Secret Power; or, The Secret of Success in Christian Life and WorkMoody, Dwight Lyman
Religion
Secret Power; or, The Secret of Success in Christian Life and Work
Moody, Dwight Lyman
Baptism in the Holy Spirit; Christian life; Holy Spirit
The great question before us now is, _Do_ we want it? I remember when
I first went to England and gave a Bible reading, I think about the
first that I gave in that country, a great many ministers were there,
and I didn't know anything about English theology, and I was afraid I
should run against their creeds, and I was a little hampered,
especially on this very subject, about the gift of the Holy Spirit for
service. I remember particularly a Christian minister there who had
his head bowed on his hand, and I thought the good man was ashamed of
everything I was saying, and of course that troubled me. At the close
of my address he took his hat and away he went, and then I thought,
"Well, I shall never see him again." At the next meeting I looked all
around for him and he wasn't there, and at the next meeting I looked
again, but he was absent; and I thought my teaching must have given
him offense. But a few days after that, at a large noon prayer
meeting, a man stood up and his face shone as if he had been up in the
mountain with God, and I looked at him, and to my great joy it was
this brother. He said he was at that Bible reading, and he heard there
was such a thing as having fresh power to preach the Gospel; he said
he made up his mind that if that was for him he would have it; he said
he went home and looked to the Master, and that he never had such a
battle with himself in his life. He asked that God would show him the
sinfulness of his heart that he knew nothing about, and he just cried
mightily to God that he might be emptied of himself and filled with
the Spirit, and he said, "God has answered my prayer." I met him in
Edinburgh six months from that date, and he told me he had preached
the Gospel every night during that time, that he had not preached one
sermon but that some remained for conversation, and that he had
engagements four months ahead to preach the Gospel every night in
different churches. I think you could have fired a cannon ball right
through his church and not hit any one before he got this anointing;
but it was not thirty days before the building was full and aisles
crowded. He had his bucket filled full of fresh water, and the people
found it out and came flocking to him from every quarter. I tell you,
you can't get the stream higher than the fountain. What we need very
specially is power. There was another man whom I have in my mind, and
he said, "I have heart disease, I can't preach more than once a week,"
so he had a colleague to preach for him and do the visiting. He was an
old minister, and he couldn't do any visiting. He had heard of this
anointing, and said, "I would like to be anointed for my burial. I
would like before I go hence to have just one more privilege to preach
the Gospel with power." He prayed that God would fill him with the
Spirit, and I met him not long after that, and he said, "I have
preached on an average eight times a week, and I have had conversions
all along." The Spirit came on him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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