"Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

"Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

"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:

"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

"Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

" Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

"And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,

"Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." — Eph. 1: 15-23.

The difficulty in reading a passage like this is that the Apostle Paul particularly, more than any other writer, in beginning a long sentence piles in so many things, one thought suggesting another and that another and that another, and he keeps crowding it in and crowding it in until the sentence becomes much involved. That is all one sentence, the whole of it, from beginning to end; there isn't a single stop; and there are so many things crowded into it by the law of association that by the time you have finished reading the sentence, the entire paragraph, the main thought that lies in it is obscured and liable to be overlooked. Now the larger part of this sentence or paragraph, from the 20th to the 23d verses, is simply thrown in by way of explanation. The gist of the whole paragraph is this: —

I pray the Lord that He may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, and in the knowledge of the hope of your calling, and in the knowledge of God's inheritance among the saints, and in the knowledge of the exceeding power of God toward us.

That is the substance of the paragraph. This long sentence here about " Which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, . . . and put all things under his feet," etc., — that long sentence is simply by way of explanation. That is to say, he says, I pray God that He may give you the knowledge of God's power toward us according to the power that did all these things; and these things which are mentioned there in such detail are simply thrown in to illustrate the kind of power he refers to.

I ask your attention to the four kinds of knowledge, or the knowledge of four things mentioned in this prayer: The spirit of revelation and of wisdom and of knowledge; and then the knowledge referred to is of four things: first, to know Christ; secondly, to know the hope of our calling; thirdly, to know Christ's riches in the saints; and fourthly, to know the exceeding greatness of God's power toward us. All these kinds of knowledge come from the Holy Ghost, the spirit of wisdom and of revelation. God proposes to give each believer a part of the same Spirit that inspired the Word of God and that has revealed to us the divine counsel. Not that God will inspire any believer nowadays to write another Bible; not that God will inspire anyone to write a Bible that is contrary to this Bible; not that the Holy Ghost inspires anything contrary to the written Word; not that. But that the same Spirit that inspired this Scripture is to be given to the believer, the full believer in Jesus, and that the same revelation and the same knowledge that is put down in this Book is to be imparted to each believer. So that the soul of the believer is to be enlightened by knowledge and wisdom and revelation from God in harmony (in accord) with the written Word.

There is a difference between the spirit of revelation and the spirit of wisdom. Revelation is something that is made known to us; wisdom is that divine guidance by which we are to utilize that which we know. Revelation comes to us; wisdom goes from us. Revelation is something God makes known to us, but wisdom is the divine gift of knowing how to use it.

Now we must first know something. The new birth is a revelation. It is just as great a wonder when a sinner feels his sins pardoned and feels for the first time that God is his Father, and there comes into his soul the consciousness that all his sins are gone and God is his Father, — it is just as great a marvel and revelation to him as if a new Bible had been created and dropped down from the skies. It is a revelation. He may have read the thing in a book. He may have heard many a sermon. He. may have seen people profess to be converted; but the new birth is a new, startling revelation to everyone who experiences it.

So is heart cleansing. It is a revelation. You may hear a thousand persons testify of a clean heart; you may read a great many books on the subject, read the Bible on the subject; but when for the first time you feel the blood of Christ cleansing your heart from all sin, it is a world of wonder, it is an amazing revelation from God to your soul. It is, so far as you are concerned, a new world, a new Bible, a new atonement, a new marvel; and so far as you are concerned in that experience, it is just as new as if the cross and the atonement and salvation had just been made, right on the spot, for your benefit.

So that all spiritual things, the knowledge of Jesus, the revelation of the invisible world, the revelation of things to come, — all these things must be revealed to each believer. God cannot allow us to take salvation second hand. Our knowledge must come first hand.

Now, in the beginning, we are to believe what others testify. We are to accept the testimony, we are to accept the witnesses, we are to accept historic statements, we are to accept a great many evidences; but there comes a time and a point when God must reveal all these things directly to each soul for itself; and unless we have an individual revelation from the Holy Ghost to our own hearts, all the salvation on paper, all the salvation on the cross, and all the wonderful things God has revealed all down the ages, are utterly worthless to us, unless there comes to each of us a personal revelation from God to our own souls.

These were converted people; they knew their sins were pardoned. He says, "When I heard of your faith and of your love," proving that they were converted people; yet he says, "I cease not to give thanks, making mention of you in my prayers." Now here comes his prayer: "I pray that you people who believe and know the love of God may have the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of his Son."

