“CHRIST THE POWER OF GOD AND WISDOM OF GOD”

Our precious Christ is called “the power of God.” The power of God! Almighty power! What, then, are your fears? Whence do those doubts arise? Why are those scruples harboured? Where are those impious beings who would think of putting a finger to His work? Hath not Jesus proclaimed Himself, by His prophet Isaiah, “Mighty to save?” Not mighty to help you to save yourselves, but “mighty to save,” able to take the whole work into His hands and to accomplish it from first to last. So that whatever stands in the way of the salvation of His people, it is but for Him to “touch the mountain and it shall smoke and fall down in His presence.” If there be a host of demons, He can crush the whole legion at once; if there be a mountain of transgressions, sins, and iniquities, He carries them away in His own Person, and bears them “in His own body on the tree,” for He is “Mighty to save;” if there be a broken law, all its awful provisions and threatenings are met by Him, for He is “the power of God;” if there be an incensed and inflexible sword of justice uplifted to take vengeance on the offender, He sustains the weight, carries away the curse, removes every hindrance to His people’s salvation, and makes the work of their redemption complete and entire. Now the point which I want to impress on you here is, that you should not meddle with His work except to receive and appropriate it. If it were defective, it would not be in your power to add to it; if the least thing were wanting to be done, you could not do that thing. If it were but five minutes devotion, you could not accomplish it. Therefore, you perceive, the work of the Lord is entire, perfect, complete, and eternal: it can never receive an addition, nor can it be diminished. “He is able,” says the Apostle, “to save to the uttermost.” There is “the power of God.” “Able to save to the uttermost!” Where is the poor sinner who thinks he has gone to God’s “uttermost” — gone to the uttermost lengths in sin, to the uttermost length in rebellion, in slavery, in darkness, in wickedness, in wanderings, and backslidings from God? Christ is “able to save to the uttermost;” not only to save from the uttermost, but to it, to the uttermost of His promises, to the uttermost of the distresses of His Church upon earth, to the uttermost of persecution, to the uttermost of forebodings, to the uttermost of time, to the uttermost of eternity: He is “able to save to the uttermost,” because He is “the power of God.” What short of “the power of God” could have done for you and in you what Jesus has done? We must be ungrateful indeed if we can forget that whatever is done for us is done by “the power of God.” Now mark for a moment, that this mighty Saviour has put forth His power and employed His omnipotence, not merely to save the sinner from wrath and condemnation, but above all to save him from himself. The mightiest work which Jesus does for a poor sinner, is to save him from himself. To save him from the practice of sin, and from going to hell, would seem but a little morsel of salvation. He may save the sinner from erring, so as not to allow him to drink in fatal error; He may save him from foes and persecutors, so as not to allow him to become their prey; He may save him from trusting in the law, or in the mere sovereign mercy of God without a Mediator, instead of trusting in that mercy through Christ’s precious blood; and yet after all, there may be a great deal of self lurking even among God’s own children, and it requires “the power of God” to get them out of it; and there are not a few instances in which the poor soul in the hands of Jesus has such tremendous afflictions, such trials, such cares, such disappointments, such bereavements, such temptations from Satan, such humblings of soul, as can hardly be described, and without which the sinner cannot be shaken out of self. I think I reminded you last Sunday that many vessels of mercy not only require turning upside down, but keeping down for a considerable time, in order that every drop of self may be drained out, and no flesh may glory in God’s presence. Now none are able to save man from himself but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor would He be able to do so were He not the “power of God,” but blessed be His name, He is the “power of God.” What is to hinder the Christian, then, from being upheld, sustained, and guided? Why, “the power of God” is employed; “the power of God” has begun to save, and that “power” will complete the work.

The noted Rev. Archibald Cook said, “I would sooner take as a mark of grace, a hatred to sin in my heart than although an angel were to tell me that my name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

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