Power of the Spirit

 2. Now, may we not say that, in regard to the work of the Christian Church, this power is indispensable and essential? that where there is not the power of the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts all else is vain? We can never count upon success when the Spirit of God is absent. Every dry and barren period of the Churchs history tells the same tale. There may be intellectual gifts and literary culture. There may be riches and worldly resource. There may be social status and human influence. But over against these, with all the goodness that may be in them, we hear the cry echoing through the vaulted corridors of the Churchs life, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” These, at their best, are of the earth, earthy. They are but parts of human might and earthly resource, which have their limits appointed to them. But this supreme force of the Spirit of God is Divine; it is Almighty. It partakes of the nature of Him who is everlasting and omnipotent. Those others are the hands that lay the train; or, rather, they are the materials laid upon the pile. This is the magic flash of fire that kindles them into a mighty flame. This is the electric touch that can call forth all the force that lies in these, and make them truly mighty for the overthrow of strongholds of sin and Satan. Learning and scholarship, literary power, tact, address, resource; who shall despise them? They are all needed in the work of the Kingdom. But the first essential that can make men truly powerful is the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts.


Therefore, to rest on any other source of power is to lean on a bruised reed that will break and pierce the hand that leans upon it. What constitutes the power of a church? Numbers? God would rather have seven consecrated men and women than seven thousand who are living according to the course of this world. Where lies the strength of a church? In human wealth and patronage? Sometimes these are curses instead of blessings. The power of any church is the Holy Spirit. If He be in the preacher and in the believer, and in the general body of disciples, there is no telling what wonderful things may be done. Hastings

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God of my Fathers

Science is doing grand things today. Her beneficent step is heard almost everywhere. But physical science is comparatively young. And you know the characteristic defects of youth. It is headstrong and impatient, and often irreverent.It is sometimes not over reticent, even on matters concerning which it cannot form reliable judgments I now speak on "the claims of the religion of our fathers." 1. It was "our fathers'." That the sires trusted in God is a very sufficient reason why the sons should hesitate, and hesitate long, before they reach the grave conclusion that there is no God, or that if there be He cannot be trusted because He cannot be known. One of the healthiest facts of human nature and of human life has ever been that spirit of reverence for the past which links generation to generation, and practically makes the race one. We Englishmen are by no means destitute of this fine sentiment. 2. Our fathers proved it. What is the testimony borne by honest ...
Read more

The Word of the Lord is tried. The Bible tested and triumphant B. B. Loomis, Ph. D. Look at some of the severe tests to which the Bible has been subjected, and by successfully meeting which it has vindicated its claims to a Divine origin, and to universal human acceptance. I. THE BIBLE HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME. Since the Sacred Canon closed, how many and how vast are the changes which have gone on among men. Hardly one of the ancient powers is today extant. How great have been the strides of human progress! Yet the science of salvation, as taught in the Bible, has needed no remodeling. The race does not outgrow the religion of the Bible. Compare the case of the Bible with the poems of Homer. The two works are, in a certain sense, contemporaneous; critics have denied to the Bible any higher inspiration than that of human genius; and Greek poetry held among that ancient people very much the same place as did the sacred Scriptures among the Jews. Three thousand years ago the two works stood before the world on a comparative equality. How stands the case today? Homer is read as a model of epic verse and specimen of old Ionic Greek. The Bible is read everywhere as a transcript of the Eternal. II. THE TEST OF CRITICISM. Criticism, the most searching and severe to which any work has ever been subjected. A criticism often hostile. But the old Book has come out of it only purified. III. THE TEST OF PRACTICAL TRIAL. In the patent office are models of many beautiful machines that could not be worked. The Book will stand every practical test. It gives the solution of the great enigmas of the human soul, and provides the consolation for life's dark hours, those hours of disappointment, adversity, sorrow, and bereavement which come so surely to us all. (B. B. Loomis, Ph. D.)

The Word of the Lord is tried. The Bible tested and triumphant B. B. Loomis, Ph. D. Look at some of the severe tests to which the Bible has been subjected, and by successfully meeting which it has vindicated its claims to a Divine origin, and to universal human acceptance. I. THE BIBLE HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME. Since the Sacred Canon closed, how many and how vast are the changes which have gone on among men. Hardly one of the ancient powers is today extant. How great have been the strides of human progress! Yet the science of salvation, as taught in the Bible, has needed no remodeling. The race does not outgrow the religion of the Bible. Compare the case of the Bible with the poems of Homer. The two works are, in a certain sense, contemporaneous; critics have denied to the Bible any higher inspiration than that of human genius; and Greek poetry held among that ancient people very much the same place as did the sacred Scriptures among the Jews. Three thousand years ago the two works s...
Read more