Now, the Spirit not only is a Spirit of revelation to reveal things to us personally, but it is the Spirit of wisdom. Wisdom is that divine gift by which we utilize what we know. It is to know how to use our experience, to use our faith, to use our testimony, to know how to work, to know how to go out for God. That requires wisdom. A man may pile up a great pile of lumber and stone and brick and mortar upon the face of the ground, and you have got the material all there for building one of the finest houses in Boston. But that is nothing but a mere heap of rubbish unless some person knows how to combine the whole thing into a structure.

Now, wisdom is that gift that knows how to take any kind of material and utilize it to the best advantage; and so it is just as essential that Christian people have the spirit of wisdom ' from God as that they have the revelation from God. Because you may have abundant revelations made to your own hearts, but if there is a recklessness and wildness and extravagance and incoherence and no method of utilizing those things, it will be like putting a pile of lumber and brick and stone down and then not know how to build the house.

Now we will take up these points. First, the Holy Ghost is to reveal to us the knowledge of Jesus Christ. "I pray," he says, " that God may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ."

The word "knowledge" referred to here does not mean what it means in our common conversation. The word knowledge ordinarily means information. We say a man who has traveled a great deal knows a great deal. If a man has read a great many books and traveled around we feel that he knows a great deal. We simply mean he is informed upon certain subjects. But the word "knowledge " in the New Testament has a meaning far different. It refers to a thing that has come within the limits of your own consciousness. It is something that the soul has been assured of. When the Bible says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life"; when the Bible says, "We know whom we have believed"; when the Word says, "We know all things work together for good," — when the Word of God uses this word " knowledge," it refers to the certainty of the matter.

Now, the work of Jesus has been performed in this earth. His work is in the past tense, His life and death, and He is a being living in a distant world, millions and millions of miles away. How can it be that a person here living under these circumstances can be absolutely certain of the things that took place nearly two thousand years ago, regarding a Personality that resides, so far as His body is concerned, millions and quadrillions of miles from our locality? Yet the Word of God continually presents to us this thing of divine certainty with regard to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Ghost is omnipresent. He is a divine Person. And the Holy Ghost is a reality, — just as real as we are real, just as conscious as we are conscious, just as much a Person as we are persons; and the Holy Ghost can take events which have occurred thousands of years ago, and can so certify those events to the consciousness that we can be as conscious of an event that occurred two thousand years ago as we are of an event that is just now transpiring.

Now, right here is the realm of faith. Here is where the world does not comprehend — is all in a smoke, a mist, a fog, concerning these divine verities. We are all the time hearing men treat about Jesus and the atonement and His life and Christianity simply from the historical standpoint. If you read the sermons that come out in the Monday morning papers, you will find almost an utter destitution of anything like divine certainty in spiritual things. It is a mere belief; it is a mere pretense of things that were said to have taken place a long while ago. That is not the Bible way of putting spiritual things. The New Testament way of putting things is this: That there is abroad in the world, in the Church, to-day, the same God that made the Bible, the same Holy Ghost that made Calvary, the same Holy Ghost that made the incarnation and that caused the birth of Jesus, and that filled Him at the baptism and in His life, and that inspired His words, and the same Holy Ghost through whom the Bible says He died — for Jesus died by the help of the Holy Ghost. It is said that He through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself up unto God; and the same Holy Ghost that was with Him in life and that walked with Him and was with Him on the cross, and the same Holy Ghost that raised Him from the dead, — that same Personality is here in Boston to-day and in this earth and in these hearts.

Christian people, church members, men claiming to be ministers, — they are all deaf as a stone to these great verities. Christ was this and was that, and did this and did that. But in the Word of God it is an eternal Now. The Holy Ghost is now. And an event that took place two thousand years ago can be certified to the consciousness of boys and girls, men and women, and all people to-day, here and now, so that the birth and death and shed blood and resurrection power, and the forgiveness and cleansing grace of Jesus, can be brought from the bygone ages and certified to our consciousness by the very same divine Personality that was back there and did the whole thing. And the same God that was in Jesus Christ on the cross is here to-day to certify to your hearts that Jesus did die, and make the death of Christ a reality to your soul. O Lord, get us a hundred miles beyond this London fog that lies on so many brains! I pray that you may have, every one of you, the spirit of wisdom and of revelation.

