What is Needed | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 30, 1878

What is Needed.

Not eloquence in the pulpit, nor wealth in the pews, but the reviving influence of the Holy Spirit. Spurgeon says: “The Holy Spirit is able to make the word as successful now as in the days of the apostles. He can bring in by hundreds and thousands as easily as by ones and twos. The reason why we are not more prosperous is, that we have not the Holy Spirit with us in might and power as in early times. If we had the Spirit sealing our ministry with power, it would signify very little about our talent. Men might be poor and uneducated; their words might be broken and ungrammatical; there might be none of the polished periods of Hall or glorious thunders of Chalmers; but if the might of the Spirit attended them, the humblest evangelist would be more successful than the most eloquent of preachers. It is extraordinary grace, not talent, that wins the day. It it extraordinary spiritual power that we need. Mental power fills a chapel but spiritual power fills the church. Oh! we know some before whom we shrink into nothing as to talent, but who have no spiritual power, and when they speak they have not the Holy Spirit with them; but we know others, simple-hearted, worldly men, who speak their country dialect and who stand up to preach in their country place, and the Spirit of God clothes every word with power. Hearts are broken, souls are saved, and sinners are born again. Oh, Spirit of the living God, we want thee! Thou art the life, the soul, the source, of thy people’s success. Without thee they can do nothing; with thee they can do everything.”