The Promises Wait To Be Possessed!

By Charles S. Price 

    There seems to be such a gulf between what we profess and what we possess.  We have read in the Bible and we have believed it, that greater works are possible (John 14:12).  We have accepted the direct promise of our blessed Lord regarding the irresistible power of faith and the glory and miracle of answered prayer.  We have prayed for the hour to dawn when something that seemed so near and yet so far away would rest upon our shoulders like the mantle of Elijah, and that wearing it, the waters of the river would again divide and the whole world would know that the God of Elijah was still here.

    Are we not hungry for the power Jesus promised?  Do we not want the glory of the presence of the Lord? 

Crucifixion in Reality

    Have you ever been ashamed of your own advertising?  So much you, and so little Jesus.  The crucifixion of Jesus made possible the crucifixion of self.  It is one thing to say theoretically, “I am crucified with Christ,” but it is another thing to say it experimentally.  There are people who understand crucifixion doctrinally, but they have never known it in reality.  Self and flesh and our earthly members have to be brought into subjection.  It will cost us something to walk and to talk with God. 

Hungry for More

    It is the hungry heart He will feed.  It is the thirsty woman to whom He will give drink by the wall of the wayside well.  I tell you frankly, I am not satisfied.  I want more and more.  For years I have believed that we have only had the earnest of power and ministry and now I am praying, “Send the glory and the kingdom and the power in our time, Lord!”  And it is coming!  Nothing can stop it for He has promised.

    Brethren, I am convinced that the most glorious things are ahead of us!  I believe that this age which began with Pentecost will finish with Pentecost and that before our Lord appears in the clouds of glory, in spite of tribulation and persecution, and famine and sword, we are going to see the manifestation of His glory in His Spirit-filled saints such as the world has never seen since the falling of the early rain.  The day will come when the Holy Ghost will take the unsatisfied children of the Lord and lead them into the possession of the promises which Jesus made before He ascended into glory. 

    God sends His manna only to the ­hungry.  People who are not thirsty never go to the wayside well in the burning of the noonday heat to sit on the wall and talk with Him there.  The believer needs day by day and hour by hour to feel the need of the Holy Spirit in His unfolding, revealing ministry and power.

    The manna of heaven soon loses its freshness on earth.  The grace of yesterday never tastes so sweet in ministry as it did when first we received it fresh from the hands of God.  I believe that to experience God’s best we must risk being called fools and more and more deprecate human wisdom and put less and less value upon human knowledge.

    Paul declared if any man thinketh he is wise let him become a fool that he may be wise.  And when he went to the church at Corinth he determined to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

    Our church buildings can be filled and yet be empty.  Our trained choirs can sing beautiful music and yet it is “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.”  Our programs can be thought out and our work planned to the last degree and yet there be no power to do the works that Jesus promised before He said His last farewell.

    My soul is burning with the conviction that out there just beyond us, back of a ­little veil we have not yet broken through is waiting the manifestation of the glory of the Lord.

Unlimited Possibilities

    Why not face the facts?  Why not put aside for a little while the garments of our accepted formulae of worship and service and see if there is not hidden underneath all these externals a great and crying need for the power of the Lord.  There is still a road to travel between the power He promised and the power we possess.

    Listen to Him:  “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do” (John 14:13).  And again, “If ye shall ask any thing in My name, I will do it” (John 14:14).

    Follow Peter and John to the Beautiful Gate and hear them say:  “...Such as I have give I thee...” (Acts 3:6).  I want to say that, don’t you?  Listen to the preaching of the fishermen who captured Rome or the testimony of an apostle who made a king tremble and changed the course of an empire.  Then listen to our so called homiletical masterpieces with so little turning of the sinner toward God.

    Mistake me not.  I rejoice with you for all the Lord has done, but I am trying to stir you by God’s grace to the thought that what we have received is but the beginning of the unlimited possibilities of a Spirit-filled life.

    What we want is not in the past.  It is not, I say.  And to the past you must not go.  It is waiting for you, waiting not far away, waiting for you to receive and to enjoy.  Waiting for the child who is heir of the Father, waiting for the men who will leave the multitude of the church sitting at the borders of the land of promise while they themselves go in. 

I Want to Go On!

    The Joshuas and Calebs who dare to venture out with God are the people who come back with pomegranates and with grapes that are so heavy that it takes two men to carry one bunch.  Over the hill in our tomorrows are vales of glory which have never been explored.  I want to go on with the Holy Spirit into the future of an unfolding panorama of the presence and majesty of God such as I have never known before.

    I am becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the things which satisfy today.  I am crying for my Father to take me by the hand and lead me along this road of understanding and knowledge and power and truth.  I think we honor Him, when thanking Him for the riches of today, to tell Him that we know He has more and more and more.

    I pray that God will make you dissatisfied with yourself, your church and your ministry so that you will make it possible for the Holy Spirit to do what He has been wanting to do these many years – lead you not backward but forward and onward until together our eyes will behold His glory.

    It is coming!  The promised power is waiting for those who will lay their all at the blessed feet of Jesus and go on and on and on with God.

    How futile are human words in attempting to describe or unfold the truth of the blessed Lord!  Have you ministers not felt that your message has been so inadequate to transmit the burning passion in your heart to the lives of those to whom you preach?  Thank the Holy Spirit for His presence and His gracious help this day, but pray He will open our hearts to these truths declared.

    “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him” (Eph. 1:17).  Our Father, who is the Father of glory, is the One who gives us this spirit of wisdom and revelation.  He gives it for the glory of the Son and sends the Holy Spirit to administer it.  Every day we grow in grace and in knowledge.  The written Word becomes the living Word and we begin to understand the hidden mystery which only divine revelation can bring to light and understanding.  Then, according to the text, we see things with the eyes of the heart.

    This is spiritual insight.  It is not the reflected light of the knowledge of another.  You cannot get it from me.  You must go to God.  It is something you cannot receive from hearing another preach.  You can only get it as you wait at the Savior’s feet.  Our blessed Lord did not die in vain.  He shall still see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.

    Around the corner of the road of our tomorrows are the waiting glories of the Lord.  Wait for me, Paul!  I am coming after you.  Wait for us all, Paul!  We, too, are willing to forget the things which are behind.  We, too, believe that the richest things are ahead.  We, too, cry that we have not apprehended.  We are saved and sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit, but we have not yet received the fullness of our inheritance.

    Physically, it may lead us to ­martyrdom, but spiritually it will lead us to glory.  Physically it may lead us to self-­renunciation and the ­crucifixion of things we have held dear.  But oh, the glory that is awaiting when we will reach out after the hidden things of God!  Only by revelation – only by the illumination of the Holy Spirit – only by a daily walk with God can we know experimentally whereof I speak.

    May God by the Holy Ghost so lead every one of us that when we awake in our succeeding tomorrows, the eyes of our hearts will behold the glory of the Lord. 

    – Adapted from Golden Grain.