And as to having visions and dreams outside of the Bible, that does not mean running off into ghost stories and smoke and all that; but that the very same vision there is in this Bible, that the very same vision that is on this piece of paper, that that vision may be opened up in your heart. So God means that each believer shall have a divine vision; visions that have already been made and put on paper, but they are now to be transferred to the consciousness. And this word " knowledge " means just the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost can make Jesus as sweet to your soul as a May morning. Jesus can be as sweet and as precious — you can feel Jesus; you can bow down and feel Him right there; you can feel His sympathy, you can feel His touch, you can feel sustained and comforted by Him, and you can get a glimpse of His dispositions.

You look at the rough, hard, rude, vicious people around you, and see how much of iron and tin and earth and clay and dirt is in human nature; and turn right away from this gay, greedy, foolish, hard, Satanic crowd, and right there find One who is just exactly the opposite of all the people who surge our streets. No fog, no myth, no smoke, no idealism, no dream. That divine Person whose body sits far beyond these towering stars, that divine Personality that is enthroned above angels and archangels, by the Holy Ghost, can multiply Himself into as many pieces or as many times as there are individual believers. Jesus, the Rising Sun, breaking over the Eastern hills, gleaming out on. the broad prairie where ten million dewdrops bespangle the grass, is reflected back just as many times as there are dewdrops on the prairie. Jesus Christ, by the Holy Ghost, can multiply Himself into as many direct spiritual manifestations as there are believers in the earth; and from ten millions of hearts the bright and morning Star will be reflected, reproduced and manifested, by that same Holy Ghost that hovered over the Virgin Mary and that gave Him His birth, and that lived with Him, and hung with Him on the cross. That same Holy Ghost can take Him and make Him real.

I tell you that the world is starving for Jesus, Jesus; the warm, loving, personal Christ. But you take up the magazines, and I declare to you, Christ is whittled off into a dry shaving. Oh, I pray that you may have the spirit of revelation and wisdom in the conscious knowledge of Jesus!

Now, the next thing to know is to know the hope of your calling. "That ye may know what is the hope of his calling." The calling is to be saints. Ye are called to be saints. That is the calling. We are called to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow Christ. That is the calling Christ gave to the apostles, and the same calling He gives to us. " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." It is a calling to crucifixion. It is a calling to follow Christ in crucifixion and in spiritual death. It is a calling to be saints.

And this calling must come to each believer. It must come by the Holy Ghost, a knowledge of the hope of this calling.

Now, you may hear a great many people talk about a clean heart and full salvation and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. But that must come to every believer in your own mind and in your own heart; a picture that must become a thought, a desire; a picture of what you want to be. My calling will not be for you, and your calling cannot do for your friend. You know the affections of your own heart — you know the ailments of your own inner life; and you have — every child of God has — a picture in mind of what is meant by a clean heart. If any man stands up and talks to a thousand people about a pure heart, a heart cleansed from depravity and the carnal mind, perhaps no two in that crowd will get the same thought or the same idea, because the phase of depravity in one person's heart is of one type and the phase of depravity in another person's heart is of another type; and each person, in thinking of what a clean heart is, will measure the picture of a clean heart by his own diseases and by what he wants himself. So it may be that, out of a thousand people, each one will form a different conception of what a clean heart is; but they all form some thought of what it is. And under the preaching of the gospel the Holy Ghost is always on hand; He is always the abiding factor in salvation; and the Holy Ghost is helping people and revealing to people, so that when people are willing to yield and willing to obey, the Holy Ghost gives to each and every one an insight into what it is they need.

He says, I pray God that you may have the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that each one of you may know what is the hope of your calling; that you may not be seeking this man's experience or this person's experience; that you may not be guided by what others say entirely. Get information as best you can; but there must come to each and every heart a distinct knowledge of what this calling is, so that each one will know just what they need, just what they want, and under the light of the Holy Ghost will go and seek it.

Now, I have seen wonderful miracles in the inner life. You get a crowd of people and get them seeking the Lord, and how busy the Holy Ghost must be; He is in each person's heart all the time. Oh, how the Holy Ghost will open up to each seeker, as they are pressing their way to the feet of Jesus and as they are yielding and surrendering! how the Holy Ghost will help their infirmities, and give unto them a thought or an idea or intimation or insight into just exactly what they need! And under the light of that Spirit they seek, they find; and when they have found the experience, the Holy Ghost will baptize it with the right name.

