078. THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL POWER

THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL POWER

Some of them are full of agnostic and necessitarian notions fatal to any effective understanding or preaching of responsibility, guilt, atonement, pardon, retribution. They have imbibed these notions too often from unchristian college instructors, and from the reading of skeptical books. Yet these same young men have often a zeal, which would be precious if it were not zeal without knowledge. The colored physician in New Orleans advertised that his first object was to remove the disease, and secondly to eradicate the system. Some of our untrained ministers have succeeded in eradicating the whole system of Christian doctrine. With proper instruction they may become ardent and able advocates of Christ’s truth. Without instruction they are ready to be carried about by every wind of doctrine, and even to deny the deity and atonement of our Lord. A Christian experience, a divine call, and a gospel message are needful as qualifications for the ministry. Let me add a fourth qualification which is supernatural, namely, spiritual power. By this I mean the demonstrated presence and seal of the Holy Spirit given in connection with the preacher’s labors. By their fruits ye shall know them. We should insist in every council of ordination upon some evidence that the work of the candidate has been made by the Holy Spirit the means of leading sinners to Christ and of awakening and reviving the church of God. This is what I understand to be the "proving" of which the apostle speaks, and to be the difference between the novice and the true workman.

I have myself advocated the Scotch method of requiring the candidate to preach an actual trial sermon before the presbytery, that they may judge whether God is with him and whether he is a minister of the Spirit. We want men who will speak the words of God with something of the power of God. Principal Fairbairn says well: "We have lowered the ministry by lowering the standard of the men who can enter it. They tell us that the age of the pulpit is past. The age of the pulpit is only coming, but it will be the age of a competent pulpit." I will add to these excellent words of Principal Fairbairn that a competent pulpit is never a merely intellectual pulpit. It is a pulpit that adds to sound doctrine the power of the Holy Ghost.

They tell us that in Siberia the milkmen deliver their milk in chunks. It is frozen solid. The milk of the gospel in warmer countries is often delivered in the same way. It comes from a cold heart and it has no power to warm the hearts of those who receive it. The authority with which our Lord spoke should be the model for us. It was not the submissiveness and gentleness of Peter and John that impressed the Sanhedrin. We read rather that when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. With Jesus is the secret of power, and we can learn it only from him. He can give us strength of heart, so that we can speak as the very oracles of God. And therefore as my last word to any who may be debating the question of their earthly calling I would say: Decide only in the presence of Jesus. Seek first a living experience of union with him. You cannot tell what your own powers are, until you are filled with his Spirit. You cannot tell what duty is, till he speaks within you. A score of objections and difficulties will vanish, when once the love of Christ constrains you. The ministry will cease to seem confining. Christ’s service will be perfect freedom, when you once are possessed of the liberty with which he makes his people free.

I can assure you of this because I have found it to be so. I entered the ministry from a sense of duty. I did my work conscientiously but slavishly. Preaching and praying were hard tasks, and God was far away. Men were converted, but I had less and less interest in directing them; the fountains of feeling seemed dried up; I began to think God had taken his Spirit from me, and that I had committed the unpardonable sin. I was set to contend with a whole universe of evil influences; the world, the flesh, and the devil were against me; I was alone, and there was no eye to pity and no arm to save. No wonder that heart and flesh failed, and I was ready to perish. Vacation came, and I resolved first of all to learn where I stood before God. I gave myself to Bible reading and to prayer. I saw that the first apostles were in no such state as mine. They were eager, joyful, confident. What was the secret of their boldness? Ah, it was a present Christ! The Lord was with them and they knew it. I read the last chapters of John’s Gospel. The parable of the Vine and the Branches assumed a new significance. Christ was not far away,—he was the life of the believer. "Is it true, 0 Lord, that thou art in me, that thou didst take possession of me at my conversion, that thou didst form an indissoluble union with my poor weak soul? Hast thou indeed been in me ever since that day, and hast never deserted me, even though by my unbelief I have shut thee out from the best rooms, and have banished thee to the remotest attic and corner of my being? And art thou waiting now only for my opening of the doors to fill every apartment and to flood the whole house with thy light and love?" So I took my Lord at his word, I found him within,

1 gave him full control, I appropriated him. And, with that appropriating faith, the last vestige of my darkness and fear disappeared. My weakness was at an end. Work for Christ was joy, for it was he that wrought in me. Instead of contending single-handed against a universe of evil influences, I found that I could not make one effort for my own spiritual progress or for the spiritual good of others without his setting in motion all the wheels of nature to help me. The Lord had come suddenly to his temple, and the glory of the Lord shone round about me. I could accomplish more in an hour than I had been able to do in a month before. Praying and preaching were a delight. Men’s ears and their hearts were opened to my words. I was the instrument of a higher power, even the Christ of God, the Creator, Upholder, and Governor of the whole earth. And so after many months of weakness and despondency I got my first glimpse of that spiritual power which is the most essential qualification for the ministry of the gospel.