The Tupelo journal. (Tupelo, Miss.) 1876-1924, 1903-09-25

-E and st t ling
@S words of our text:
Verify, verify,
say unto you, He that believeth on Me,
the works that do shall he do also; and
greater works than these shall he do;
because l go unto My Father" Greater
works! Even the faith of Peter must
have staggered at that. Even John, who
understood his Lord so well, must have
been perplexed and troubled. Greater
works! There swiftly pass before the
vision of the disciples the scenes of tri-
umph of that ministry. The multitudes
gathered in the streets of Capernaum.
The sick, the crippled, the demon-pos-
Sessed are brought and He healed them
every one" Again and again did they
witness His hand stretched forth to
heal. The company of weeping friends
is gathered before the tomb of Lazarus.
He has been dead three days, but Jesus
bids him come forth and he obeys the
summons, and the home at Bethany is
changed from one of sorrow to happy,
rejoicing one. Twice they beheld the
vast multitudes gathered out on the
mountain side and saw the few loaves
and fishes multiply under the touch of
Jesus until more than 5000 are fed and
large quantities of food remain. They
heard Him during those three years
preaching and teaching. The truth of
God was unfolded. The hypocrisies and
false teachings of Scribes and Pharisees
were laid bare. The seeker after truth
was always satisfied, the critic was al
ways answered. So marvellous and clear
and scriptural were the teachings that it
was declared that never man spake as
this man. The marvelously great works
of Jesus, and yet as parting message to
His disciples He tells them that they
shall be permitted to perform greater
works. Greater works!
IL AID we been present with that little
IL group of disciples in that upper
room on the last night before His cru
cifixion and heard the words of our text
fall from Jesus lips we might have been
staggered by them and failed utterly to
understand their meaning. Our faith
would hardly have carried us to the
sublime heights of Divine triumph in
their fulf1llment, but with 10 centuries
of triumph and glory of the Gospel, with
the marvellous work of the early church
as related by Luke in the book of the
Acts, we must eXclaim: Behold, what
God hath wrought" Read the book of
Acts and you must admit that what
Jesus declared should be the fruitage of
His disciples ministry was literally full
filed in the mighty operation of the
Holy Spirit through them, first at Je-
rusalem, then Judea and Samaria, and
then to the uttermost part of the earth.
These words need no explanation eX-
cept that which is furnished by the story
of the growth and spread of the Gospel
after the descent of the Holy Spirit on
the day of Pentecost up TO the present
day. Jesus meant, l believe, just what
He said. His words need no interpre-
ter except hearing ears, seeing eyes and
hearts that will understand. The open-
ing sentence of the Acts is significant
Luke is writing after the disciples have
gone everywhere preaching the Word.
after Paul's mighty trumphs in the
Gospel in Asia and Europe, and looking
back on it all and contrasting it with the
results of Jesus ministry which he re-
corded in one of the Gospels, he saws:
The former treatise have | made. O
Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both
to do and teach, until the day in which
He was taken up" And on that day He
encouraged the disciples with this prom
Use: Ye shall receive power, after that
the Holy Ghost is come upon YOU"
THE second chapter unfolds the
i wonderful fulflllment of hat prom
Use, when on the day of Pentecost the
Holy Spirit descended and filled them
SO that they all began to proclaim the
Gospel message. And although they
were mostly uneducated Galileeans,
they spake in all the different tongues
of the world. The multitudes were
amazed and marveled, saying one to
another, Behold, are not all these
which speak Galileeans? And how hear
we every man in our own tongue.
wherein we were born? Partnians.
and Modes, and Elamites, and the
jewellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea.
and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia.
Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and
in the parts of Libya about Cyrene.
and strangers of Rome, Jews and
proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do
hear them speak in our tongues the
wonderful works of God" Greater
works. surely! And following this,
after the multitudes have gathered,
Peter stands up and breaches and 5000
souls are converted, more in one day
after one sermon than Jesus had been
able to win during the whole three
years of His ministry. But that was
only the beginning. A few days after
ward the healing hand of God operates
through Peter and John and the life
long cripple at the beautiful gate leaps
and walks and praises God, and soon
the great area of Solomons porch is
crowded with people to whom Peter
at once breaches Christ Jesus and Him
crucified, and 5000 men are converted.
The women are not mentioned, but If
they outnumbered the men in that
early day in their acceptance of the |
Gospel as they do to-day there must
nave been about $1,000 women con-
yerted, too, besides children. But
leaving the women out of the reckon
ing and counting only the men what