It is under the light of the Holy Ghost that we seek full salvation. It is under the light of the Holy Ghost we yield point by point, till the consecration becomes entire. It. is under the light of the Holy Ghost that we reach believing ground and exercise simple trust in Jesus. It is by the Holy Ghost we are cleansed; He applies the blood and the promise. It is by the Holy Ghost we are certified that the work is done.

The next knowledge referred to here is the knowledge of the riches of the inheritance in the saints. "That ye may know what is. . . the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints."

How many "knows" there are in the writings of St. Paul! Oh, with what certainty he pours out this truth! Now, here is a mine of wealth, a gold mine that very few persons have worked very thoroughly. It pans out well too. First, to know Jesus; put Him first. Then to know yourself; you come next to Jesus. And then the saints; they come next to you. You may take a piece of this cloth of gold that the Apostle Paul has woven here by the shuttle of God's Spirit, and you may just ravel it out, and you will find that the threads of gold are put down here right. First, the knowledge of Jesus, and then the knowledge of yourself, and then the knowledge of the inheritance among the saints.

How few there are in this world who appreciate good people! With all their faults, with all their infirmities, and with all the fallings and blunderings that occur here and yonder among the. household of faith, yet how few people there are in this world that appreciate the saints of God. There is a mine of wealth, untold treasures, inestimable jewels, hidden away in the saints of God. And yet do you know that the treasures that are hidden away in the saints, which are here called, "The riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," — do you know that all these riches and this glory of God's inheritance in the saints is so hidden and so difficult to find and so covered away from worldly sight, that it requires a special revelation from God to show it to anybody? The eagle's eye cannot see it; the sailor's eye cannot see it; newspapers cannot see it; carnally minded Christians cannot see it; the nominal church cannot see it, the world cannot see it; the devil and his angels cannot see it; nay, the angels of God cannot see it until it is revealed unto them by the Holy Ghost. So many homely things, so many odd things, so many queer things! God allows His people to have a great many infirmities; and somehow, the more intense people become in religion, the more intense they get in their spirituality, the more oddities come to the surface. If a fellow is a saloon keeper or a lawyer or a worldly man or a merchant or a railroad man, he may have latent within him all sorts of cranks and oddities, but it is covered all over by business, business, business. But when men come out from the world and are regenerated and then are sanctified, and then baptized with the Holy Ghost from on high, it brings them out of the original bark and husk of their nature; it intensifies all their natural qualifications, it puts on the edge, and it brings out all the latent peculiarities.

And I will tell you why. The baptism of the Holy Ghost makes a man's personality come out. The great mass of the world have no personality. People's faces are like a plate of lard, with a cross for the mouth and a ridge for the nose and two black buttons for the eyes. The great mass of individuals are just like that; they go with the mass. There is a latent individuality, there is a latent peculiarity, personality. God never makes two individuals alike; and under the baptism of the Holy Ghost our personal make-up is brought out and sharply defined.

That is why the saints seem odd and seem peculiar. It is because their latent personality is brought out by the fire of the Holy Ghost. The peculiarities and oddities and idiosyncrasies and shortcomings and blunders and foolish things that would not be recognized in business men, the minute they are attached to Christians, and especially holiness Christians, right away become very conspicuous. There is many a crank that is practicing law, many a medical crank, many a railroad crank, many a merchant crank, and a great many kinds of cranks; but it is all covered over by dollars and cents, and you do not see it. But the minute these things come into connection with Christ they stand out.

Now, the Lord God does allow His Church to have a great many things that look a little unpleasant, and the Lord allows the work of holiness to go on with a great many drawbacks, a great many imperfections, a few fanatics here and there, people backsliding and losing their experience, and sometimes awfully stingy men professing holiness, too stingy to bury themselves decently; and in spite of all these things God Almighty holds us. And yet, in spite of all these things, God has right among these people a peculiar treasure, called by my text "the riches. . . of his inheritance in the saints."

Notice the words, how they are piled up! "That ye may know what is. . . the riches of the glory of his inheritance." First, the inheritance, and then the glory of the inheritance, and then the riches of the glory of the inheritance.

