THE MAN OF POWER, OR, THE LORD IS WITH THEE
THE MAN OF POWER, OR, THE LORD IS WITH THEE
To anyone with conscious capacity for anything greater than he possesses, the subject of power, and how it is acquired, must be most interesting. The better anyone’s tastes and desires are, the more must he, if he be true to them, seek how he may satisfy them; and this is power.
[p. 78] Power is not the taste or the nature that needs assistance, but that which enables me to effect and reach what I desire. Satan, in tempting Eve, engendered a certain desire for an advance in knowledge; and then supplied the means or power to obtain it. If Eve had possessed divine power at the time, she would have turned a deaf ear to Satan, and have proved that she was content. When man yielded to Satan he became his servant; and now Satan, when he would lead him captive, first suggests to him something pleasing to his natural taste, the chief taste in his nature, and then lends him the power to reach it. Satan first put into the heart of Judas a way for making money, and then enticed him to accomplish it. Man is therefore a sport of Satan’s power, unless he be sustained and supported by a greater than he.
If man were like a ship on a calm sea, when there was no violent wind, he could follow out his own desires according to his own power; and therefore the better his nature, or taste, the better would be his course: and if his nature were divine, there would be a true godly course; but seeing that man is exposed to fierce winds from every quarter, from which he cannot escape by any power inherent in himself, he must become either a derelict, or receive aid and support from God. Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, and He is stronger than he. Hence it is only in His power that I am enabled to be superior to the power and force of evil which combats or bars me. When I am borne along to the true port, in spite of every adverse wind, it is because, greater is He that is for us, than he that is against us. Man in yielding to Satan at first opened the door to his rule, and therefore man is powerless to resist Satan, unless a greater than he espouse man’s cause, and overcome his enemy.
Cain had greater power than Abel, he was of the wicked one and slew his brother. Abel had the mind of the Lord, but the Lord did not see fit to give him power to escape from Cain, no more than He did to His first [p. 79] martyr, Stephen, though He gave him power to be personally above all the winds which raged against him at the time; the former began the history of God’s people on the earth, and the latter closed it. The power of God is in every act which is according to God. There is the power of evil here; man’s natural tastes and desires predispose him unconsciously to yield himself to Satan, though he does not, in a violent way, in a moment. Man in his simple state does not incline to the usurpation of Satan; but because of his alienation from God, Satan becomes welcome to him because he aids him to obtain the lusts of his heart, and Satan suits him, because the flesh is enmity against God. Whenever man aims at anything great himself, he discovers his inability to reach it, and when thus sensibly powerless, he readily turns to Satan, who is most ready to help, when the course is most determinedly against God.
The power of God is exerted to maintain, according to God, in every phase of life down here. We are not left to mere fruitless desires, and unsatisfied taste, but there is a new power, through Christ, working in us, and by this power we can overcome all the combined force and obstruction of Satan.
Let us now see how the power of God affects us in our varied circles here. The first, as the power comes from God, and is the gift of His grace, is necessarily displayed in reaching us through Christ, in all the depth and distance of our need. “The exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places”, Ephesians 1: 19, 20. The power of God, in its true and full nature, is not known until it has been known in translating us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love, or in crossing the Jordan, leaving our death behind in the consciousness of eternal life in Christ. This is the power of His resurrection.
[p. 80] The first direction of the power of God is in quickening us together with Christ, and raising us up together and making us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. This is effected for all in Christ, though it is to be entered on, and enjoyed individually by each. The second direction of the power which has acted for us, is now in us. “The power that worketh in us”, Ephesians 3: 20. This ranges in two circles; one, the assembly, and our connection in life and service toward it; the other, my own practical walk. The third direction is outside of myself, preserving me from the opposition and malice of Satan. “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might”, Ephesians 6: 10. When one is under the direction of the power of God, one is necessarily in power; but it begins with the first and upward direction, even the raising us up together and making us sit together in heavenly places in Christ, and one cannot be a man of power in the other directions if he is not in the first.
