Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1911

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

“Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” 1 Cor. 1:24.

Christ’s gospel is a thing of divine power. Do you want proof of it?—You shall not go far. How could Christ’s gospel have been established in this world as it was, if it had not in it intrinsic might? By whom was it spread,—by mitered prelates, by learned doctors, by fierce warriors, by califs, by prophets?—No; by fishermen, untaught, unlettered, save as the Spirit gave them utterance, not knowing how to preach or speak. How did they spread it,—by the bayonet, by their swords, by the lance, and with the scimitar? Say, did myriads rush to battle, as they did when they followed the crescent of Mohammed? or did they convert men by force, by law, by might?—Ah, no! Nothing but their simple words, their unvarnished eloquence, their rough declamation, their unhewed oratory,—these it was which, by the blessing of God’s Spirit, carried the gospel round the world within a century after the death of its founder.

But what was their gospel, which achieved so much? Was it a thing palatable to human nature? Did it offer a paradise of present happiness? Did it offer delight to the flesh and to the senses? Did it give charming prospects of wealth? Did it give licentious ideas to men?—No; it was a gospel of morality most strict, it was a gospel with delights entirely spiritual,—a gospel which abjures the flesh, and which, unlike the coarse delusion of Joe Smith, cut off every prospect from men of delighting themselves with the joy of lust. It was a gospel holy, spotless, clean as the breath of heaven; it was pure as the wing of an angel; not like that which spread of old, in the days of Mohammed, a gospel of lust, of vice, and wickedness, but pure, and consequently not palatable to human nature. And yet it spread. Why? My friends, I think the only answer I can give you is, Because it has in it the power of God.

But do you want another proof? How has it been maintained since then? No easy path has the gospel had. The good bark of the church has had to plow her way through seas of blood, and those who have manned her have been bespattered with the bloody spray; yea, they have had to man her and keep her in motion, by laying down their lives unto the death. Mark the bitter persecution of the church of Christ from the time of Nero to the days of Mary, and farther on, through the days of Charles the Second, and of those kings of unhappy memory, who had not as yet learned how to spell “toleration.” From the dragoons of Claverhouse, right straight away back to the gladiatorial shows of Rome, what a long series of persecutions has the gospel had! But, as the old divines used to say, “The blood of the martyrs” has been “the seed of the church.” It has been, as the old herbalists had it, like the herb camomile,— the more it is trodden on, the more it grows; and the more the church has been ill-treated, the more it has prospered. Behold the mountains where the Albigenses walked in their white garments; see the stakes of Smithfield, not yet forgotten; behold the fields among the towering hills, where brave hands kept themselves free from despotic tyranny; mark the Pilgrim Fathers, driven by a government of persecution across the briny deep. See what vitality the gospel has. Plunge her under the wave, and she rises the purer for her washing; thrust her into the fire, and she comes out the more bright for her burning; cut her in sunder, and each piece shall make another church; behead her, and, like the Hydra of old, she shall have a hundred heads for every one you cut away. She can not die, she must live; for she has the power of God within her.

Do you want another proof? I give you a better one than the last. I do not wonder that the church has outlived persecution so much as I wonder she has outlived the unfaithfulness of her professed teachers. Never was church so much abused as the church of Christ has been, all through her history. From the days of Diotrephes, who sought to have the preeminence, Bonners, Dunstans, and men of all sorts have come into her ranks, and done all they could to kill her, and with their lordly priestcraft they have tried to turn her aside. And what shall we say to the huge apostasy of Rome? A thousand miracles that ever the church outlived that! When her pretended head became apostate, and all her bishops disciples of hell, and she had gone far away, wonder of wonders, that she should come out, in the days of the glorious Reformation, and should still live! And, even now, when I mark the supineness of many of my brethren in the ministry; when I mark their utter and entire inefficiency of doing aught for God; when I see their waste of time, preaching now and then on the Sunday, instead of going to the highways and hedges and preaching the gospel everywhere to the poor; when I see the want of unction in the church itself, the want of prayerfulness; when I see wars and fightings, factions and disunions; when I see hot blood and pride, even in the meetings of the saints,—I say it is a thousand thousand miracles that the church of God should be alive at all, after the unfaithfulness of her members, her ministers, and her bishops. She has the power of God within her, or else she would have been destroyed; for she has got enough within her own loins to work her destruction.

“But,” says one, “you have not yet proved it is the power of God to my understanding.” Sir, I will give you another proof. There are not a few of you who are now present who would be ready, I know, if it were necessary, to rise in your seats and bear me witness that I speak the truth. There are some who, not many months ago, were drunkards; some who were loose livers; men who were unfaithful to every vow which should keep man to truth, and right, and chastity, and honesty, and integrity. Yes, I repeat, I have some here who look back to a life of detestable sin. You tell me, some of you, that for thirty years even (there is one such present now) you never listened to a gospel ministry, not even entering the house of God at all; you despised the sabbath, you spent it in all kinds of evil pleasures, you plunged headlong into sin and vice, and your only wonder is that God has not cut you off long ago, as cumberers of the ground; and now you are here, as different as light is from darkness. I know your characters, and have watched you with a father’s love; for . . . I am the spiritual father of some here whose years far outnumber mine. . . . I have seen you honest who were thieves, and you sober who were drunkards. I have seen the wife’s glad eye sparkle with happiness, and many a woman has grasped me by the hand, shed her tears upon me, and said: “I bless God; I am a happy woman now; my husband is reclaimed, my home is blessed; our children are brought up in the fear of the Lord.” Not one nor two, but scores of such are here. And, my friends, if these be not proofs that the gospel is the power of God, I say there is no proof of anything to be had in the world, and everything must be conjecture. Yes, and there worships with you this day (and if there be a secularist here, my friend will pardon me for alluding to him for a moment), there is in the house of God this day one who was a leader in your ranks, one who despised God, and ran very far away from right. And here he is! It is his honor this day to own himself a Christian; and I hope, when this sermon is ended, to grasp him by the hand, for he has done a valiant deed; he has bravely burned his papers in the sight of all the people, and has turned to God with full purpose of heart. I could give you proofs enough, if proofs were wanted, that the gospel has been to men the power of God and the wisdom of God. More proofs I could give, yea, thousands, one upon another.—Sermons of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, of London, Third Series, New York, Sheldon & Co., 1861, pages 378-382.