The Gift of Power
J. Le Huray. Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come on you: and you shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem… At first sight this promise seems to be Christ's response to a universal craving. There is nothing which so awakens man's ambition as power. It is sweeter to him than bread to the hungry, or home to the wanderer, or sunrise to the benighted; of all the Divine attributes this is the one he most intensely and incessantly covets. The old classic fable of Prometheus, who made a figure and shaped it after the beauty of a man, and then animated it with fire which he had dared to steal from heaven, is only the thinly-veiled record of man's fierce ambition to create. Powerless to create, he seeks control. He has summoned almost every known element and force in nature to his service, and compelled them to do for him what he cannot do for himself. He has blasted the rock unshaken by the ages, and hurled its ponderous masses into the air as easily as a child throws up its tennis ball. He has tunnelled the mountain and bridged the river to make way for his flying locomotive. He has engirdled the earth with a belt of wire, and through it swifter than thought flashed his messages from pole to pole. From the masterful schoolboy to the statesman on the topmost ladder, and the monarch of a hundred isles, this passion for power is all pervading. The very apostles, to whom these words were addressed, were in this, as in other respects, "men of like passions with ourselves." Observe, this love of power may be as legitimate as it is natural. Its quality is determined by its motive. Still power may be beneficent as well as baneful. Now, mark the power with which Christ promises to endow His disciples. 1. Not physical power. Not like that possessed by Samson when he carried upon his back the gates of Gaza, or with the jaw-bone of an ass slew the Philistines heaps upon heaps. It had nothing at all to do with bone, and muscle, and sinew. Men have sometimes forgotten this. They once thought that they could resist the spread of the gospel by physical means. The very efforts which men have employed to suppress the truth have been made the means of exalting it to supremacy. Just as the blast which rocks the giant oak makes it strike its roots deeper and wider in the earth; or, just as the tempest which beats down the tree carries its winged seeds over land and sea to distant continents, there to take root and become trees themselves, so persecution has this twofold tendency — it makes the persecuted cling closer than ever to the truth for which they are assailed, and prompts them to spread it more widely abroad than ever. On the other hand, brute force can no more help the gospel than hinder it. Persecution never made saints ver. If you want to infuse new life into a tree you do not smite it with an axe, but expose it to the genial breath of spring. The weapons of their warfare were not to be carnal. 2. Nor was it the power of logic. The disciples were to convert souls, and mere argument cannot do this. You have all seen sheet lightnings; they flash, they dazzle, but they do not kill. And arguments, after all, are only sheet lightnings, dazzling, enlightening, but seldom or never killing in the sense in which Paul says he was killed. 3. Nor was it the power of eloquence, though that is not to be despised. Oh, yes! there is a tremendous power in words. They breathe, they burn, they fly about the world charged with electric fire and force; but there is one thing they cannot do — they cannot regenerate a soul. You may electrify a corpse. By bringing it into contact with a battery you may make it imitate the living; but it is after all only the semblance, not the reality of life. 4. It was spiritual power — the power of the Holy Ghost. "We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us." In other words, it was the power of a living union with a living God. Need I say that this promise of Christ is as much ours as it was the apostles'? It has been fulfilled, but not exhausted. There is an essential difference between the two. "A postage stamp once used can be used no longer; but it is not so with a bank note. The note may be old and torn, stained and soiled; it may have been cut in halves and pasted together again. It does not matter; whoever holds it can present it and demand its equivalent in sterling gold. So is it with a Divine promise. It may pass from lip to lip, and from age to age, and be fulfilled a thousand times; still you may present it and plead it before God in the assurance of success." The light of the sun may fail, the waters of the ocean may be dried up, but the riches of Christ's fulness are the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And we need this promised power as much as the apostles did. Nothing else can supply its place. It is to the Church what steam is to the machinery. Suppose you are examining the propelling powers of the Majestic or the Teutonic — the two most magnificent specimens of naval architecture the world has ever seen. You look down into the engine-room on the polished levers, and cranks, and shafts, and the innumerable wheels made to revolve there; and you go home amazed at the inventive power which they represent. And yet in reality you have seen no power. There must be put into that machinery a power, a hidden power, and then, and not till then, will those wheels revolve majestically, and the vessel speed over the water lightly and swiftly as a bird with outspread wings. Who amongst us dare assert that the Church's successes are equal to her opportunities? Why, then, is it we are making so little impression on the world? Is it not because we are too much under its influence? The fabled giant Animus was invincible so long as he was in direct communication with his mother earth. Overthrown by the wrestler, the moment he touched the ground out of which he was born his strength revived. Hercules discovered the secret of his invigoration, and, lifting him from the earth, crushed him in the air. We are in the same danger from the world, and to escape it we must get nearer to the source of our spiritual strength. Away from Christ she is like an army without ammunition and cut off from its base of operations. Near to Him she will breathe the air, and walk in the light, and wield the might of heaven. She shall receive power — power to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. And does not the Church need more power to deal with the manifold evils and enemies by which she is surrounded? There is scepticism. We live in an age of doubt — doubt all the more dangerous because it is courteous rather than coarse. Well, then, another evil with which, as Churches, we have to contend is indifference to spiritual truth. Men are absorbed in material pursuits and enjoyments. It is sometimes argued that the Church is trying to do too much; that she is unequal to the work she is undertaking; that Christian service is already so overgrown that, like a man with a large frame and a feeble heart, we are staggering under the weight of the tasks we have undertaken; that the spiritual power of the Church is unequal to the vast and varied machinery it has to keep in motion. This is, doubtless, true when the resources which the Church possess in itself are alone considered; but add Christ to them, and then the disproportion is turned the other way. "All power" — power of every kind and without limit — is given unto Him, There cannot be too much work when there is so much Divine power to sustain it. When the tide is out the estuary seems far too wide for the tiny stream which crawls through the centre; but when the tide comes in the whole expanse is covered and the water rushes right up to the greensward. Brethren, do we desire this power? Then let us ask for it. Remember that it has its source outside the Church and human life altogether. "Ye shall receive power" — receive it as a gift; not generate it from within; not attain it by straining present powers or enlarging present capacity. Sometimes we forget this, and talk about getting up a revival. You might as well talk about getting up a thunder shower. Having this power, let us use it. The disciples received it that they might be "witnesses unto Christ." Divinely bestowed power always brings responsibility; it is always given for use. Keep any of God's gifts for your own selfish purposes, and they will speedily get the canker and the rot. (J. Le Huray.) Parallel Verses KJV: But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. WEB: But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth."