XVI.

CONDITIONS OF SPIRITUAL POWER.

"And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines." II. SAMUEL V. 24. "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon thee.". Acts i. 8.

THESE Scriptures both teach the same important truth; they reveal and emphasize the invisible spiritual force of the gospel, the supernatural element that always accompanies the word of God.

The spirit that disturbed the foliage of the mulberrytrees, and led Israel to victory, was the same spirit that came like "a rushing mighty wind," which gave the tongues of fire and the Pentecostal anointing.

These texts both point to the one central source of all power, and indicate the conditions on which the individual and the whole church may obtain this power.

For the last two decades, the supreme question with the church at large has been: "How shall we obtain power to do the work committed to our care? How shall we secure the end for which we labor? How shall we know and keep the conditions of power?"

In the course of our ministry we have come in contact with all classes of Christian workers, and with all classes of those who do absolutely nothing. We have clasped hands with those who are striving to do the

whole and perfect will of God, and we have looked into the leaden eyes of the unsaved and perishing thousands who profess to be Christians but have no conception of obligation or privilege, who are drifting carelessly down the stream, or floating in the stagnant waters of indifference undisturbed by calm or storm, and will remain so until they suddenly plunge into the abyss of the lost, when their dying gurgle will become as audible as a peal of thunder from a clear sky.

If we are responsible beings, God cannot use us as a surgeon uses an instrument. We are volitional beings; we have jurisdiction over our selfhood; we decide all moral and religious questions; we determine all destinies; we are “co-workers with God” in the great enterprise of salvation. We grow weary of the perpetual imbecility that talks of Christians as “humble instruments." Christians are responsible factors in all the movements of the divine government. Christians are instrumentalities; they are agencies by which the Divine Father accomplishes his work among men. And it is because of this fact that God has made known and definitely specified the conditions upon which all necessary power may be obtained now, to give the victory to his people.

How shall we obtain power? What mysteries have been woven about this question by the multitude who serve at God's altar, with the veil still over their face, who profess to break the bread of life to the perishing, but have not yet eaten of it themselves!

We have heard men pray for power until they were completely exhausted, and it never dawned on their obtuse minds that power was contingent upon their

personal relations to God, and that as responsible beings they had entire jurisdiction over their own personal relations to him.

The church in all its branches has not yet learned the significance of the Master's words: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations. . . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

This scripture teaches us that the crucified Christ is the source of all power; that he who built the universe for his own glory, and organized the church as his own bride," Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forevermore," the personal Saviour, not dead, but alive from the dead, High Priest of humanity forever, — is in his church for grand achievement; and that where there is no supernatural power, and sinners are not saved, and believers are not sanctified, some doctrine or rite or theory has been substituted for the personal Christ, or the impersonal forces of nature have been substituted for the Holy Ghost, and enthroned upon its fireless altar.

When the church as a unit or in a large degree in the aggregate of its great membership shall accept the Holy Ghost, not merely as a doctrine, a theory, or an adjunct to their personal ambition, but as the source of all power, and receive power by accepting him, something will occur speedily. No church or person ever did, none ever will, receive the divine power, who does not with clean hands, and pure motives enter into fellowship with Christ.

Men affect humility and zeal, and entreat for the influence of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is promised

in person only; we cannot expect his manifestation where we overlook his divine personality. No individual or church can obtain power, that is not willing to receive a personal Christ, and become subordinate to him. The church must conform to the divine order. There are some primary facts that are essential to the proper understanding of this subject:—

1. God is always ready. There is no scripture nor reason, for the assumption that God is not now ready for a great manifestation of his power, that he has appointed a definite time far in advance of the present. It is our boast that the atonement is complete. We have for one hundred and fifty years emphasized the doctrine of the personality and presence of the Holy Ghost, and yet, so completely has the old dogma of "God's own good time" possessed the church, that every effort is paralyzed, and every purpose neutralized. We pray earnestly for power, but quiet our conscience and our energies by assuming, “that his own good time is not now." We assume a comatose state of indifference, and nothing is accomplished. We look down the dimly lighted but densely crowded, avenues of a thousand years, and see whole generations go down to ruin, and no effort made for their recovery on the assumption that "God's good time has not yet arrived. But the Book says, "This is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation ;" and humanity's only time is now, either for salvation or labor.

2. It is assumed that zeal is a condition of power. No greater delusion exists. Zeal is not a condition of power; zeal is not a primary condition of success. Again and again we are exhorted to "be in earnest,"

and are assured that earnestness is a condition of

success.

The pseudo evangelist, with a limp Bible and a soul more limp than the flexible book in his hand, rants and attitudinizes and prates of "the influence of the Holy Ghost," while he has no knowledge whatever of his personality or deity. Zeal without power makes a bigot of one man and a fanatic of another.

Ac

3. Christian work is not a condition of power. tion, whether in the domain of matter or spirit, is always one of the possibilities of antecedent power. Jesus always conformed to the divine order of things. He knew that power from on high was necessary to prepare the church for fruitful action.

We have listened again and again to the delusive utterances of the pulpit: "If you want the baptism with the Holy Ghost, go to work for God." But there is not an intimation in the Bible that God ever promised the Holy Ghost to any being in the world as a remuneration for toil, or for sacrifice, or in exchange for noble gifts for his treasury. But the divine order is the reverse of all these. Amid all the conflicting theories that have perplexed the church, we still hear the voice of the Master echoing down the centuries, rising above the din of error, above the clamor of compromise and concession. Clear and strong it salutes our ears, as distinctly as it fell upon the ears of the disciples at the first: "Tarry ye at Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." "But ye shall obtain power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

4. God knows when the church is prepared for