The great testimony to divine power, is the resurrection of Christ declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead. A man living on earth, in the power of Christ’s life, is a heavenly man; and there is power in everything he does as such. The way to be in power, as was shown typically by Israel in Canaan, is to be a heavenly man; then there is power on every side; and as with them, however much they had attained, there was palpable weakness, and loss, whenever they departed from the walk and ways of men set on possessing Canaan according to the word of God. So it is with us; no man is in power unless he is walking in resurrection life.
Let us now see the marks of a man of power, in each of the directions we have noticed. As I am in power Godward, which is the first, and the beginning of all, I find my hopes and joys are outside of this scene. I look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen. I joy in God; my faith and hope are in God. Thus was Abraham, ascending Mount Moriah; every step was in power. Thus were the children of the [p. 81] captivity able to face the burning fiery furnace. Thus Stephen was superior to every combination of evil force arrayed against him; and Paul, when before the Roman tribunal, deserted by his friends and exposed to all the violence of the enemy, could say, “the Lord stood with me”. In each of these cases the man of God had nothing to look to here. There was nothing to expect anything from, and thus each was a man of power, because in spite of the lack of every resource, and the pressure from every quarter, he was able to walk, seeing Him who is invisible. This is power in the first direction.
The power of God in the second direction, which embraces, as we have seen, our relation and services to the assembly, is more difficult to discern and distinguish, because so much more complicated. The servant in power is one who can rise above self-consideration for the benefit of others; as Abraham going out by night, abnegating all his home comforts, and risking his own life and the life of his servants, in order to deliver his brother Lot; or like Moses choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; or when he was up in the mount to receive the pattern of the tabernacle; or like Paul breaking with Barnabas, sooner than yield to his natural wish to have Mark with them. Every servant of God is in power, according as he endures for the elect’s sake; and every true servant is subjected to suffering, in order that he may be in power for service. The service is in power in proportion to the sufferings of Christ endured in prosecuting it. What is easily or naturally done is not the most effective service. The man who chooses the easy place, and the easy way for service, declines in power in it. “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me”.
Jonah refuses to go to Nineveh, and sinks in utter weakness to the lowest humiliation. Philip leaves a prosperous work at Samaria, to obey the Lord’s summons to go to Gaza, and is then a man of great power. The [p. 82] man of power in service can break away from the dearest ties and claims of nature, he can let the dead bury their dead. Even a Zipporah must be left behind, if she will not understand the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ. Friend, relation, fortune, comfort, all must be sacrificed by the man of power in service. He must endure the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God. Now in connection with this second direction of the power, one’s private life, or personal ways - with others - in business and family relations must be included. A servant is not in power in service only, but in every position. He walks in wisdom towards them that are without: his speech is always with grace, seasoned with salt; as to himself, he keeps under his body and brings it into subjection; he declares his power by the way he rules his own spirit, which is better than taking a city; he bridleth his tongue, otherwise his religion is vain; he is in his own house in, and after, the grace of Christ in every relationship. A man of power must walk in power everywhere, if he would be in power anywhere. If he fails in power in any quarter, he is sure to feel crippled in every other quarter, until he has righted himself in the spot in which he was weak; just as a man who is afflicted in any part of his system, is impeded by it in every action; so the vein of weakness runs through everything he attempts, for there is but the one Holy Spirit, and if He is hindered in any spot, if there is any dark spot, there is necessarily a hindrance, and a very characteristic one. Where the greatest defect exists, there will be distinct superiority over it, in the man of power, as with the palsied man carrying his bed.
Finally, in the third direction, the resistance of Satan is from outside. The man of power walks on unmoved though the winds rage, and the waves rise; he with his eye on Christ, is calm in the midst of tumultuous motion; in every sphere he is superior to everything which would influence him as a man: he is upheld by Christ, and is therefore in power. Beginning with God, and reaching [p. 83] out from thence into service to the saints, and to every detail of life, neither the resistance of the flesh, nor all the power of Satan, can withstand him, for however feeble in himself through the power of Christ he overcomes.