Teaching on the two spirits at work in the church, this message ties Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3, that God would work in believers according to the power that worketh in us, to the four kinds of hearers in the parable of the sower, then uses the natural law of electrical resistance, comparing believers to conductors, to explain why some Christians receive little from God despite asking, tracing the cause to unremoved resistance rather than any lack on God’s part.
Scripture Reference
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.
Key Points: What Limits the Flow of God’s Power
- Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:17 – 20 is tied to someone filled with the fullness of God, showing that the answer to what is asked or thought depends on the measure of power already working in the one who prays.
- The four kinds of ground in the parable of the sower are connected to four kinds of believers, with the point made that even those whose seed falls on shallow or thorny ground pray the same prayer, but its effect differs according to what is working in them.
- The disciples being told to tarry in Jerusalem until endued with power, though they had already spent three and a half years with Jesus, is used to show that knowledge alone does not qualify a believer, only received power does.
- Using an analogy drawn from Ohm’s law, voltage, current, and resistance are compared to God’s power, the believer as conductor, and personal impurity or unforgiveness, with the lesson that the more resistance a believer carries, the less of God’s power can flow through them.
- Gold is used as a further illustration, being marred by impurities that raise its resistance and lower the temperature at which it can be shaped, pictured as a life growing cold and unusable to God when weighed down by unresolved sin.
- Resisting the devil is described not as a direct fight but as full submission to God, illustrated by Israel’s brass serpent in the wilderness, where looking to the remedy rather than fighting the affliction directly brought deliverance.
- The message closes by tying the removal of resistance to the believers in the upper room coming into one accord before the Holy Ghost fell, urging listeners to make the conscious, daily decision to submit rather than waiting passively for power to come.