In the last two chapters we saw the commission of the gospel. In this chapter, we will go on to see the power of the gospel. God not only has given us a commission to preach His gospel; He has also given us power to accomplish the commission He has given us. The New Testament reveals that the Lord sends us to preach the gospel, as those who go to do business. Since this is the case, the Lord has to give us the capital, and this capital is our power. Therefore, the Lord not only has commissioned us with the gospel, charging us to preach it; He has also given us the power that enables us to preach the gospel.
In Luke 24:47 the Lord charged the disciples to go “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” This is very similar to the word in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations.” This indicates that the authority the Lord received was for His disciples to go and disciple all the nations. Mark 16:15 says, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all the creation.” These three verses indicate that the believers have been sent to preach the Lord’s gospel. However, if we do not read carefully, we will not see that within this charge there is a support, which is the power of the Lord.
Matthew 28:18 says, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” The Lord’s authority is mentioned here, but how this authority is related to the disciples is not mentioned. It is in Luke 24:49 that the Lord charged the disciples, “And behold, I send forth the promise of My Father upon you; but as for you, stay in the city until you put on power from on high.” This means that the disciples had not yet received the power as their capital. Therefore, they had to stay and wait in Jerusalem and not go anywhere else. The Lord sent the disciples to go and do business, so they had to wait for the Lord to give them their capital, that is, to pour down what had been promised by the Father. This was to be the power of the gospel.
This power includes the Triune God—the Son as the Pourer poured out the Spirit promised by the Father. The Father promised, the Son poured, and the Spirit was poured out. This promise that was in the Old Testament in Joel (2:28-32) was fulfilled in Acts 2. In Acts 1 the Lord said that in His ascension He would fulfill what the Father had promised by pouring down the Spirit of power. When the disciples received this power, they would start from Jerusalem, go on into Judea and Samaria, and then go unto the uttermost part of the earth (vv. 4-5, 8).
When the Holy Spirit descended, the disciples were filled with the Spirit outwardly. They were like those who were filled with new wine and all became “crazy.” When others saw them and said, “They are full of new wine!” (2:13), Peter and the eleven disciples stood up and said that they were not drunk but that they had the Spirit who was poured upon them. Then they began to preach the gospel, and as a result, three thousand were saved.
Two centuries ago, the truth concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was neglected by organized, formal Christianity in its degradation. The result was a lack of attention to this truth by Christians. For this reason, two hundred years ago almost no one talked about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Nonetheless, in church history there have always been believers who experienced the power of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In my study of church history and the biographies of earlier saints, I discovered that after the Reformation with Martin Luther, the Catholic Church remained apostate and dead, while the Protestant churches eventually became dry and weak. It was in such a situation of dryness and deadness that God raised up the so-called inner-life people, the mystics. Madame Guyon was one of these. Their sole emphasis was on how to experience the Lord inwardly and take Him as life. However, because of their neglect of the work of the Holy Spirit, there was no spread of the gospel.
In the same period as the inner-life seekers, God raised up the “brethren” in Bohemia. (The Puritans, who are well known in history, were influenced by them.) They devoted themselves exclusively to studying the Scriptures, neither following the Catholic dogma nor caring for established practices. Consequently, because they were oppressed by the Catholic Church and rejected by the other established churches, they fled to Moravia. Later, in the eighteenth century, Count Zinzendorf of Saxony, North Germany, was touched by the situation of the descendants of these brethren, and he received them, providing them a place of refuge on his estate. These believers were determined to recover the testimony of the church that their families of old had previously had in Bohemia. This latter group was called the Moravian Brethren.
Later, those who loved the Lord with a pure heart gradually came from different places to join them. Then they began to have disagreements among themselves and were constantly engaged in debates concerning doctrines and practices. One day Zinzendorf asked the leaders of the different groups to come together, and he exhorted them to discontinue their arguments over trivial matters and to turn their attention to the crucial matters such as experiencing the Lord and receiving the Spirit. Those brothers were moved, and they agreed to everything Zinzendorf said. They signed an agreement to immediately stop any unnecessary arguments and to practice being in one accord. When the next Lord’s Day came, while they were breaking bread in one accord to remember the Lord, they experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and all became “crazy.” However, there is no record in history telling us that they spoke in tongues, cast out demons, and healed the sick. Rather, there are clear records telling us that they were filled with the Holy Spirit outwardly—that is, they received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit—and consequently they consecrated themselves and all they had to the Lord and also prepared themselves to migrate to other countries for the preaching of the gospel.
That was already two hundred years after the discovery of the new continent. Many of the Puritans had migrated to the new continent from Europe to escape persecution. A good number of the Moravian Brethren also moved there, and they greatly affected the spiritual condition of the Puritans in America. Furthermore, John Wesley, who was raised up around that time in England, was invited to come to preach in America and was on the same boat as a group of Moravian brethren. When the boat encountered a storm on the sea, almost everyone on board was exceedingly fearful. Wesley saw a group of people who were not afraid at all; instead, they sang and prayed calmly in a corner. Greatly impressed, he went over and joined their fellowship. It was then that he found out they were Moravian Brethren.