What is He doing? Is He quiescent? Is He sitting on the throne of God with no interest here? And if the Lord Jesus is living, where is He living? And then, where am I living? Where are you living? If you say Jesus is risen, where are you living? Are you living where He lives? Are you living in His life? Or is it that you are nominally in the circle of the truth but the power of your life and enjoyment is elsewhere? It is very easy to be like that, and I think, dear brethren, that the crises that have come upon the brethren have proved that many were in the circle of the truth but the power and vitality of their lives was elsewhere. And then as beloved Mr Taylor sen told us, everything finds its own level and each goes to his own place. If a person is an open brother in his outlook and practices, when the crisis comes that is the direction in which he goes. If he is worldly minded, when the crisis comes that is the direction in which he goes. If he is a lover of the truth I think the Lord keeps him where the truth is and where the Lord is; and so when the crisis comes in the history of any one of us, as with water, everything finds its own level. Now in this second passage, as I said, Jesus had died and was risen again; He was living, they beheld Him and He assembled with them and spoke to them "of the things which concern the kingdom of God". They say "is it at this time that thou restorest the kingdom to Israel?", and Jesus says "It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority; but ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you". Now, dear brethren, everything that transpires in the history of those in the testimony in the Acts is in the power of the Holy Spirit; He had come upon them, and the Holy Spirit is here. The word translated 'power' here is 'dunamis', that is the power to effect things; and I think, dear brethren, it would help us if we were more with the Lord to appreciate the presence of the Spirit as effective power to put everything into operation for Himself. There is no power apart from Him. Men might act, and of course God might move sovereignly, as He does; but I think in the progress of the testimony we need to understand that our power lies in the Holy Spirit. So He says to them "ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you"; that would seem to be power for the continuation of the testimony, as though the Lord would indicate that the immediate point is not the kingdom, at any rate in its public display, but the power that would come upon them so that they might be witnesses for Him. There is very little distinction I judge between the testimony and witness in the scripture, unless the testimony be more specific. Here the Lord said "ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth". Then it says, "And having said these things he was taken up, they beholding him, and a cloud received him out of their sight". Now most of us would know that that implies that the period of faith begins. Jesus is out of sight. Christendom, of course, has said, as they said of Moses, "we do not know what has become of him" (Exod 32: 1); but the enlightened believer is intelligent as to where Jesus is and not only where He is but what He is doing.
So in chapter 2 the Holy Spirit comes; it says "there came suddenly a sound out of heaven". You notice the 'sound' fills the house and the fire 'sits' upon them all, and all spake "as the Holy Spirit gave to them to speak forth". What a company, dear brethren! We would have to acknowledge that since then the Holy Spirit has been set aside, man's mind has taken the place of God's mind in the profession, and the church publicly is in ruins; but is the Holy Spirit in ruins? Has the Holy Spirit withdrawn Himself? I believe He is available and is pursuing the simple mission as indicated in the type in Genesis 24, to bring the bride to Isaac; and the Holy Spirit is here patiently serving. Oh that we might relate ourselves to Him! Speaking in the power of the Holy Spirit is not only a possibility but it is necessary if the testimony is to be maintained in its true character until it finds its consummation in glory. That was the beginning, and what a testimony it was! How it affected the persons that heard it each in his own tongue! It says "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave to them to speak forth". The Lord would help us to speak as the Spirit gives us to speak forth. I believe that should be characteristic, not simply when we are in the assembly. Mr Darby went so far as to say, 'you only speak when it is necessary to speak and you only eat when it is necessary to eat, and you eat with a view to nourishing your body with a view to the testimony of God, and you speak with a view to the expression of what is necessary for the testimony of God'. We may say, We fall very far short of that. We would all acknowledge that; nevertheless the lord would help us to accept the obligation to maintain things at their height even if we feel very weak in doing so.
Now the last passage is a day of breakdown and Paul is encouraging Timothy. He says "Thou therefore, my child, be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus" - be strong in it. The source of strength is Christ Jesus, everything is set in Him; He is the One who when here was called a "mightier than I", and He did things, as we have said, by the Spirit. Now He is on high and everything is settled in Him. When you think of Christ Jesus you think of an anointed Man in heaven and everything in Him. So that purpose and grace, those things given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time, will never be lost; God has put them in a safe place. If He had put them in me today I would have lost them before tomorrow, and so would you; but He has given us these things in Christ Jesus, He has given them to us and put them in a safe place in that Person, and because of that we shall never lose them, and no believer will ever lose them; although he may lose, and any one of us may lose, our enjoyment of them. So here the grace is in Christ Jesus, and as we are brought into attachment to Him and maintained in Him I think we are maintained in the strength that is in Him which is necessary for the continuation of the testimony of God. This is an exhortation. It might be something like abiding in Him, and as abiding in Him the strength that is in Him is known; not exactly that it is communicated from time to time (I am not saying that that may not be so) but I think the idea of the passage is that you are strong in the grace that is in Him as you are abiding in Him in a day of weakness, and hence you are kept in power in God's precious testimony. So he says "And the things thou hast heard of me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men". I feel, dear brethren (and no doubt many of us would share the feeling) that if I were more trustworthy the Lord would have entrusted more to me. The Lord does not give His precious things to anybody, He gives them to trustworthy persons. So Paul says, You entrust them to faithful men, not to anybody. Let us, dear brethren, seek grace from the Lord to be faithful men - and women; I think it would include women too. Of course he says 'men' because what would be in mind would be responsibility in the maintenance of these things which Timothy had heard, but I think we could say there have been not only faithful men but faithful women who have been committed to the testimony of God. Can I be entrusted with anything? Can you be entrusted with anything in your locality? That is the question the Lord would raise with each of us, I think; and then, "such as shall be competent to instruct others also". It has often been said that we would come into the "others also", but I think the characteristic of faithfulness is one that will go through to the end. The Lord will see everything through as the mightier than John and the mightier than any other, and if I am not available I have no doubt that He will have others that are; but I would like to be available, would not you? You young men and women, would you not like to be available to the Lord for the honour of having part in the final phase of 'the testimony? I would; I would like to be trustworthy. I like to be trustworthy in my job, not working when the boss is looking and dodging when he is not looking. I would like to be trustworthy, and the same is true as to our Lord who is looking after His Father's business - "did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father's business?", Luke 2: 49. I would like to be someone that is trustworthy; and I think the more we get to the Lord, the more we get to the Spirit, the more we shall be helped to be faithful and trustworthy in the testimony here. May the Lord help every one of us, and may especially the younger men and women commit themselves to Him so that they might have the honour of having part in this testimony in a dark day until He comes.
Sunbury
9 March 1974