The people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great
exploits. (Daniel 11:32)
After the Cross, all the fullness
of the Divine power was released upon the world through those who had been
brought into absolute oneness with the Lord by that Cross. That is the peculiar
kind of knowledge which means the release of such forces and such powers upon
the world situation as are unknown by the great world systems. First, let us
remember that this knowledge of God is by revelation. We can never
get this knowledge of God merely by reading, by listening, by attending
meetings.... You may understand it all by mental apprehension, know the terms and
the verses, and use them – but what about the dynamic of this thing?
What does our personal presence in a situation mean? Does it mean that
there is the going out of a power which cannot be accounted for on any human
basis whatever, but which is a greater force than the forces that are
represented by world organizations, world methods, world resources? It is a most
important question. Is this thing alive, or have we merely got a little more
mental apprehension of it through conferences? Do we know God in this thing by
reason of a personal inward revelation on the subject?
Secondly, it comes by the way
of pain. You get a thing revealed to you as truth, perhaps something about
the Cross of Christ, or victory over Satan, and you think you know it, and you
say, "This is beautiful!" And you begin to talk about it, and it is not very long
before something happens – your circumstances are touched. Now you go down with
this truth, down into the vortex of awful agony, right down to the gates of
hell, your being is upheaved right from the very bottom, and all the time there
is the question – "Will that truth hold good?" Is it going to work? And when you
have got down as far as you can go, the flesh elements and the self elements
have been dealt with, and you grimly hold on to the Lord in this matter of
victory – then it comes out, you have tested it right to the very bottom of your
being – that thing has become you, and then you can go to others in
their grim conflict and their darkness, and say, "I know – I know this thing,
and I know God is faithful, I know the victory." You have got a mighty emphasis
on your knowledge, it is a thing about which you have no doubt, because you have
gone down into the depths with it, and proved it down there, and by the very
pain the thing has been proved.