p. 34 | POWER by L. D. House

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1900

POWER

By L. D. House

L. D. HOUSE.

(Hokah, Minn.)

What the people of God need to-day, what they always need, more than any other thing, is power, as the message is to go with a loud cry; and this, as every other need, is fully provided for in the plan of redemption: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” Acts 1:8.

What we need, then, is the Holy Ghost; and the Lord is more anxious that we should receive it than we can be. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” The first thing, then, is to ask, or pray, for it (Acts 4:31; 8:15), then believe that you receive it, and you shall have it. Mark 11:24.

Perhaps the reason we see so little of the power of the Spirit, is that we do not recognize it when we receive it. We are apt to think that when the Spirit comes, we shall have an ecstasy of feeling, and be able to work with power. But this is not the first work of the Spirit; its first work is to convince of sin. John 16:8, margin.

Then when we begin to see how sinful we are, and that our righteousness is as filthy rags (Zech. 3:1–3), let us confess our sins, and receive forgiveness. 1 John 1:9. If we have wronged our brother, the Lord’s forgiveness requires that we make matters right with him. Matt. 6:14, 15. But we will not be left alone in this work; for “the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. . . The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings, which can not be uttered.” Rom. 8:26.

tions for the training of our Christian workers and missionaries we seek his help, while we ignore and even ridicule his leadership. We worship Christ, and give the Holy Ghost, his representative and executor, a place in the rear as helper. We cry, “The word, the word of Christ,” and we ignore and insult its Writer, until New Testament promises and teachings become as dead and meaningless, as barren of fruitage in us, as did the law to the Jew of old.

We tarry in the accounts of the second dispensation, we expound the miracles and teachings of Christ’s life; and we will not go on to Pentecost, and we will not read on in the Word to Revelation lest there might dawn upon our spiritual vision that picture of the Son of God with his beloved disciple on the lone Isle of Patmos, and we might catch the meaning of Christ’s yearning heart in that conversation, as he, foreseeing the attitude of the church to-day concerning the Holy Ghost, repeatedly said to John, Write, write, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.” The Holy Ghost is my representative there now. I sent him, tell them to hear him. He will give them my words, he will guide them into all truth, and lead them in a campaign of sure and everlasting victory in preaching the gospel of the Son of God to all the world.

God help us if to-day we are no wiser than were those Jews who heard the voice of the Father. They said it thundered. Are we far behind them when we cry fanaticism in the face of the Holy Ghost?

Beloved, Christ does desire to live to-day in mighty power in my heart and yours. He does desire to work according to “his mighty power” in my life and yours; but he will never do it save by the Holy Ghost. You may give thousands to the cause. You may spend your days in hardest self-denying work, and your nights in agonizing prayer. You may give yourself, your own life, to the sacrifice; but unless he, the blessed Spirit of the Son, be in you, it will profit you nothing.

The fire that shall try every man’s work will soon be kindled, and your years of earnestness and active zeal will pass through. Your giving, your living, your days of preaching, and your nights of prayer must all be tested, tried by fire: and only the Spirit’s work shall abide; for it is “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” His word is everlasting, his work abides forever. The message which the Son of God brought to earth was the Father’s message. “The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.” The message which the Spirit gives to-day is the message of the Father and the Son; for he does not speak from himself, but that which he hears. As he searches all things, even the deep things of God, he speaks into the hearts of those who receive him. He in us is as Christ working both to will and to do of the Father’s good pleasure.