THE LORD'S PREVAILING POWER
THE LORD’S PREVAILING POWER
Matthew 3: 13 - 15; Acts 9: 10 - 17; Acts 22: 17 - 21
I wish to speak about how the Lord prevails, universally, of course, but also in individual cases. I have selected these three instances; there are many others. It is His attitude to man constantly to bring us into accord with Himself, and in doing so to prevail over us, prevail over our arguments. It is said of Judah that he “prevailed among his brethren”. It would be an allusion to his moral power and moral suasion amongst his brethren which came out in David and Solomon and other distinguished servants. The tribe was marked by prevailing power; Caleb had that power, and so had Solomon; all of them only reflected the prevailing power of Christ, and no one of us, I am sure, would wish, at least in principle, to be other than prevailed upon by Him, whether in general or in detail, whatever our arguments may be. And He goes to great pains to bring this about, as we get in other illustrations, as in Peter, whom He had trusted with the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, a very important trust, a trust that forbad any exercise of will, for if anyone who is commissioned of the Lord exercises his own will in any way he is sure to do damage. The more distinction he has, the more damage he is likely to do if he exercises his own will. So it was with Peter having the keys of the kingdom of the heavens; the Lord was concerned that he might use them in a dignified and effective way, and in order to ensure this the Lord had recourse to a vision. Peter was in the house of Simon, the tanner, a namesake of his own. He stayed there many days; it was by the sea. And while waiting for a meal, he became in an ecstasy, and the Spirit of God tells us, and Peter tells us so himself, that a sheet came down from heaven, bound by the four corners, containing the different creatures of the earth and the fowls of the heaven. There was a state in him [p. 403] that had to be dealt with and that would forbid his using the keys, would forbid his execution of the mission entrusted to him, a most serious matter; if a mission is entrusted to any of us and we fail in it because of our own wills, it is a most serious matter, interfering with the Lord’s operations. And so the word from heaven was, “Rise, Peter, slay and eat”, Acts 10: 13. He was in the house of the tanner, which implied slain animals, for a tanner has to use skins of animals. Peter had no difficulty as to the slaying of animals, but he had great difficulty about eating certain ones. And that was the point. A crisis had arisen in his service; he did not know it perhaps, but it was a crisis; a serious crisis had been reached in his history, in the history of God’s service too, because it was a dispensational matter, namely, the opening of the door to the Gentiles, who were awaiting outside. It is a very fine thing when someone is waiting to be admitted, but it is a very sorrowful thing when someone is there to hinder the admission, and Peter was that one. So the Lord went to great pains to prevail and He prevailed. The voice responded, “What God has cleansed, do not thou make common”. You are at variance with the mind of heaven — a most terrible thing, and yet it applied to a great apostle, a great servant, but that servant was to be prevailed upon. The Lord is here tonight to prevail on some of us, on all of us; there may be something we have on our conscience, that is hindering us in the things of God; it is hindering us, and we are hindering others; it is a more terrible thing still, that we should be hindering others from entering. So here Peter succumbs to the prevailing power of Christ, the Lord. The Holy Spirit was there ready too, for the Spirit said to Peter, after the sheet had gone up to heaven for the last time, “Behold, three men seek thee” — a remarkable thing — already. And He says, ‘You go with them; do not use your will or your prejudices; I have sent them, and I have sent you; I am sending you now’. That is a feature of the Acts that [p. 404] the Holy Spirit is acting as a divine Person, acting administratively, of His own accord: “I have sent them”.
I say all that to preface what I have to say, and I think you will see the weight of it, because I think nothing can be more serious than that I should have a different mind from heaven and that I should be holding to it, but it would prevail upon me in grace. That is what these three great illustrations of my subject would teach us. It is a prevailing time in grace; grace is reigning. It simply means the prevalent power of Christ at the right hand of God; the power He has to prevail in grace, not in persecution or penalty, not punitive, but prevalence in grace. “Grace might reign” — one of the strongest terms we can get — “through righteousness”, Romans 5: 21. That is what is in the hand of Christ, and the skill that He uses to make it available and effective.