Jesus Christ has no property except in His saints. When He left the earth He left no real estate, He left no legacy, He left no property, no manuscripts, no relics to be sold and scattered around the world. But He left a handful of believers. Jesus does not want any stars, not any sun nor moon; He does not want the cattle upon a thousand hills; the only treasure that Jesus owns is His saints. He has given the world, He says, to His saints; given the world to men; and He has made hell for the devil and his angels, and given the devil and his angels a warranty deed of every square acre of hell, and they can live there forever. And He may deed worlds of splendor to angels, and He may give Abraham this world, as far as I know. Abraham inherits the world, the Bible says. And Jesus has left Himself without a house and without a home. He lives out of doors in the broad universe of God, and all the property He has is wrapped up in His saints. And right in His own people, — right in the hearts, the character, the faith, the obedience, the love, the joy, the experiences, the sufferings, the sorrows, the trials, the victories, the dying, the resurrection and the glorifying of His saints, — there are the riches of Jesus. And every saint has, buried away in his moral nature, a part of that eternal treasure that is to constitute the legacy of Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end.

Oh! what would this world be but for the riches that there are in the saints? You think of all the ages gone by; you think of all the martyrs and all the heroes; think of the old soldiers and the old officers and the old reformers; think of those old people and young people in years gone by, that stood single handed, that revolutionized empires, that tore down popery, that tore away the darkness of the middle ages, that broke through and made way for liberty, that suffered and died for the rights of conscience and free speech and a free people; you think of these people who wandered " in sheep skins, and goat skins,. . . of whom the world was not worthy"; these old reformers and these young reformers, who by the grace of God stood alone and single handed, and would rather burn than take back their word or refuse to speak out the truth of God. They shook the pillars of hell, they brought down the kingdom of God, they plowed hell up by the roots with the plowshare of God's almighty truth. You think of all that, and what would the world be with the infidels and sinners, and the so-called preachers to-day in this country who blaspheme Jesus and deny the blood, and the so-called churches, and the so-called colleges and schools, that pretend to be Christian and that blaspheme the name of Jesus, that would never have had the right to preach as they do if it had not been for the grand old sanctified hearts that suffered and bled and died years ago? And every infidel to-day in Boston owes all he has to some old sanctified soul that suffered years ago that he might have the privilege of living and blaspheming Jesus; and all the liberty that sinners and infidels have to-day has come out of the sorrows and tears and blood of holy men and holy women, and the devil's children owe everything they have to the blood- washed.

Then you think of all the faith of these years for thousands of years; Abraham's faith and the faith of all the apostles, and the faith of fathers and mothers and friends — people who have believed in God. Just suppose you could take all the faith, the hours of testing, the hours of severe trial, the hours when men believed God and held on by a thread, and that thread so small they couldn't see it. Think of the hours George Miller has gone through and the hours Charles Cullis has gone through and the hours thousands and thousands of evangelists and ministers and saints have gone through, leading a forlorn hope and telling nobody of it, but holding on to and believing God when the devil was howling and men were preaching and hollow-hearted believers discouraging and everything blowing the wrong way and the east wind coming in and hell let loose, and that man hanging on to God by a thread, and that so small you couldn't see it. Now suppose you could concentrate all that faith and then just convert that into substance, wouldn't you have something rich? The riches of faith, the riches of heroism!

And then think of all the love of these years; the love that has wept over wicked friends and ungodly relatives, the love that suffered and wept and prayed. And who has had this love? God's people. You do not find real love among the devil's children. They may have their Masonic lodges and they may have their Grand Army of the Republic, and they may have their tissue bands and all these things that bind men together; but I want you to know that the Satanic, wicked, sinful heart is a sinful heart, and you may put a belt of diamonds around a bad heart but it is bad still. You have got to go into God's kingdom and among God's children to find the love that comes down from the skies. All other love is merely human, merely earthly and sensual and devilish. It has made this looking out for self. You never find a drop of real love that came from God that did not exist in some bosom that had been deposited there by the Holy Ghost. And all the love that has made modern civilization streamed out in the same way. There wasn't a hospital on earth until after Jesus died, nor an asylum for the insane nor for the poor nor for orphans, until after Jesus shed His blood.

Infidels talk about their progress. There never was a hospital on earth built by infidels. They never did anything but grope and grovel and do just what dogs can do. I tell you all the good there has ever been on this earth has come out of love born of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost in human hearts. And if the world has any wealth of beneficence or charity, it is either directly or indirectly the outgrowth of the love of God shed abroad in the hearts of His own saints.

