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we fail Him, He has no one to fall back on. Will you be true to the trust He has left you? If so, you will hear His, “Well done good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” The theme here is “ Empowered Wit nesses” , Acts 1:1-11. This lesson is all heart. There is the throb of. the heart of Christ in it all. The outline is self-suggestive: (1) Proving His Resurrection. (2) Promising Power for Testimony. (3) Proclaiming Their Calling. (4) Parting Promise. The first chapter of Acts foreshadows the contents of the hook. The life of Jesus from His birth THE HEART to His ascension was OF THE by the power of the LESSON Holy Spirit, and for forty days, by the power of that same Spirit, He had been manifesting by many infallible proofs His resurrection from the grace. Forty is the period of probation, and during this period in various ways He taught them many things concerning the King dom. The resurrection of Christ was to he the granite foundation of their faith, and so He ordained that their faith should be fully established in spite of their unbelief and opposition. It is difficult to conceive of any one reading the account of the resurrection, and of the persistent and protracted opposition of the disciples to that fact, and their subsequent testimony to the truth of Christ’s appearance, without being convinced that these men could never invent such a story. They attested their faith by their lives and by their faith. They were to wait for the prom ise of the Father. They were to abide around the promise of the Father and await His pleasure. It is the essential thing to believe in His promises. They were not admonished to pray for the Holy Spirit, but to wait for Him. It is
no waste of time to wait on God. It is no waste of time to sharpen tools. It is a wretched waste of time to work with out the anointing power. The promise of the Father was the Holy Spirit. He had already been imparted to them, but they had not yet been baptized. He had said “ The Father shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father.” “ If I depart I will send Him unto you.” He is to be their teacher and their guide. He is to touch their lips. He is to fill them with cour age. The anointing of the Holy Spirit is the spiritual power which is needed by all the witnesses of Jesus. He had already commissioned them to preach the Gospel. Now He more definitely defines their work. They are to be witnesses. This is the character of Christian ministry. A witness testi fies to things' which he knows. John afterwards bore such testimony when he said “ That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you.” The work of a witness is simple, and within the possibility of every follower of Christ. Jesus said to the man of Gadara, “ Go home to thy friends and tell them what great things the Lord hath done, for thee” . The apostle said “ We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” The sphere of their witnessing was definite: Beginning at Jerusalem and radiating to the uttermost parts of the earth. It was as essential to go to the farthest limits as it was to begin at Jerusalem. What, a glorious work,— witnessing to the incarnation, crucifixion and resur rection of Christ, His ascension and His coming again! With what authority can witnesses speak with such a com mission, and for such a work, when set apart by the Holy Spirit. Two witnesses from the other shore— perhaps the same who had witnessed to His coming death on the Mount of Transfiguration, and who had borne
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