Well now, my first example is John the baptist. He was carrying on a great work on the banks of the Jordan. One never refers to this service of John without a feeling of admiration for the servant, a young man, not more than between 30 and 35 at this time. He was slain when he was about 35, as I reckon, so that his example comes within the range of most of the brethren here, young men who are aspiring to serve. The service was bringing him into great prominence. The Lord had come all the way from Galilee to be baptised of John, not simply to be baptised with the others, but to be baptised of John — what a distinction that was! He came all the way from Galilee. And it says here, “Then comes Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptised of him”. Evidently he had no curates to join in, to help him with the crowd. He was the one that was baptising — heavy work. It was not sprinkling; clearly it was immersion, and in the Jordan. Large numbers of men and women came to him and challenged him, but I am not speaking of that now. But when the Lord came to him, it says, he forbad Him. Now, dear brethren, do not let us forbid the Lord. Do not let us forbid Him. John forbad Him.
[p. 405] The natural man would say, Well, he had a good reason; it was not pretension or pride. It was humility that led him. But there is no justification for forbidding Jesus at all, however right you may seem in doing it. Humility may be the outcome of pride. That humility is no good at all; a humility that would lead me to forbid Jesus is of no value at all. And yet we do it in our minds often. Some people say, I am not good enough to break bread, for instance; the brethren have been watching you and know you are the Lord’s and know you have the Holy Spirit, but your humility is hindering you. It is of no value at all; it is sinful. The Lord has said, “This do”, and you say, No. That will not do. You say it is humility, but it is not; it is sinfulness, to say, I will not do what You told me. You say that; you may not say it in words, but you may say it in effect, and things done in effect are pretty well equal to things done in action or otherwise.
So John forbad the Lord and he says to Him, “I have need to be baptised of thee; and comest thou to me?” Well, that was true; John did need to be baptised; that is true, but one truth cannot set another one aside. But the thing today is the prevalent power of Christ; that is entitled to prevalence; He is entitled to prevail. And what He is doing is wise. Why can He not have people to be humble? Can the Lord Jesus not have people to be humble? Can I forbid Him to be humble? He is humble; He has been baptised, and He did not need to be personally, but He is doing it for the sake of others, and it is remarkable, He says, “For thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. You are saying that you need to be baptised of Me, but I am saying that I have come to be baptised of you, and thus there is righteousness in that, and you, John, see it. And the Lord says, “For thus it becometh us”, that is, John, it becomes you and it becomes Me. The Lord links us on with Himself in this great matter; it is to induce us, as it were, to fulfil all righteousness. Some of us are content with half or one-quarter, but the Lord says, It is all righteousness [p. 406] and I will be with you in it, to make it a matter of principle to omit no matter of righteousness, and I will be with you in it. I have omitted no item of righteousness; it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness — one of the greatest things there is — to fulfil all righteousness. It takes up all our time. If I undertake to fulfil all righteousness, I will not have much time to spare; it comprises righteousness to my husband, righteousness to my wife, righteousness to my children, righteousness to my master, but above all righteousness toward God, toward Christ, toward the Holy Spirit, toward the brethren, toward the assembly, toward the government and a host of things. The Lord took up that matter; that was the attitude of His mind at the Jordan and it is beautiful to see that the Spirit of God said, “Then he suffers him”. He is prevailed upon. Let nobody be out of this, bend yourself, give way to the prevailing power and wisdom in that prevalence of the Lord Jesus. It is the path of happiness; anything else is the path of will. John did not go very far; he soon succumbed. How can he be out of accord with the Lord Jesus? “Suffer it now”, He says, “for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. The Lord has been in the thing; He says, I have been in it, fulfilling all righteousness; I am ready to be with you now; I will prevail upon you to continue no longer to exercise your own will; I will be with you in it.
