Power And Wisdom

Tonight’s title is “Power and Wisdom.” I speak not of the power of Caesar but of the power of God. The power of God in scripture is personified as Christ. In the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians he defines Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24). All the power known on earth, and as man develops more and more of it—now we have nuclear power—it is as nothing compared to the power of the new age…Christ being the representative of the new age. So you can’t compare the powers. This would be like kindergarten…even our nuclear age.

So let us look at the power as defined for us in scripture. He turns to those who followed him through the years, he said, “Wait in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49); that power of which he spoke was his when he began the ministry. It was symbolized in the descent of the Holy Spirit in bodily form as a dove (Luke 3:21). It was then that he was clothed with power from above, and a according to the gospel of Luke his first announcement came with this descent. He entered the synagogue, as was his custom, and they gave him the Book of Isaiah. When he had found the 61st chapter, he opened and read the first verse and the first half of the second verse, which is “The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me…he has sent me to preach good news to the poor, and the release of the captives” (verse 1). Then he closed the book and returned it to the attendant and sat down and all eyes were upon him. Then he said, “Today this scripture that you have just heard has been fulfilled.” In other words, he claimed he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prediction of the coming of a new age—he being the embodiment or the opening of the new age, called the Messiah and the new age called the kingdom of God.

When he came before the judge and Pilate said to him, “Where are you from?” he did not answer. Pilate said to him, “So you will not answer me. Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?” He answered, “You would have no power over me unless it were given to you from above” (Jn. 19:10). He is telling Pilate that all the power on earth is as nothing. Were it not given to him from above he would have no power. And that word “from above” or that sentence or statement is “anothin”; the same word he used to Nicodemus when he said, “You must be born from above, for unless you are born from above you cannot in anywise enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). So the same word is used here: You must be born from above and this must be given you from above. It’s an entirely different power.

You will come upon a scene just like this for instance, and each person here is independent of my perception of him or her. You are free to come and go…on this level I have no power to hold you here. If at this moment you desire to leave the room, you leave the room, and I certainly have no power on this level of Caesar to hold you here. But I do know from experience that I have come upon a scene like this, but I came upon it in Spirit…it came from above. Those present could not see me, yet to myself I was so alert, so awake, and so completely alive with power in myself. I was not an animated being, a living soul; I was a life-giving spirit. Coming upon the scene, I knew that if I arrested within myself a power that I felt, everything I perceived would stand still. I knew it and I did it, and everyone not only stood still, they were dead…dead, as though they were made of clay. I examined them and here they are without breath, they’re dead. Those who were walking walked not, and those who were doing something else, they did it not, and everything stood still. I also knew that the moment that I released that the power—not in them, they didn’t possess it at all—when I released it in myself they would once more be re-animated and continue to fulfill their intention. Whatever was the intention when I arrested them they would complete; I released it and they continued to fulfill their intention.