Positive truth is what we Christians need. It is all very well to be told for threequarters of an hour how bad we are, how cold, how worldly, and the like, but the discourse does not mend matters, rather it tends to make bad worse. Nor is it a sign of great spiritual power to be able to testify against the state of Christians; the true test of spiritual power is the ability to raise them out of a low state into a healthy one: We do not question that there must be in the minister an eye given by the Master to see the real state of His people, for to flatter them into the notion of their being only spiritual, while all the time they are carnal, would be anything but ministry from Himself; but we repeat true power from Christ lifts the souls of His people to Christ.
When true spiritual power comes in, it is like the sunlight piercing through the clouds and dispelling their darkness. The sunlight does not describe the gloom, nor does it discuss―it chases it away. When the clouds hang overhead we may be able to say, there is the Cumulus, there is the Nimbus, but knowing the names of the clouds does not bring in the sunlight.
In true ministry the light proves its own presence. The hearers feel it, confess it, judge themselves in it and by it, and rise thereby in their hearts to Christ. “What!” says the hearer, “have I been living thus long in this dead state, have I been calling good evil, and evil good? have I been all this while occupied with myself and this present age? What, has my spirituality been this outward religion, these forms, these questions? Alas! I have been a mint and rue, an anise and cumin Pharisee instead of a real, true, honest follower of the Lord.” And then with humbleness and faith he comes to the Lord, who abundantly pardons. The state of self-judgment is produced by the word, through the Spirit, and Christ occupies the heart.