And then to go on to Ananias, a well-known passage. It is remarkable the distinction he has in the scriptures, and it all stands connected with the great servant. He seems to be there for the sake of Saul of Tarsus. The Lord converted Ananias and gave him the Holy Spirit and we hear no more of him after his having had to do with Saul, having done a good work, that is much more than many have done who are just men like that. He had to do with Saul; the angel Gabriel would have been glad to do it; it would be an honour to do it, he had to do with persons of similar kind; Gabriel had to do with John the baptist’s father and he had to tell him because he could not prevail on him, “Behold, thou shalt be silent and not able to speak”. I cite that as another illustration. But Ananias comes on the scene in connection with this great servant, and that is all we hear of him, although Paul speaks of him himself. But it is a great work to adjust another servant. If I am wilful, I cannot do this. I may have ability; I may have gift, but no opportunity comes unless I am subservient to the prevailing power of Jesus. I shall be of no use but a hindrance, and this challenges all of us here tonight. I am certain He has special work, special jobs for us, special services, but He determines that He must prevail over us if we are to be of any use. Ananias is in Damascus; it is said, “And there was a certain disciple in Damascus by name Ananias”. He was there, and the Lord Jesus was there; He had been outside Damascus — a remarkable thing, in the history of Paul. Damascus’ distinction spiritually is in relation to Saul of Tarsus, and so is Ananias’. The Lord has been outside the town; now He is in it. And Saul was outside the town, and now he is in it; he is in the town in a house of a man called Judas in a street called Straight. These are the three persons involved in this narrative. The Lord Jesus has part in this meeting this afternoon; others of us have part in it, too, some of us in a more distinctive way than others. But there are three persons here, and one of them the Lord Jesus, and this man called Judas. This matter is engaging all heaven; it is a great matter, and there is one man of the three (I am speaking of the Lord Jesus and Ananias and Saul — Judas is just incidental; I am only speaking of these three; he only came into it in that it was his house. Thank God there was a house on that street called Straight in Damascus!) It is a great matter this that the Lord has in mind; it is a great matter in the Lord’s mind. He came out, as it were, of heaven into this district because it was in His way. Think how He left heaven to come down into this matter; it is one of the most important [p. 408] incidents you can get with regard to the service of God. He came down Himself - “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”, 1 Corinthians 9: 1. That is a spiritual saying; he actually saw the Lord outside the town and now the Lord is hovering, as it were, graciously and holily to see this matter through, and He is doing this all the time, spiritually now, and if anyone is standing in the way, woe be to him! The Lord is saying, I must prevail in these things. It is said, as I said before, “Judah prevailed among his brethren, and of him was the prince”, 1 Chronicles 5: 2. It is a prevailing kind of thing: of Judah was the chief ruler, the Lord Jesus. David is only a foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus; so is Solomon; the chief ruler is the Lord Jesus, and He is foreshadowed in this sense that He prevails among the brethren. Do not get in His way with your will. Woe be to you sooner or later, however pretentious, however apologetic you might be; however you might satisfy yourself that it is justified. Do not get in the way; He is going through.
He says to Ananias in the beginning, “Ananias”. And he said, “Behold, here am I, Lord”. Oh, you say, we are going to get good things; he calls Him Lord. That is, he means that the Lord must rule; he had been accustomed to speak to the Lord doubtless. Had he ever questioned what the Lord said before? I cannot say. Think of a man questioning what the Lord says, and as much as telling Him, I know better than You do. That is what it means, and that is what I say if I am standing in the Lord’s way; you are saying, Well, so-and-so, and so-and-so — see what they did to me? The Lord says, I know all that; I want you to succumb to Me; I am not asking any more than that. It is a remarkable piece this, a remarkable position, such a servant as Saul of Tarsus is in mind. So the Lord says to Ananias, “Rise up and go into the street which is called Straight, and seek in the house of Judas one by name Saul, he is of Tarsus; for, behold, he is praying”. That is something, surely for him to take into his mind.
