p. 192 | Salvation Labors

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 19, 1883

Salvation Labors.

A CERTAIN preacher, giving an account of his "salvation labors," speaks thus of a meeting where he preached:—

"I laughed, cried, jumped about, and shouted at the very top of my voice. I really did not know what to do with myself. Presently the saints' caught the flame and the whole congregation were moved."

There are a great many with whom shouting is contagious, and to them the best preacher is the one who jumps the highest and shouts the loudest. And this "bodily exercise" is called a baptism of the Holy Spirit. If Peter, on that day of Pentecost, had laughed, and cried, and jumped about, and shouted at the top of his voice, not knowing what to do or how to act, the first impressions of the multitude concerning the condition of the apostles would doubtless have been confirmed. But instead of that he gave a clear, sensible, straightforward, argumentative discourse on the words of the prophets, and thousands were converted. In all the Bible we never read of such exercises, except, perhaps, in the case of the prophets of Baal, when they opposed Elijah. That such men are honest we do not doubt, but we have strong doubts of that being the proper way to preach the gospel.