AT THE POINT OF BLESSING
Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they had one goosebump on top of another! He didn’t say, “Wait until you speak in tongues!” The disciples didn’t even know the manifestation of the gift of tongues would come. They had never heard of it before!
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.
He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with[a] water, but in a few days you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.”
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Jesus said: “…ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you…” (Acts 1:8). They were waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit!
Today, people rarely keep going on in their spiritual experience of tarrying before the Lord. They stop at the point of blessing. They are camped there. They are camped at speaking in tongues. They are camped at certain spiritual gifts of the Spirit. They have failed to break past the point of blessing to the point of Jesus’ promise.
What is the point of Jesus’ promise? Power! He does not say: “You shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and that power will enable you to just speak in other tongues or the prayer language of the Holy Spirit.” He says, “That power will enable you to be witnesses unto Me.”
I can show you millions of people who are blessed. I can show you millions of people who can go out and talk about Jesus Christ. I can show you millions of people who can speak in tongues or who experience great joy as part of their worship.
Yet I have not found many people to whom I can point and say, “I can see in that person the ability called the power, the enduement of the Holy Ghost, to give witness and evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ” — knowing that to give evidence of Jesus Christ is to produce the proof that He is the resurrected Lord. Perhaps that is why half the world today has never yet heard about Jesus Christ.
I do not like to be negative, but you cannot produce this ingredient called power that is missing from our churches and experience today without this negative input. You must have negative input before you can produce power. Electricians tell me that in order to produce electrical power to turn on a light to dispel darkness there must be two wires. One is a positive wire and the other is a negative wire. You must take the positive wire and the negative wire, strip down the insulation from them and hook them up on each side of a switch or receptacle. You must strip the insulation from the wires or it will not work.
This stripping down process is not easy, but it is necessary to produce power. If you hook up only the positive wire and go to the switch, you do not get any power. You get no electrical current. There is no light to dispel the darkness. You must put the negative and the positive together. When you do that and then flip the switch, the light comes on.
MAKE THIS DECLARATION
I am going through the stripping process that is necessary to produce power. The light is dispelling spiritual darkness.
