THE SECRET OF POWER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 17, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 11.

THE SECRET OF POWER.

WAITING one night in the darkness on a railway platform, I heard two ministers discussing the secret of a certain noted evangelist’s power. After listening awhile I ventured to intrude the suggestion that if they could get a look at that evangelist’s old Bible, they might learn the secret of his power; for it contained more marks of use than fifty ordinary well-kept ministers’ Bibles. It reminded me of the old Scotch warrior’s claymore. He had been in twenty-four battles, and there were twenty-four hacks in the edge of his well-tempered blade. He had struck fire every time. A well-studied Bible, believed and preached and practised, is a source of power which will ever remain a mystery to those who neglect the Word of the living God. How many are longing, seeking, and praying for power, while a whole magazine of divine power lies unopened in their neglected Bibles! A man in a meeting prayed loud and long for “power.” “We want power! We want power!” After he was done, a plain-spoken brother said to him, “You don’t seem to need power so much as you seem to need ideas!”

Christ’s Gospel furnishes divine ideas; and, preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, it is still “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” And he who faithfully preaches that Gospel, will find that it is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and that it is still “like as a fire,” and “like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.”—Selected.