[p. 409] Well, you can picture to yourself this man. He knew about Saul, but he was not up to date in his knowledge, and it may be I am not up to date in my knowledge. Divine things go on by the minute, by the second; one of the greatest things happens in the twinkling of an eye, you know. Do not forget that. The Lord Jesus comes down from heaven; He will take us all up in a twinkling of an eye; at least, He will take us out of the graves, and change our bodies. The same thing is happening spiritually constantly, so you must not go by history, and say, I knew that brother; I know what he did, and all that sort of thing. Oh, you are not up to date; what happened last night; what happened today; what is happening now? Well, the Lord is up to date. He knew all about what had happened, what had gone on in Saul’s soul; it happened outside the city, and Ananias was not there, and did not know anything about it, nor did it come into his mind that something might have happened that he did not know about. It did not come into his mind. Listen to his speech: “Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many” — he says Lord again. As far as you can see he is a subject man, but our words are not always expressive of what is inward. He says, “Lord, I have heard from many concerning this man”. Now, there is the Lord of glory, you see, by his side. The Lord of glory and He is telling this man to do something, and this man is saying, Lord I have heard so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so; he is setting the Lord aside. Did the Lord not hear? Doubtless, Ananias is a humble man, but think of the state of heart, in the presence of the Lord of glory, questioning Him. Did the Lord not hear? Did He not see? Did He not know what Saul of Tarsus had been doing? Well, this is what Ananias says, and he says further: “And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon thy name”. You do not know anything, Lord, about that. He calls Him ‘Lord’, remember. He is orthodox; he will tell you the Lord Jesus died on the [p. 410] cross and was raised; He will tell you about His wonderful miracles; He has gone to heaven, but he is now speaking to Him, and he assumes to know better than the Lord. That is a fact; he goes over the history of this man Saul. Well, the Lord says, — I want you to see the grace of the Lord in prevailing over him — He says, “Go ...”; He does not rebuke him sharply; He does not ridicule him; He does not say, Ananias, do not I know? He does not say that; it is grace, the prevalence of grace. How can I stand up against it? How can I do anything but submit to it? It is the reign of grace. And this is what comes out here. He says, “Go, for this man is an elect vessel to me, to bear my name before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel: for I will shew to him how much he must suffer for my name”. You see that is all the Lord says. He might have said much more; He might have said, Ananias, it is perfectly absurd for you to take this attitude in My presence. He does not say that; nor does He say, I met him outside on the road here and converted him. He says what would affect Ananias; He conveys to Ananias, I am operating; I am carrying on the service of God. This man is now in My service. That is the greatest of services, that of the great Administrator; it is in the hands of the Lord Jesus. He says he is an elect vessel — that would touch Ananias. It was intended to touch him. You say, You touch my conscience — well, this is a great matter. He is an elect vessel; and the Lord goes on to tell Ananias that Saul is going to be taken up and that he is going to suffer. He says, “This man is ... to bear my name before both nations and kings”. Note that he is “an elect vessel to me”. It is a question of Ananias’ affection for Christ, and no one can profess affection for Christ if he does not keep His commandments. Ananias is tested on those lines; it is a question of what the Lord is to Ananias. Do you really love Him? You know how the Lord appealed to Peter on these lines — Do you love Me, Peter? The Lord would probe everyone of us. Do [p. 411] you profess to love Me? Well, now, this is My elect vessel, My servant, My vessel — not God’s but Mine. Ananias is a disciple; you know the word ‘disciple’ has great force in the gospels and in the Acts, very little in the epistles, hardly any. This man is a disciple and the point of the appeal is that it is to a disciple; what do you think of your Master? You have learnt everything you know from Him; He has taught you everything you know. I want this vessel, and you are not in accord with My mind. So He says, “This man ... is to bear my name” — what a thing that is; what an appeal to us. We love that name, the name of Jesus. He is to bear that name, and oh! what sufferings — sufferings untold, bearing that name, not his own name, but that name, the name of Jesus. And He says, “To bear my name before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel: for I will shew to him how much he must suffer for my name”. It is a question of what you think of Me, Ananias; do not talk to Me of anything else. What do you think of Jesus? What place has He got in your heart? How can you fail to acquiesce? How can you fail to submit to that Person, to be prevailed upon by Him? It is a question of “my name”; a “vessel to me” and the sufferings for that name: “I will shew to him how much he must suffer for my name”. And then it says, “And Ananias went” — it was the Lord’s way; the Lord would place him in that way — “and entered into the house; and laying his hands upon him he said, Saul, brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus that appeared to thee in the way in which thou camest”. The Lord did not tell him that, so far as the scripture tells us, but the Lord must have said something to him about it. But Ananias put his hand in affection upon the great servant who had been portrayed before his eyes in the word of Jesus, and says, “Jesus that appeared to thee in the way in which thou camest, that thou mightest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit”. That is all. That is the message — what an occasion! Visualize the two men; nothing is said about [p. 412] Judas, or whether Judas entertained Ananias; it is Saul and Ananias. It is, “Saul, brother”. His hand was laid upon him. Jesus made that hand affectionate; Jesus made that hand useful, to convey the message of affection to a brother. The very essence of Christianity is here in this, Ananias sitting down and saying, “That thou mightest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit”. That is the great thing. There is no Christianity without the Holy Spirit. You say, That is a very sweeping statement, but it is the truth. What about new birth? Well, new birth is not Christianity, not this; it came before Christianity, and goes on after it. It was the Holy Spirit that Saul needed. He got the touch of one who had the Holy Spirit, and he speaks of it.
