They have
spent years in study; but they have not spent a day, much less
ten days, fasting and praying and waiting upon God for His
anointing that should fill them with heavenly wisdom and power
for their work. They are like a great gun loaded and primed, but
without a spark of fire to turn the powder and ball into a
resistless lightning bolt.
It is fire men need, and that they get from God in agonising,
wrestling, listening prayer that will not be denied; and when
they get it, and not till then, will they preach with the Holy
Ghost sent down from Heaven, and surely men shall be saved. Such
preaching is not foolish. The Holy Spirit makes the word alive.
He brings it to the remembrance of the preachers in whom He
abides, and He applies it to the heart of the hearers, lightening
up the soul as with a sun until sin is seen in all its hideousness,
or cutting as a sharp sword, piercing the heart with resistless
conviction of the guilt and shame of sin.
Peter had no time to consult the Scriptures and prepare a sermon
on the morning of Pentecost; but the Holy Spirit quickened his
memory, and brought to his mind the Scriptures appropriate to the
occasion.
Hundreds of years before, the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of the
prophet Joel, had foretold that in the last days the Spirit
should be poured out upon all flesh, and that their sons and
daughters should prophesy.
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