Physical power moves the arm of men, intellectual power the arm of the nation; but spiritual power moves the arm of God. Prayer can set in motion the mightiest force in the universe. "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are," (James 5:17) although he stands out boldly in sacred history as one who had power to shut up heaven so that it should not rain, and to open heaven and bring down its rain or its fire upon the earth.
We are not to think of Elias, or Moses, or Isaiah, or the other prophets, as men different in their origin or nature from ourselves. They were all subject to the same passions, and of themselves had no more power than we have; but they yielded themselves to God, and thus became instruments in His hands. That is all the difference.
When we will fully yield ourselves to Him, God will make us His instruments,--not, perhaps, to call down fire or to withhold rain, but to do work which is no less His work, and no less honorable and needful than that done by His prophets of old.
We are apt to think that the work of God is some visibly great work, something that affords some striking manifestation of superhuman power and majesty, like some of the mighty miracles performed by the prophets or the apostles.
But this opinion comes only from the finite nature of our human minds. The human mind would naturally have concluded that the Lord was in the wind, or the fire, or the earthquake, that passed before the fugitive Elijah on Mount Horeb; but we learn from the record that God was not in these, but in this "still, small voice." (1 Kings 19:12)
It is "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord." (Zechariah 4:6)
We are told that John the Baptist "did no miracle," (John 10:41) and yet Jesus said, "Among men that are born of woman, there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." (Matthew 11:11)
His work was the work of preparing the way for the Son of God, and as the prophet tells us, every valley was exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked was made straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:3) That was as great a work as was ever done through men.
And so likewise our work is no less a great work though there be nothing about it especially calculated to arrest the eye or startle the senses. If through us the still small voice speaks, and is heard by other hearts around us, we are doing a greater work than that of producing tornadoes and earthquakes. It is a mightier miracle to work upon and change the human heart, than to work upon inanimate matter, which has been given no will power of its own.
The power of God is the same power in all ages, and the same in all persons through whom it is manifested. And all persons through whom God manifests His power are the same in nature; all are of like passions with ourselves. If we will believe this, it will be to us a source of much encouragement.
Elias had power to shut up the rain or to call it down, and to bring down fire from heaven. These are the two grand agents of destruction,--the one, that which destroyed the earth in the days of Noah, the other, that which will destroy it again in the day of Judgment, which comes in our day.
But to the righteous, God places even these agencies of His wrath in subjection. And so we, men of like passions with Elias and all the prophets, having like them the righteousness of God, who is: "The same God over all [and equally] rich unto all them that call upon Him," (Romans 10:12) may have all confidence in the day of His appearing.--Present Truth, December 7, 1893--Original title: Front Page.