POWER FROM ON HIGH by A. Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 10, 1901

“POWER FROM ON HIGH.”

By A. Smith

A. SMITH. (Grandville, Mich.)

I WAS riding in an interurban trolley car when suddenly it stopped. After waiting a few minutes I inquired the cause of delay. The answer was, “Waiting for power.” Yes, the power must come from far away in the city, or that handsome, well-equipped car could not move. True, the passengers might get off and push it, or they might hitch a team of horses to it and draw it; but the result would be unsatisfactory.

So a church may be large, well organized; have a beautiful building, good singing, and eloquent preaching; but it can never move forward successfully on the track God has laid for it until it is “endued with power from on high,” from the city of the living God, the New Jerusalem.

In the case of the trolley car, the first indication that the power had come was light. Still the car did not move until the power was applied. When God sends power from above upon a church or an individual, light comes with it. But the light is to give discretion in the use of the power. When the power is applied, the work of the gospel will move forward in God’s appointed lines. It is in vain to force an issue without it.