The Secret of Power

 •  9 min. read  •  grade level: 7
What is now, and what has always been, the secret of spiritual power in any? This is a question of grave importance for us; but the answer is one we as Christians ought to know something at least about. Such a question is seriously necessary to be both asked and answered today; and little able as we may be to reply to it fully, our lack may help us to seek the divine answer. One thing at least is clear, that where power has been known, either individual or collective, two things (among others perhaps) have been realized by the saints who have known it. First, God’s own immediate presence with His people; and secondly, man’s (that is, their own) utter impotency.
It is to be regretted that with certain Christians there should be such an appearance of satisfaction in speaking of that power which they knew in early years long past, and which they gravely tell us has now passed away. They are fain to cry out with Job, “Oh that it were with me as in months past, as in the day when God preserved me; when His candle shined upon my head, and when by His light I walked through darkness; as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle” (Job 29:2-42Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me; 3When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness; 4As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle; (Job 29:2‑4)). All this is sorrowful, inasmuch as it neither helps themselves nor any who hear them. Very different is such a state of soul from that of Paul, who says, “But one thing... forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:13,1413Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13‑14)). Very different too was this experience of Job from that of the wise man in an earlier day than that of Paul, who declares that “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:1818But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Proverbs 4:18)). And surely this is as it should be. Nearing the object of desire, the way becomes brighter and brighter. Brightened as the past may have been by His presence, I am nearer to Him now; how can I therefore regret and long for those days of shadow and darkness to come again through which in the past He led me? “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11,1211And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. (Romans 13:11‑12)), and we are journeying from the night of Shadows (illumined notwithstanding by His love) to the day of His manifested glory; and if glimpses of His power and presence have cheered us here, what will it be to abide with Him?
But as to power, I turn now to a passage in the Old Testament to see how in the past His presence was manifested, the power of which wrought in a twofold way; and then I desire to note for myself this twofold effect: first, on His own people; and secondly, on all that raised opposition thereto. “When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion. (Consequence) The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs. What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thin wast driven back? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs? (Answer) Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob; which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters” (Psa. 114:1-71When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; 2Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion. 3The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back. 4The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs. 5What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? 6Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs? 7Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob; (Psalm 114:1‑7)).
What a picture we have here drawn by the Spirit for our contemplation! As the morning light dawns on Rameses we see, not a well-disciplined army with ability to meet its enemies, but six hundred thousand footmen going forth apparently without resources, and encumbered with the care of wives and little ones. May we not say, What a powerless, defenseless, and easy prey they are to the wandering hordes of the desert? But no, beloved reader; a blood-bought people, and powerless in themselves truly, is going forth; but not alone. At that time “Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion.” Jehovah was in the midst of His people, and what was the result? “The sea saw it, and fled: Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs.” Now nothing in nature is more restless than the sea, (Isa. 57:2020But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. (Isaiah 57:20)), and nothing in nature so apparently immovable and unbending as the mountain (Psa. 46:2-32Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. (Psalm 46:2‑3); Matt. 17:2020And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (Matthew 17:20)); but both confess to a power sovereign and supreme; both bow to its presence, and own it. Nature’s might must flee and tremble in His presence; and this is man, who hath power as lord over all His creation—man in his restlessness, man in his pride!
And while they marched on in obedience and dependence on it (the power of His presence with them), all was well. It scattered all the opposers; it prepared for them fountains in the desert. But they must remember that He is with them; they must not be inconsistent therewith. Truly He is for them, and against all who are against them; as He says, “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee” (Num. 24); but He cannot overlook inconsistency in any of His people with the fact that He is there. If they practically ignore Him, it is but that independent restlessness and pride of man which ever opposes Him; and if it work in them, then because they are His people He must deal with it. So again and again He had to remind them of Himself, there in their midst, as they murmur and wander forty years in the wilderness to humble them (Deut. 8: 2, 3). If they desire to have Hobab for eyes (Num. 10:31-3331And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes. 32And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee. 33And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them. (Numbers 10:31‑33)), He (the ark) immediately goes before them to find out their resting-places. If they faint, feeling but as grasshoppers before the giants of Anak, and the “cities great and walled up to heaven,” they faint because they have left the Lord out. But Caleb, the man of faith, cannot do this. He brings Him before the rebellious company, saying, “If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land.” Yet the people must bear their iniquities for this their unbelief forty years, “each day for a year,” from twenty years old and upward; “in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there shall they die” (Num. 14).
“Our God is a consuming fire,” and His saints must not forget it; they must own it first, before (going out in power) it makes itself felt for them. I see this everywhere among the saints who have gone before us in the path of faith. Thus it wrought in Jacob’s case. While he was in servitude in Padan-Aram, and oppressed by Laban (Gen. 31:38-4138This twenty years have I been with thee; thy ewes and thy she goats have not cast their young, and the rams of thy flock have I not eaten. 39That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night. 40Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. 41Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times. (Genesis 31:38‑41)), far away from the place of testimony, God does not interfere on Jacob’s behalf; but when (himself in obedience, and a crippled man) he is again on the way, though weaker than before as to outward appearance, yet it is then, as he journeyed, that the Spirit writes of him: “The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them;” and they did not pursue after Jacob (Gen. 35:55And they journeyed: and the terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob. (Genesis 35:5)). Ah! in that being crippled lies the secret. He has learned that he is in the way with God—it regulated him—and then God makes the power of His presence to be felt on those who would hinder His poor servant. It is the same today. And Paul learned it in his path down here. “Most gladly,” says he, “therefore will I glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may tabernacle (lit. have its dwelling-place) on me” (2 Cor. 12:99And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)). And thus, too, it bowed Job in its presence before it dealt with his three friends, and before it blessed his own family (Job 42:5,65I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. 6Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:5‑6)). Similar also was its effect upon the prophets Isaiah (Isa. 6:55Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah 6:5)) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-1311And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: 12And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 13And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? (1 Kings 19:11‑13)). That power which can if it please “rend the mountains, and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord,” makes itself known to Elijah, and to His saints, in a still small voice: “And it was so, that when Elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his mantle.” Blessed Master, and blessed servant, may we now more diligently listen to catch Thy yoke! What have we left, beloved reader, as our resource today? The most blessed revelation that we can have here on earth: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)) HE IS THERE. (Not He will come there perhaps before our meeting closes; He nowhere says that); He is there when we come. Does the fact of His presence regulate us who are gathered? Does it banish forever all that restlessness and pride of nature which we all more or less possess, so that His people may unhinderedly go up to Him? Do restlessness, natural ability, and the pride of man, ever exalting itself, flee and tremble in His presence? In short, do we really desire spiritual power individually, and in the assembly? Then we must begin with ourselves. Can I expect to know it myself, or to see its action on others (1 Cor. 14:24,2524But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: 25And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth. (1 Corinthians 14:24‑25)), if it have no power over me then present? Nature, and the carnal mind, can find no quarter in any soul who truly realizes the LORD’S presence, whatever others may allow. But He IS there, even if I do not realize it individually. May it lead us to judge and refuse that in us which we know HE cannot own.
One question more. If I go on, forgetful of what is due to His presence, must He not deal with me, and will He not do so sooner or later, in order to maintain what is due to Him, and to separate me from evil? (1 Cor. 11:30-3230For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 31For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. 32But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:30‑32))
H. C. A.