p. 112 | More Momentum by Talmage

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 6, 1876

More Momentum.

By Talmage

The church needs a change in quality as well as in quantity of membership. One-half the professed Christians amount to nothing. They go to church. They pay pew rents. They have a kind regard for all religious institutions. But as to any firm grip of the truth, any enthusiastic service for Christ, any cheerful self-denial, any overmastering prayer, any capacity to strike hard blows for God, they are a failure. One of two things these half-and-half professors ought to do, either withdraw their names from the church-roll or go so near the fire as to get warm. Do you not know that your present position is an absurdity? You profess to be living for God and Heaven, but all the world knows you are lying. Wake up! Do something before you are dead. Either help pull the Lord’s chariot, or get out of the way.

We want more old-style holiness, the kind they had before railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs. A consecrated heart is momentum for all Christian work. Your gun is well enough, but the gun carriage is rickety, and so unfit for the Lord’s battery. The Lord give us all a higher life, a deeper life, a broader life. We cannot do much toward saving others till we ourselves are most surely saved. We cannot pull others out of the surf when our own feet are slipping on the rock. More purity, more faith, more consecration will be more momentum.—Talmage.