The POWER Of GOD

And what power! What power! Is darkness a power? Is it a power? 

Well, perhaps you have some experience to make it possible for you to say, "Yes, I know".

When you've got to move into this world, where the Lord is neither known nor recognized, nor acknowledged, apparently not wanted, and you realize that darkness is an awful power, "darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people". 

They're in darkness, and what can you do about it? You can talk, you can do all that is in your power, but you cannot break this thing until the Spirit of Power as the Spirit of Light breaks in on that soul, on that life, in that realm. It wants the power of God.

Darkness is an awful power. And if that is true in this side of the world where there has been so much light given and so much truth given, and there is so much Christian tradition, you go to the other side of the world - you go to those dark places of heathendom.

You have only got to move in such a place, such a country as India where the gospel has not touched, and you can feel the darkness. It is evil. It's positively evil! It's like that.

You may feel it in a traditionally Christian world or realm. I will never forget my first visit to the city of Rome; and wanting to see various things, I went to the Colosseum to see the place where the Christians were flung to the lions.

And I went to this and that, and then I went into St Peter's church. And, you know, I  couldn't stay. After a very short time, I had to go out.

I felt ill; physically ill! A sense of awful death came on me physically, and I was glad to get out of the place.

It was an atmosphere of death and darkness to the spirit. But, if that's true there, as I say, you go to other parts of the world and you can cut the darkness. It's so strong. It's a terrible thing. 

When the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Light entered into this darkness which was over the face of the earth, it met an awful power, it was dealing with an awful power, and it called for the exercise of the Infinite Power of God to break that reign of darkness.

It called for the Divine Fiat: "Let there be light" - the Word of His Power.

Oh, that our hearts cry and crave for the knowledge of that Power in His Word more. 

If the smallest percentage of all our speaking had the real Power of God in it, something would happen. 

Something would happen, it would be a fiat, an act of God to speak. That is why the Lord Jesus is called "the Word" because where He comes as the Word, something happens, something happens!

The devil is exposed, as when He was here and cried out, "I know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God". Hell felt the impact of the Word.

Men, sinful men, cried out in His presence like that. The point is, darkness is a terrible power.

The disruption in our humanity is a terribly strong thing. We are, every day, almost every moment of our lives, up against that breakup in the humanity which is ours, or the breakdown of it, the disorder of it, the disintegration of it, the disruption of it.

We know that our humanity is a broken down thing. We are all the time striving to pick it up and build it up and hold it up. We know it's a power, a terrible power - the disorder and chaos in ourselves.

The Spirit of God came of His own accord, of His own accord as the Spirit of Power to deal with what no other power in this universe could deal with; to change it.

And that's where we are in the new creation; it's what the Spirit of God has undertaken to do with us.

And surely there are few, if any, in this place tonight who would not echo the words of the apostle, "Kept by the power of God". 

You know you would not be a Christian today, you would not be going on with the Lord, you would not be standing true, but for the keeping power of God.

In a world like this, there is such a power against what is the Lord’s.

Well, this is the Spirit of Grace, you see, that has come to take it over. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Grace is the custodian of the Divine Perfection.

He has taken responsibility for realizing God’s End. Oh, thank God for that!

Knowing ourselves and the awful forces that there are in our nature; knowing the world, or something of it, and the awful forces that there are in this world; and knowing the devil and something of his inimical hatred and opposition to what is of God, anything that's of God, we say, "Well, the only possibility is if God Almighty does it, sees to it".

And that is the Spirit of Grace that has come to take it up, to do it - the free action of the Holy Spirit. 

See, we read, you know we read John 16. We read John 16, and if I asked you what's in John 16, you'd have the answer.

Well, you know John 16 is, "I am going away, I am going away. You see Me now, you won't see Me anymore.

I return unto My Father... for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come, if I go away, I will send Him to you..." and on and on and on, what He will do, what He will do when He is come, when He is come; when He is come.

It's all so natural, all so effortless, it seems; it's just going to be!

It's just in the order of things. He's coming and He's going to do this and that; and that is all there is to it. 

It's just that He is coming, "I am going to send Him". We read it, we know the content of the Word, but do we realize that all this just means that the Holy Spirit is taking over all that Christ came to initiate, to carry it right through to its End.

He's just going to do it; it's what He's come for. He is the Spirit of Grace, and grace is just God doing all that God can do without asking for any merit or any payment.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of that grace as the power of God, but that's one of the riches: the riches of His power through grace.
We ought, you see, to get down to our Bibles and have a word study, and a passage study here, and there, and there. Perhaps if I only just remind you, it will start off something.

Have you not noticed that grace is many-sided in the New Testament? And one of the sides, or aspects of grace is that it is an energy. It's an energy, it's a power. It's a force in our lives. 

There was a messenger of Satan given me to buffet me. And although these are not the words that the apostle used, this is what he meant, "I cried out to the Lord: Take this away, because I can't endure it. 

I shan't be able to go on with this thing. I'll not be able to get through; this is too much, this is too strong, this is too great a burden.

It's going to limit me; it's going to spoil my life. And He said unto me, 'My grace is sufficient for thee: My strength is made perfect in weakness.'"

Grace there is introduced as over against the conscious inability of the apostle to go on with what he had been called for on him, what had been put on him.

His natural reaction was, "I just cannot! If I've got to have this, I'll just not be able to. Take it away, Lord". 

He said, "I asked Him three times, take it away, Lord; take it away, Lord; take it away! Life is impossible." 

He said, "My grace is sufficient for thee" - everything is possible to grace. 

It's a power, you see. It's a power; an energy in the life. 

We do know this in measure, not as we ought to, we have had to say many times, "But for the grace of God I should have acted very differently from what I did. 

But for the grace of God... grace saved me. Grace kept me. Grace held me." 

It's the power of God as the Spirit of Grace. But there is where the riches begin.

~T. Austin Sparks~