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HOW TO GET SPIRITUAL POWEI{.
NE of the truest, manliest, most spir
itually-minded, successful business men
whom it has ever been my privilege to
know, one time said to me, with a
quiet smile: ‘‘Have you ever noticed
that when in prayer-meeting, a man
has nothing to say, he gets up and talks
about the need of the Holy Spirit?”
This was said, not irreverently, but as
O
giving expression to the truth that the subject of
spiritual life and spiritual power is too often a
matter of vagueness and uncertainty. Yet the get
ting of spiritual power ought not be a matter of
mystery, or vagueness, or uncertainty, or much
seeking, or even of pleading with God that he
should send it. No man ever lived w’ho was half
so desirous of having spiritual power as God is
that he should have it. It is not a question of
God’s willingness to grant it, or of the Spirit’s
willingness to come, but of our will to open the
way. The universe is surcharged with spiritual
life —teeming with it. How can we get it?
There are just two ways. I am not going to talk
today about confessions of Jesus Christ as our Sa
vior, or about Bible study, or about prayer. I am
going to take those three fundamentals for grant
ed. Os course, we must have those three; we can
not even move in the direction of spiritual power
without them. But every man here knows that
these three things by themselves are not enough.
Yes, I mean just that. A man may have given
himself in open confession to Christ as his Savior;
he may study his Bible daily; he may pray daily,
and he may still be lacking, consciously lacking,
wofully lacking, in spiritual life. You know that is
so. Every man of you could rise in his place and
bear me witness, out of his own experience, that
it may be so. I know that it is so. I can bear
witness, out of my own experience, that it may be
so. The confession of Christ as Savior, alone, is
not enough to maintain a man’s spiritual life.
Bible study added to this is not enough. And
prayer added to these is not enough. Prayer alone
never gave a man a life of spiritual power. We
might stay here and pray for seven hours, or seven
days, for spiritual power, and go away from here
to lives barren of this blessing.
Do not misunderstand me. I have not said that
a man could ever have spiritual power without
praying, without Bible study, without the personal
acceptance of the Savior. Those three acts are
supremely vital, absolutely essential, to spiritual
life. They are the foundation, the only foundation,
of spiritual life. But they are only the foundation.
You cannot have a house without a foundation,
but you may have a foundation without a house.
And I want you to consider what it is necessary
to add to this three-fold foundation—Christ, Bi
ble study and prayer —in order to build up the
house, to complete the structure, to carry out the
specifications, which Christ has planned for the
life of every man.
Just two things will do it:
1. Individual soul-winning.
2. Living up to Christ’s highest standards in
every detail of our business or comercial life.
Is that such an old story that it’s commonplace?
It is old; the principle goes back to the beginning
of things; but its application is not yet common
place.
Individual soul-winning is the only way men ever
have been brought to Christ, and it is the only way
men ever will be. It was Christ’s preferred way
of working; and preaching cannot compare with
it as a method of winning souls. Christ’s own
preaching brought no such results as did his in
dividual work. We need not hope to improve upon
him and his methods. Preaching is necessary and
important as preparatory work, but the harvest
must be hand-picked. The strongest pastors know
this, and work accordingly.
And I am sure every pastor here will agree with
Sy Charles Gallaudet Trumbull. Editor The Sunday School Times.
me when I say the laymen who make up the body
of this brotherhood have even a greater opportunity
for individual soul-winning than have the ministers.
For the layman is closer than any pastor can be
to the mass of men who need Christ and who know
him not, down on the street, in the office, on the
road; our opportunity to tell such men of our Sa
vior is a hundred-fold that of the pastors.
Henry Ward Beecher once said: “The longer
I live the more confidence I have in those sermons
preached where one man is the minister and one
man is the congregation: where there’s no question
as to who is meant when the preacher says, ‘Thou
art the man.’ ” This form of work does not shnc
the pastor's out, but it lets them in. If we don’t
come in, we are a drag in the kingdom. Charles
Alexander is convinced that “The man who is not
doing personal work has sin in his heart.” We
cannot dodge this.
And the second point: Living up to Christ’s
highest standards in every detail of our business
life. Are we doing it?
In Turkey and Syria the Mohammedans rever
ence Jesus Christ; so much so that they believe
God could not have lef him be crucified, and their
tradition is that Judas Iscariot was supernaturally
substituted for Jesus and died on the cross. They
look upon Christ as one of the best and greatest
teachers who ever lived. But they do not identify
Christ at all with Christians. To them Christian
means everything that is contemptible and unwor
thy. When the World’s Sunday School Convention
met in Jerusalem two years ago, the Turkish au
thorities sent extra police and military forces to
the spot in order to preserve the peace and prevent
bloodshed; for to them a Christian gathering usu
ally meant a riot, a fight of the Christians with
each other.
