st not many days hence." It is evident then that
"the promise of the Father" through which the enduement of power was to
come was the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He went on to tell His
disciples "Ye shall receive power _after that_ the Holy Ghost shall come
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts i.
8). Now who were the men to whom Jesus said this? The disciples whom He
Himself had trained for the work. For more than three years, they had
lived in the closest intimacy with Himself; they had been eye-witnesses of
His miracles, of His death, of His resurrection, and in a few moments were
to be eye-witnesses of His ascension as He was taken up right before their
eyes into heaven. And what were they to do? Simply to go and tell the
world what their own eyes had seen and what their own ears had heard from
the lips of the Son of God. Were they not equipped for the work? With our
modern ideas of preparation for Christian work, we should say that they
were thoroughly equipped. But Jesus said, "No, you are not equipped. There
is another preparation in addition to the preparation already received, so
absolutely necessary for effective work that you must not stir one step
until you receive it. This other preparation is the promise of the Father,
the baptism with the Holy Spirit." If the Apostles with their altogether
exceptional fitting for the work which they were to undertake needed this
preparation for work, how much more do we? In the light of what Jesus
required of His disciples before undertaking the work, does it not seem
like the most daring presumption for any of us to undertake to witness and
work for Christ until we also have received the promise of the Father, the
baptism with the Holy Spirit? There was apparently imperative need that
something be done at once. The whole world was perishing and they alone
knew the saving truth, nevertheless Jesus strictly charged them "wait."
Could there be a stronger testimony to the absolute necessity and
importance of the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a preparation for work
that should be acceptable to Christ?

But this is not all. In Acts x. 38 we read, "How _God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power_; who went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him." To
what does this refer in the recorded life of Jesus Chri