2. Try him in your own life. One day in a service in a western city an old woman was wheeled into the church in an invalid's chair. I knew by the expression of her countenance that she was suffering. When I met her after the service and asked her about her story she said as the most excruciating pain convulsed her body, "I have not been free from pain in twenty years and have scarcely slept a night through all that time," and then, brushing the tears from her eyes, and with an expectant face, she exclaimed, "but if I could tell you all that Jesus Christ has been to me in these twenty years I could thrill you through and through."
3. If you would know that he is the Son of God just lift him up and behold him as he draws all men unto him. This is the secret of the power of great preaching. It made Mr. Moody known whereever the English language is spoken and constituted Mr. Spurgeon one of the world's greatest preachers. As a matter of fact there is no other theme which may be presented in the pulpit by the minister with an assurance of the co-operation of the Holy Ghost. There may be times when he may feel obliged to preach concerning philosophy, poetry, art and science, but unless these things lead directly to Christ we have no reason for believing that the Holy Ghost will add his amen to our message, and without this amen the time is almost lost.
III
The church is the body of Christ. I am persuaded that to this truth he will give his hearty assent. This is Paul's over and over. Notice the following verses.
Acts 2:41, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." The words "unto them" are in italics, so not in the original, and we ask "added to what?"
Acts 2: 47, "Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord 'added to the Church' daily such as should be saved." Here we are beginning to get the truth.
Acts 5:14, "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." This is the truth.
You will see that Christ is the head, the church is his body and we are, as individual members of the church, just being added to him. One day the body will be completed and then the Lord himself will appear. If Christ is the head he must control the body. If his life is hindered and not permitted to flow through every part of it there is confusion, strife, unrest and loss of power.
There are certain things which we must do if we are to be in this world as he would have us.
He must control the preaching. If given an opportunity he will direct in the choice of a theme, he will quicken our intellect in the development of that theme, he will give us an insight into the best way to present it to our hearers, and putting faith in these preliminary conditions he will take care of the results. He must also dictate the praying in a church. There is much of it that is meaningless. It is too formal, too lifeless, and entirely too general in its character. In Matthew the eighteenth chapter and the nineteenth verse, we read, "Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." It does not mean that if the two should agree together as touching any one thing, but agree with him, for wherever you find two in prayer there are three, and wherever there are three there are four, and the additional one present is the Spirit of God waiting to help us in our praying and to present our prayers unto the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.