How about it in this country? Does the world
always identify the Christian business man with
the life and teachings of Christ? Is the portrai*
of Christ always recognizable in all our business
dealings’?
A Christian man said to an atheist: “How do
you quiet your conscience while you are in such a
desperate state of mind in your attitude toward
God?”
“How do you quiet your conscience?” the
atheist retorted, “while, believing as you claim to
believe about God, you live iso much like the
world ? ’ ’
Just how far in the line of personal sacrifice are
we willing to go in bringing our business lives up
to Christ’s highest standards? Are we willing to
lose money for him? Are we willing to lake ridi
cule, and be called pious, in business, for him?
Are we willing to lose our position, and hunt an
other job for him? Every time we are, we are
deepening our spiritual life and gaining in spir
itual power.
If we can’t hold our present business positions
and keep true to Christ’s highest standard in ev
ery detail of the work, then the greatest blessing
we can lay hold on will be to give up that position
and get into a business where Christ can come, too.
That will mean spiritual power. If. we can’t make
quite as much money, or if we can’t make any
money at all, in this particular “deal” that we have
on, by holding to the highest standard Christ has
taught us, let's get the blessing he has for us by
losing money just now. It will pay.
A young business man, a stranger to me, came
into my office last spring, and said that he wanted
to talk over with me a business question that was
facing him. He was employed by a house that had
agreed with other concerns in the same line of
business to maintain a certain rate for the selling
of certain goods. His house was accustomed, how
ever, to make allowance to favored customers for
fictitious bills, thus breaking the rate agreed upon.
It was the old story of “rebate.” The head of
his department was away temporarily, and this
young man, filling his place, must himself conduct
the transactions. And that iie did not want to
do.
The Golden Age for March 7, 1907.
He went to one of the heads of the business and
told him frankly that he could not, on principle,
do this. The indulgent answer was to “think it
over,” or to talk it over with any good business
man whose judgment the young man could respect,
and he was assured that he would soon find that
it was a little matter, so commonly practiced that
it simply had to be tolerated if business was to
go on at all. The young man did me the honor ot
talking it over with me.
I told him that he had come to the wrong plaice
for confirmation of his employer’s opinion. That
was all he wanted; his own mind was made ””
and he simply wanted a word of encouragement to
hold true to what he was convinced was right. He
went back and resigned his position. He had been
only recently married. I wrote to him not lon-'
ago to ask how matters were going with him, and
I want to read you an extract from the letter I
had in answer.
“Suffice it to say that my old position paid me
thirty dollars per week, working eight hours
day; my present job pays twenty-five dollars, and
the day is ten hours. That’s what it has cost so far.
In every other way I think I am safe in saying that
the sacrifice has paid a hundred-fold. Sometimes
my heart is overwhelmed with the goodness of God
in our home-life which has seemed to follow the
move; and some happening's that have lessened oui
home expenses, I think, have almost balanced t’’-
petty financial side of the account. lam a thousand
times glad you helped me to settle the question
right.”
But that man’s life is not over yet. I do no!
know what you think about it, but I believe that
business success lies ahead of him.
For, men, the strange thing about it is that with
spiritual power that has been purchased at the
price of utter self-sacrifice, money-sacrifice, sac
rifice of everything except Christ, will come pres
ent, temporal, earthy success. Don’t you believe
it? Didn’t you know you had Christ’s own word
for this? Listen:
“Jesus said, Verily, I say unto you, there is no
man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters,
or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my
sake and for the Gospel’s sake, but he shall receive
a hundred-fold now in this time, houses and breth
ren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and
lands, with persecution; and in the world to come
eternal life.”
No, men, the winning of spiritual power is not
a losing game, either for this world or for the
next. Its price is “Service.” Remember what
has been so well said:
“Power, to its last particle, is duty.”
Duty that tramples on self. For the Holy
Spirit and self cannot live in the same body.
And spiritual power is of value only as it is
spent. The man who gets it to hold it, loses it.
Spend self along with the power, if you would be
in living connection with the power that knows no
end or limit.
It was the habit of the Rev. James Spurgeon,
grandfather of the great preacher of that name, to
pray each evening under a certain oak tree in a se
cluded wood in Honey wood Park. One night he
dreamed, the story goes, that Satan appeared and
threatened to tear him in pieces if he followed his
accustomed route to the tree. There was another
path by which he might go in safety. Remember
ing his dream, Spurgeon felt sorely tempted the
next night to take the route in which Satan was
not. But this would be to capitulate. Trembling
in every limb, he made his way by the path in which
the danger lay. He reached his goal in safety and
in prayer and song returned thanks for delivery
from peril. When his prayer had ended he rose to
return. In his path lay a piece of solid gold “as
large as a curtain ring.” All inquiry failing to
discover an owner, he retained it, and when he mar
ried had his wife’s wedding ring made from his cu
rious find.
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