Now you think of all that love. You think of all the glorious camp meetings and conventions and great revivals and great meetings in all ages and all times, where saints have wept together and sung and prayed together. Think of all the fellowships and kindnesses and cordiality and the brotherly and sisterly love that has baptized this world of ours. It is all a part of the riches of His inheritance in the saints. It is in the saints. And so I might go on. Riches of heroism, riches of faith, riches, of love, riches of knowledge, riches of moral enterprise, riches of reform, riches of charity to bless the world. Who gathers in the lost? Who goes out in the midnight mission? Who hunts up the fallen and the depraved? Who does this work? The miserable blasphemer is drinking brandy, smoking cigars and toasting his toes, while the sanctified and blood- washed are out in the streets toiling and laboring to save the lost. I tell you if Jesus Christ were to take all His saints out of this world it would rot.

So, my friends, I present this thought because I want you to appreciate God's people, whether they belong to your church or not. I sometimes think we do not love one another half we ought to. We are too prone to pick out one another's flaws and foibles and faults. We are too prone to stumble on this or that man's peculiarity. Remember, that notwithstanding all these faults and all these things that to you may seem unpleasant, remember that Jesus Christ has a part of His own heart locked up in all these poor creatures. Jesus Christ has these riches of the inheritance in the saints.

One more thought. Now, he says, I pray that you may not only know all this, not only know Jesus and know yourself and know the riches of the inheritance of the saints, but that you may know " what is the exceeding " — now get out your yardsticks; now if you want to measure a long measure get out the tape lines and just measure this; here it is: I pray that you may know " what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe." That is the prayer, that is the definition: "the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe." Now he begins to measure it. "According." The word "according" means the measure, as you measure goods or distances. "According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all."

In other words, I want you to have the Holy Ghost give to you the knowledge of the power that raised up Jesus and put Him in heaven. Now go to Christ's grave and stand by that. Now I am going to watch Christ arise, and you watch Him rise, and watch Him walk the earth; then watch Him as He hurried by angels into Paradise, and as He takes the throne, and the whole Church is put under Him. Watch that wonderful procession. And St. Paul is right there with his pen. St. Paul says, I pray God that by the Holy Ghost you may get the knowledge of that kind of power. That is it. I pray God that by the Holy Ghost you may get the knowledge of His power to us ward. The same power that raised up Jesus and took Him to heaven, that same power is directed to us ward, and by the Holy Ghost we are to come into the certainty of that power.

Now do you know that power? First, to be raised up out of the grave, the lethargy of unbelief and darkness and stagnation; and then the power to walk in the world and yet above the world, and power of the resurrected life of Jesus. Jesus shed His last tears before He died. Jesus had the last throb and the last ache and the last pain; Jesus had His troubles. After He came out He had the same soul, the same body, the same knowledge; but now He floated above the world; now He simply paid attention to God and His saints; now He did not meddle with any more troubles or sorrows; now He was above the very things that had been placed on Him, as a servant; now He is above them; now He walks the earth calmly and serenely. He sees men, how they are doing. He knows all the sorrows and troubles and heartaches that are going on in this world, but He is calm and serene.

Dear friends, I grant that in the highest sense we cannot physically realize all these things, but there is a sense in which we may know that we have been raised up with Jesus Christ. There is a sense in which we may know the power of God that raised Him from the dead, and that makes us calm and serene in the greatest turmoil and strife, — the power of the resurrected life of Christ; the power that can float about the world; the power that can go opposite to gravitation; the power that can appreciate Him, and by faith comprehend our place with Him at the right hand of God the Father.

Why, He is going to gather us there. Yonder is our home. We are pilgrims and strangers in this earth. We are in the world but not of it, and Jesus, by the Holy Ghost, proposes to so lift us up that in spite of all earth's storms and trials we can walk about it and float above it, and be divinely and sublimely indifferent to a great many things that other people are worrying and fretting their souls about; divinely and sublimely indifferent to a great many things that hitherto annoyed and bothered and perplexed; and let people be people and let things be things and let men be men, but we go walking on with Jesus; not lugging the burdens we once bore, not carrying the sorrows we once carried, but with Jesus; while we are in the world, calmly and serenely walking above it.

Now, we are a part of the things that lie wrapped up in these words. Oh, how we need the Holy Ghost! In the closing prayer I propose that we gather up around this altar, everybody and look for that Eternal Spring. Remember, friends, that the same Holy Ghost that hovered over the Virgin Mary hovers over you; the same Holy Ghost that was in Christ when the blood dropped out of His wounds; the same Holy Ghost is here to apply that blood, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation.