POWER. Oh, how God’s servants yearn for more power! How shall the fight be fought against the forces of infidelity and superstition, and how shall the vast mass of indifference be broken up? How shall captives be won for Christ, and the number of His soldiers be increased?
It would almost seem that, as they sigh over present infidelity, several of God’s servants are growing faint-hearted. They say: “People’s minds are taken up with the popular religious notions of the day, and they simply ridicule the old truths of the Bible.” Others of God’s servants seem so occupied with, what may be termed, religious machinery that they find but little leisure to go down deep into the workings within the hearts of men.
True it is, that one contented with the noise and show of religious machinery will not perceive the need of which we speak. The flourishing cause, the well-filled building, the elegant music, the eloquent discourse, do not mean power; with all such things existing, the power of God the Holy Ghost may be absent, and the end be but building up the profitless “wood, hay, stubble” which will be burned up in the great day. (1 Cor. 3:12, 1312Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (1 Corinthians 3:12‑13)). “A successful church does not mean souls won for Christ,” said a minister of a London congregation to us the other day. There also may be the exact opposite of all this exteriorism, and instead, the plain religious service, the orthodox congregation, coming and going week after week. But still no movement of God the Holy Ghost, no witness of His work—nay, the spirit of stagnation.
Certain evidences mark the existence of spiritual power in a community of believers. There will be holiness in life and walk, love to Christ, devotion to the sick and the poor, caring one for another in the affections of Christ; and also there will be a gathering out from the world and the ranks of the enemy of sinners for God and for Christ. Neither the whirl and bustle of mere religious machinery, nor a state of stagnation, can exist in the presence of true power.