SET THE PREACHER ON FIRE

SET THE PREACHER ON FIRE (Num 17:12-13): When Moses' experiment was over the murmurers were as though consumed with fire and cried out, "We perish." So should the preacher and preaching affect mankind.

We all know the difference between slow motion and rapidity, If there were a cannon ball rolled slowly down these aisles, it would not hurt anybody; it might be very large, but it might be so rolled along that you would not rise from your seats in fear. But if somebody would give me a rifle, and ever so small a ball, I reckon that if the ball flew along the Tabernacle, you would find it very difficult to stand in its way. It is the force that does the thing. So, it is not the great preacher who is loaded with learning that will achieve work for God; it is the man, who however small his ability, is filled with force and fire, and who moves forward in the energy which Heaven has given him, that will accomplish the work—the man who has the most intense spiritual life, who has real vitality at its highest point of tension, and living, while he lives with all the force of his nature for the glory of God. That does not necessarily mean he is loud or demonstrative but his speech and his preaching is to be in demonstration of the Spirit of God and power (1Co 2:4).

Vitality is a test of any system of doctrine, as it is of any teacher's qualification. If you would find the value of any message, ask of it, Does it live? Do vital pulses leap through it? Does it reproduce its life? Does it help men to live? Does it leave them more alive or more dead than they were without it? Get an answer to these questions, and you will find whether the given ministry is of heaven, or of a private self-interest—whether it comes out of the all-quickening and all-comprehending God, or out of some dreamer's brain. Nothing goes with much momentum, in the long trial, that does not carry life with it.
Kelsey Griffin