Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter: 104. Take Possession

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter: 104. Take Possession



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 104. Take Possession

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Take Possession

This is the word that needs sounding out most clearly everywhere to-day. Use the authority the Master has given you. Take whatever is needed in His holy service. "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it." (Jos_1:3.) Take what the Master has brought back for us. Asking means taking. It doesn't mean pleading with God as though to persuade Him. He is more eager than we. It means claiming as our very own whatever is needed. It means taking possession by faith of what our great Captain has won back for us.

The last message of our Lord's lips, on Olivet, fits in here with peculiar power. Listen: "All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore." (Mat_28:18-19.) That little preposition "on" in "on the earth" could accurately be made to read "over." He has been given all authority on the earth and over the earth. It is because of that authority that we are bidden to "go." We go because of His authority. We go authorized as His plenipotentiaries. That "go" underlies all Christian service. As we "go" we will need not only power but authority, for every step of our ongoing is contested. In that authority we are to go, and to take what is our rightful possession, in the Name of our Substitute-Victor.

As your service leads you on to a bit of ground that is held by the forces of evil remember this; that bit of ground belongs to man, to be held by him for God. It has been lost through disobedience. But it has been won back by the Victor. You have the right to step in and say, "I take, in the name of the Lord Jesus, I take this bit of the earth back for Him; I take the life of this man, and this man, for whom my Master gave His blood."

But—but the taking must be as deep as your life; it must be as intense as the opposition. Satan is a stiff fighter; he doesn't yield except what he must. The taking must be definite. Prayer must always be definite. He does not yield until he must. He is a stubborn fighter. Prayer must be persistent. The taking must be as insistent as the enemy is persistent, and just a bit more; and there's where the fight comes. The man whom you are trying to win for God, maybe in London, maybe your loved one, maybe in North Africa or South Africa, wherever he is—that man whom you would have come to Jesus Christ, he belongs to Him through His victory. You take him, in Jesus Christ the Victor's. name, and insist on taking, and the rest will always come. The new spelling, the Calvary spelling of "ask" is T-A-K-E, take, in Jesus Christ the Victor's name.

This brings to us all anew with fresh force the old fact that our Lord gave us the right to use His name. He could have done no greater thing. Using His Name is, in effect, acting as Himself, clothed with all of His power. But it is a serious thing to use that Name. Every one may not use it. Only those who have accepted His invitation into the inner circle with Himself may use it. You remember the men in that Ephesus story in the nineteenth chapter of Acts. They tried to use that name for their own selfish purposes. And the evil spirits leaped upon them and left them wounded and bleeding. The demon world knows full well about that Name, and its great power. It is feared there. And they know, too, who may use it.

If you will turn to that last long talk (John 14-16.) in which the Master gave us the right to use His name, you will find certain words occurring repeatedly. The words "love" and "obey" and "abide" underlie the right to use the Name. Love obeys. It loves to obey. Love abides. The other way of spelling abide is o-b-e-y. The other way of spelling love is o-b-e-y. Obedience is the clear title to the right to use that Name—the obedience of love. Obey as fully and gladly as an obedient child obeys. Hold the whole life open to the Master's touch and control. Then you may ask what you will. You may take what you choose. And the usurper will loosen his hold, slowly, angrily, but surely, and you shall have in actual possession what you have "taken" by faith.