We want nothing sensational, no tricks, no comic performance; no private maneuvering to induce any one to promise, “If you will join, I will;” no artifice to get round the people, come on them suddenly and surprise them. Come directly to the people from the start, and let them know what you mean, and work directly to the one point—the enlightenment and salvation of men. The man that can tell the story of the cross, and of a Savior’s love, in the most artless and unaffected manner, lose sight of and forget himself in his theme most completely, will accomplish the most in the Savior’s name. May we learn and tell the story of infinite compassion and love in all its fullness and completeness more successfully, with more faith and power than ever, and may we be enabled to bring souls to Christ more abundantly than ever.
[WHERE IS THE POWER?]
THE genuine power—the power that will enable us to stand against all opposition and triumph at last—is not in this man or that, money or learning, talent or popularity, but in the true position. Learning is profitable, if used wisely, as a help in finding and determining the true position; but the power is not in the learning nor talent. A man of very ordinary learning and talent may find the true position, stand on and defend it. No matter what a man’s learning, talent or popularity may be, if he forsakes the truth, the right ground, if he undertakes to advocate false theories, it will become perfect weakness, and will be swept away like chaff. If men desire to stand, let them not think of their own power, learning, popularity, or personal influence, and talent, but of the true ground, “the right way of the Lord,” and depend on truth and the God of truth; never deviate from the truth, but be faithful to it, maintain their integrity to it, and the God of all truth and righteousness will hold them up. They will realize that the strength of the everlasting hills is underneath, and they cannot be moved. If men who once knew the truth, begin to higgle, tamper and trifle; if they, little by little, begin to show a want of integrity, a lack of moral honesty; a disposition to compromise with sectarianism; to ignore the distinctions between truth and error, the body of Christ and sectarian bodies; the way of the Lord and other ways, and finally begin to abandon leading principles and leading points of teaching, they will find their power gone and will soon amount to nothing. Many men have, in this way, literally thrown themselves away, and others are now going the same road.
If men desire to stand, they should seek the true ground, try to ascertain and determine what the truth is; find, with certainty, the true position, and place themselves squarely in it; maintain and defend it, not depending on their own strength, learning, talent, influence or popularity, but on the truth; the true position; the right way. But some one is ready to inquire: “How can we find truth in the midst of so much error; the right way in the midst of so many ways?” This may be a little difficult to some. There is, however, one thing indispensable to it, and that is that a man receive “the love of the truth.” This lies at the foundation of the whole matter. Men will never be successful in finding, advocating, maintaining or defending the truth, who have never “received the love of the truth;” nor will they succeed in abiding in the truth. This is the very ground-work of the whole matter. All a man’s pretences of seeking the truth, are nothing but an empty sham, if he has not in him the love of the truth. He must have in him “a good and an honest heart,” to constitute him the “good ground” in which the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, will grow. But the man that loves the truth, desires it, longs for it, and has in him a good and honest heart, will make most diligent, careful and critical search for it. He sets out, not to prove this or that; not to maintain this theory or that, but to find the true ground—the truth itself, “as it is in Jesus”—and rarely fails to find the desired object, the highly prized jewel, the most precious gem. The love of the truth has an influence on a man, in different ways, in favor of his finding it, as follows:
First. It leads him to make diligent search for it. A man will certainly strive to find an object that he loves, and if he loves the truth, he will make most diligent search for it.
Second. It leads him to exercise the utmost discrimination, to distinguish between truth and error, that he may not be imposed on and deceived, and induced to think something is the truth that is not, and thus have a spurious article imposed on him.
Third. The love of the truth has wonderful power over a man to cause him to retain it. If he loves it he will not give it up.