Finally we come to Saul himself, as to how he was persuaded. In the verse I read, “And it came to pass when I had returned to Jerusalem, and as I was praying in the temple, that I became in ecstasy”. You can see what Christianity was in those days. We have it in Peter. He was in an ecstasy in the house of Simon the tanner when the sheet came down, and now Paul is in ecstasy. It says, “I ... saw him saying to me, Make haste and go quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me”. But Paul — had he ever heard the story of Ananias? Did Ananias ever tell Paul the conversation he had with Jesus about him? Unquestionably. There cannot be a doubt that Ananias or someone else would have told him what the Lord had said to Ananias, and how He had prevailed upon him to go and visit Saul. And now here it is Saul himself, and he is ready with his arguments that he should not leave Jerusalem. Years afterwards he suffered on like lines; he would go up to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit, he says, in every city testified to him what he should suffer at Jerusalem. So he went on, and he came to the house of Philip the evangelist and a prophet was there called Agabus; he took Paul’s girdle, and he bound himself in the presence of Paul. He says, Paul, that is what will [p. 413] happen to you in Jerusalem. Paul would go to Jerusalem; he was not to be persuaded, and he went to Jerusalem and he suffered at Jerusalem. He was imprisoned four years at least from that time; he was unable to visit the brethren for four years or more — two years in Caesarea and two years in Rome. He was not prevailed upon; had he learnt from this incident perhaps he would have been saved from what I have spoken of. I am not here to say a word against the great servant Paul; it would be unseemly. But I am stating facts. He said to the Lord, “Lord, they themselves know that I was imprisoning and beating in every synagogue those that believe on thee”. That is just what Ananias said to the Lord; he had already said that Saul did these very things, and now Saul is saying the same to the Lord. He has an argument to prevent him from doing the will of God. These are most remarkable facts, dear brethren, and ought to appeal to everyone of us as to whether we are with the Lord — whether He is prevailing, or whether I am prevailing, prevailing in my own will instead of His. Well, Paul went on to say further, “And when the blood of thy witness Stephen was shed, I also myself was standing by”, as if the Lord did not know, as if the Lord looking down from heaven upon Stephen did not know; there was never such a delightful person under the Lord’s hand as Stephen. Did the Lord not see Saul, the young man there? Of course He did. But Paul is speaking now as if the Lord did not know about this, and in order to persuade the Lord to let him stay at Jerusalem and maybe be killed. That is very likely what would have happened had he stayed in Jerusalem. He did not stay. And so he says, “He said to me, Go”. He would not argue with him at all. And that is what He would say to anyone here who is holding on to his own will, his own way of looking at things, disregarding the Lord’s will, the Lord’s mind. He is seeking to persuade, to prevail with us; He prevails amongst the brethren. We should not be here today if He did not prevail. So the Lord says, “Go, for I will send thee to the nations afar off”. That was a touch that Paul could not but observe; the Lord says, I am going to make you a great minister, for that is what was implied. Had Saul clung to his own will and stayed at Jerusalem, could the Lord carry on His will? Saul would have been slain and the Lord would have been robbed of him. So he went and sure enough he was sent among the Gentiles, and from Jerusalem, and in a circuit round to Illyricum, he fully preached the glad tidings of the Christ (Romans 15: 19). Yet, Saul, if I were to speak to him (I hope I shall some day) I should say, If you had not bowed to the Lord’s will that day in Jerusalem you would never have had that honour; you would probably have allowed the Lord to be robbed of you in Jerusalem. He would say, Yes, I know that. He knew that. The Lord said, “I will send thee”, and he could not but admit that the Lord did.
Well, now, if you follow the next verse you see the force of what the Lord is saying to him, because as soon as he says that, it says, “And they heard him until this word, and lifted up their voice, saying, Away with such a one as that from the earth”. And that would have happened long before this if the Lord had not told him to depart. And now he is in the hands of the Jews in Jerusalem and is imprisoned for four years; I am saying all this to show the importance of allowing the Lord to have His way; letting Him have His way on the principle of grace. It is not on the principle of penalty, but in grace; He appeals to Paul — I am sending you afar off, will you fail to serve me? Paul tells us afterwards how far he went to serve the Lord Jesus.