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Human Cooperation Essential, June 8
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and
how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how
shall they hear without a preacher?
Romans 10:13, 14
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God has expended amazing sacrifices upon men, and mighty energies for
the reclaiming of man from transgression and sin to loyalty and obedience;
but I have been shown that He does nothing without the cooperation of human
agencies. Every endowment of grace and power and efficiency has been
liberally provided, and the strongest motives presented to arouse and keep
living in the human heart the missionary spirit, that divine and human agency
may be combined....
What use have you made of the gift of God? He has supplied the motive
forces of which He has made a lodgment in your hearts, that with patience
and hope and untiring vigilance you might set forth Jesus Christ and Him
crucified, that you might send the note of warning that Christ is coming the
second time with power and great glory, calling men to repent of their sins....
How did the Holy Spirit work upon your hearts? By the energies of the
Holy Spirit it was stimulating you to the exercise of the talents God has given
you, that every man and woman and youth should employ them to set forth the
truth for this time, making personal efforts, going into the cities where truth
has never been and lifting the standard. In the blessing God has bestowed
upon you, have not your energies been quickened, and the truth been more
deeply impressed upon your soul, and its important relation to perishing souls
out of Christ? Are ye witnesses for Christ in a more distinct and decided
manner, after the manifest revealing of God’s blessing upon you?
The Holy Spirit’s office is to bring decidedly to your minds the important,
vital truths. Is this extra endowment to be bound up in a napkin and hidden in
the earth? No, no, it is to be put out to the exchangers; and as man uses his
talents, however small, the Holy Spirit takes the things of God, and presents
them anew to the mind. He makes the neglected Word to be a vivifying
agency. Through the Spirit, it is quick and powerful upon human minds, not
because of the smartness, the educational power of the human agency, but
because the divine power works with the human, and to the divine belongs all
the credit.—
The Home Missionary, November 1, 1893
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