THE KING’S BUSINESS
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you, not I, not any man or woman on earth, no matter what his natural endowment or his training. Jesus, speaking to one of the highly cul tured scholars of His day, said, that which is flesh is flesh, “That which is spirit is spirit,” teaching him that by no natural means, can the natural ever be changed into the spiritual. Only one thing can ever span the gulf between the natural and the spir itual and that is the life giving power of the Holy Spirit; only One can ever span this gulf and he the life giving Spirit. The man who offered the importunate prayer rightly said, “My friend has come and I have nothing to give him.” Jesus said, “Apart from me ye can do nothing.” “Power belongeth unto God” and unto no one else. Nevertheless Gocl has in trusted to us the work of evangelism. He has committed unto us the minis try of reconciliation. God never denies Himself nor does He ever mock us. God has remained stead fastly true to His purpose to save men through Christ Jesus; and in spite of all the unfaithfulness of His children, He remains absolutely true to His plan of doing it through human personality—but how? The plan is so simple its very simplicity is a stumbling block. It is this— power through personality by prayer. God’s power; your personality; prayer; the marvellous combination of the Holy Spirit of God and you. We must believe it. God has no other way of winning men and women and little children in this world than this one —power through personality by pray er. Intercession is the one means and the only means of touching and re leasing the power of God. Intercession is the power on earth that commands the power of heaven.” There is no other. So we will stand •forever at the threshold of this great door of evangelism and will never
enter it to possess what is beyond unless we are willing and determined to give intercession its God appointed place in our lives. I am not going to persuade you or myself into becoming true intercessors by telling how other men and women have prayed, although the witness of such lives is of inestimable value. Nor again shall we think of how all great movements of evangelism have been begun and carried through in prayer. Most of us are more of less familiar with these facts. We know and admit the facts, but they have influenced our prayer but little. No, we need something more virile, vital izing, vivifying, than this to lift us out of our spiritual inertia, out of our senemic prayer life, into the life of an intercessor after God’s own heart. The purpose of this message is that God Himself may lay for each one of us an indestructible bedrofck foun dation for our life of intercession, upon which the Holy Spirit, the Mas ter Builder, shall erect a superstruc ture after God’s own pattern, which shall defy all storm and stress and strenuousness of the complex life we live. Dr. Gamewell’s house at Peitai- ho is built upon a promontory of solid rock. When building he was warned by sailors who said it could not withstand the fierce blasts of wind that sweep over that bay. Dr. Gamewell did not give up or give in, but by long iron rods imbedded six or eight feet in solid rock, he secured the little house to its foundation. It holds fast and withstands all kinds of wind and weather. Our spiritual inertia, the force of old habits, the nagging, insistent, pressure of worn are all against us in the desire to be intercessors such as God seeks. We must have our desires imbedded in something deep and solid and eternal enough to hold us fast in all kinds of wind and weather. There are five
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