THE CONVERTING POWER.
M
MENare talking of justification byfaith alone; but the main trouble is, that they have no faith. They have no confidence in the gospel, the power of God. They have no confidence in preaching the cross of Christ, the power and wisdom of God. They have no confidence in preaching Christ to save the world. They never preach Christ with any animation—any spirit or power. They have deserted God’s ordained power to save men, and are dealing out their insipid theories of spiritualinfluence, their views and philosophies, which have nothing in them to save, if they were all true. Preaching theories of the Word or of the Spirit, of the mode of the Divine existence, or of anything else, has no power to convert or save any one. All the preaching of Calvinism or Arminianism, of Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, of Necessity or Freedom, or all the other theories ever preached, whether true or false, never saved one soul of our poor fallen race. But the preaching of the gospel, preaching Christ, the cross of Christ, is the ordained work for the Christian ministry. This is unequivocally the power God has authorized them to exercise in saving sinners. We know it will save sinners, from the following three reasons:
1. The Holy Spirit declares it to be “the power of God, to every one that believes.”2. The apostles and first ministers of Christ preached it to the salvation of thousands in a single day, and millions in a few years.3. We are preaching the gospel almost every day of our life, and find it bringing sinners to Christ. We have all faith in the gospel, the ancient gospel, preached in its purity and simplicity, as the only means of saving man. It will save men. It is the power of God to save men. We realize this more and more every year. The blessing of the Lord is attending every man who has faith in Christ, in his word, and preaches the gospel honestly.
1. The Holy Spirit declares it to be “the power of God, to every one that believes.”
2. The apostles and first ministers of Christ preached it to the salvation of thousands in a single day, and millions in a few years.
3. We are preaching the gospel almost every day of our life, and find it bringing sinners to Christ. We have all faith in the gospel, the ancient gospel, preached in its purity and simplicity, as the only means of saving man. It will save men. It is the power of God to save men. We realize this more and more every year. The blessing of the Lord is attending every man who has faith in Christ, in his word, and preaches the gospel honestly.
But we know that those brethren who oppose us in this, are wrong, for the following reasons:
1. The Lord never said that their theories upon any subject, were the power of God unto salvation to anybody, either Jew or Greek.2. The apostles never preached in their style.3. They convert nobody when they do preach.4. The church dies under their preaching in every instance.
1. The Lord never said that their theories upon any subject, were the power of God unto salvation to anybody, either Jew or Greek.
2. The apostles never preached in their style.
3. They convert nobody when they do preach.
4. The church dies under their preaching in every instance.
Brethren, have all confidence in the gospel of your salvation; preach it, advocate it, propagate it; perpetuate and hand it down to the future generations. We have all confidence in it; expect to lean upon it while living and when dying. “We commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and give you an inheritance among all them who are sanctified,” said an old saint, when leaving a church, and when assuring the disciples that they should see his face no more. The gospel will live; and, those who have confidence in it, love it, preach it, and practice it, will live co-existent with the years of God.